"It doesn’t have to be your normal life" - Euronews Culture reports from the epic SXM Festival on the French-Dutch Caribbean island of Saint Martin. The dance music extravaganza's main attraction is it brings elements of the European club scene to a paradisiacal location in the Americas.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:07 We're here in the Caribbean island of St. Martin.
00:09 And if you thought that was loud,
00:11 we're about to spend the week clubbing at SXM Festival.
00:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:23 SXM is an annual dance festival that
00:25 attracts DJs and music fans from around the world.
00:28 This year, sets from the likes of Kevin Sondersen, Shimza,
00:32 and Fleur Shaw attracted budding ravers
00:34 to the island of St. Martin.
00:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:40 St. Martin is located in the Northeast Caribbean
00:42 and is both a part of France and the Netherlands.
00:45 SXM Festival was founded in 2016,
00:48 the year before Hurricane Irma devastated the island.
00:51 Well, this one was quite brutal.
00:53 It touched a lot of the buildings, the infrastructure,
00:57 the roads.
00:58 I mean, nature.
00:59 But it's part of the way here.
01:02 You know, it's paradise, but it comes at it with a little price.
01:06 And every 10, 15 years, there's a hurricane.
01:09 Since then, the festival has been closely
01:11 tied to the restoration efforts of the small territory.
01:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:16 Now in its seventh edition, festival goers
01:18 rejoice in the two main stages set on the luscious sandy
01:21 beaches of Happy Bay.
01:23 But that's not all.
01:25 For the full paradise experience,
01:26 the festival also offers a taste of luxury
01:28 to premium ticket holders with a boat party and a mountaintop
01:32 rave.
01:33 Right now, it might be paradise, but you
01:35 can't choose the weather.
01:36 It has been raining, and the wind is lashing at us.
01:39 But it's still phenomenal, because we're
01:40 up here on the panorama stage at the top of a mountain.
01:43 How do you build a stage on the top of a mountain?
01:45 Slowly.
01:46 You bring everything up via chairlift.
01:49 All the lumber on the chair, the fabric, the bamboo,
01:51 everything had to go up there.
01:53 As I said before, it might have been raining,
01:55 but the party has not stopped.
01:57 It never does out here.
02:00 Finally, the Pièce de Résistance is a villa party
02:03 in one of the most extra locations on the island.
02:05 Do you want a tour of the crib?
02:07 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:10 Come in through this fancy entrance.
02:12 Excuse me, though.
02:14 And immediately, you're out into this huge vista.
02:18 No villa is complete without a big bouncy ball.
02:21 It's a necessary requirement.
02:23 Let's go down into the pool.
02:25 Come on.
02:26 I mean, look at this place.
02:27 It's phenomenal.
02:28 Phenomenal.
02:30 I think my favorite little spot is
02:32 they've got a little infinity pool here that looks out
02:35 onto the beautiful-- it's the Atlantic Ocean.
02:37 It's the Caribbean Sea.
02:40 I mean, welcome to paradise.
02:44 SXM is the festival for you if you
02:46 like beautiful beaches, stunning sunsets, and non-stop dancing.
02:51 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:54 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:58 ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪