LIVE REVIEW: SONDER FESTIVAL 2026

Sonder was, honestly, one of the best festivals I’ve ever been to. The kind of festival you almost want to gatekeep. It’s small, grassroots, and somehow feels too good to be widely known. Between morning yoga, a chill-out tent serving chai and ambient soundscapes, and the deep, driving techno that takes over at night, it struck a rare balance. 

What makes Sonder special is the people. It’s watching strangers dance barefoot in the dust, eyes closed, completely lost in euphoria. There are no phones, no posturing, just presence. Dusty skirts, dirty feet, and no one cares. It feels liberating in a way that’s hard to articulate.

Sonder is making instant best friends with your camping neighbours. It’s sharing beers, exchanging hugs that feel oddly sincere, even crying together at sunrise. It’s reconnecting with familiar faces from gigs, meeting new ones, and collapsing the distance between strangers and friends. Even the small moments, chatting with volunteers at the info tent, laughing about nothing, add to this quiet sense of belonging.

There’s a level of trust here that feels almost radical. People leave their bags, shoes, and even wallets at the front of the stage so they can dance freely, and they’re still there hours later. That detail alone says everything about the kind of environment Sonder creates.

I went solo, but I never once felt alone. The security presence was calm and competent without being intrusive, and the crowd itself felt self-regulating. There was a respect for space that you don’t always find in rave settings. Even at the front, in the early hours of the morning, you could dance freely without feeling crowded or watched.

I’m not usually a raver. In the past, the scene has intimidated me, conjuring images of sweaty, overstimulated crowds with little awareness of personal space. But Sonder completely shifted that perception. It felt closer to something like Berlin’s club culture in ethos. There’s an unspoken understanding: everyone is here for the music, and everyone deserves space within it.

That sense of community feels especially significant right now. People are craving connection. We’re all a little burnt out, a little disconnected, and desperate for something real. Sonder offers that. It’s a chance to step away from screens, to be present in your body, in the sun, in the music, and with each other.

At one point, I clocked over 40,000 steps in a single day, nearly 38 kilometres, just from dancing. It’s physically demanding in a way you don’t expect. You start to understand why everyone seems so effortlessly fit. Raving, it turns out, is endurance.

Image: Sonder

That said, the prevalence of drug culture is hard to ignore. It’s part of the environment, but it also complicates things. There’s something slightly at odds between the festival’s ethos of genuine connection and the reliance on substances to get there. It raises questions about what these spaces could look like if they were safer and more regulated.

Still, what lingers is the feeling. Sonder captures something close to modern-day hedonism at its most sincere. There’s a kind of “hippie-ness” to it, but without irony. It’s about being grounded, feeling the dirt between your toes, putting your sunglasses on, and simply listening.

The festival was started by a group of friends from Alice Springs, and that origin story is palpable. There’s a clarity of vision here. It feels intentional, cohesive, and deeply cared for.

More than anything, Sonder lives up to its name: the realisation that every person around you is living a life as complex as your own. In a setting like this, that idea becomes tangible. It’s not isolating, it’s comforting. You feel it in the crowd, in the shared rhythm, in the fleeting but meaningful connections.

At one point in the chill-out tent, this DJ, Top Hun, paused her set and was like, “Alright… I’m gonna read you this random Reddit post.”

Everyone kind of laughed, but then the tent went quiet.

She read:
“Everything is perfectly in sync, but it isn’t just me, it’s everyone around me too. Every person is moving without a cue… just submitting to subconscious signals. The body is now fused to the music… every movement feels predetermined but also completely your own.”

She kept going, talking about that feeling where you’re all locked into the same rhythm, where it’s not just you, it’s everyone, and “this is where we’re supposed to be… not just me or you, but all of us.”

I don’t know, it hit me way more than I expected. I’ve been carrying a lot of low-level fear lately, just in the background of everything, and hearing that in that space felt weirdly grounding.

At the end she said something like, “I wish you all a lot of beautiful moments on the dance floor… I hope you feel present and supported by your community… and don’t be shy with your energy. Be the energy you want to feel.”

Then she was like, “Raving is a spiritual practice… don’t forget that.”

After her set I went up and hugged her and just said thank you. I really needed to hear that.

And I think that kind of sums up Sonder. Those small, unexpected moments that somehow end up meaning the most.

Image: Sonder