“At Midsummer, we like to sacrifice foreigners,” the boyfriend of Swedish DJ Jessie Granqvist tells me with a cheeky grin. Two planes and a 90-minute drive deep into my journey to Finland’s Solstice Festival, I’ve found myself stranded with a van full of DJs at the side of a Finnish highway, 50 kilometres from the Russian border. A bad turn into a petrol station has required an emergency tyre change and, while Brooklyn DJ Jek busts out the tyre jack, the Swedish couple tell me ghost stories about the annual midnight sun phenomenon. We’re running late but, at least – as the joke in our van goes – we’re not driving in the dark. 

Making the arduous hike up the Ruka fell where the festival is located an hour later, these ghost stories come flooding back. It’s now 10pm and, thanks to a break in the clouds, the sun is currently shining brighter than it has all day. I am virtually alone in my late arrival and, having watched A24’s Midsommar folk horror the night before, I am suddenly overcome with a sense of apprehension. But there were no bloody pagan rituals taking place at the fell’s summit; just a really good music festival.

Now in its sixth iteration, 2026 marked something of a coming-of-age moment for Solstice Festival. For the first time, the event sold-out its 2,500 daily cap, allowing for the opening of the new Hut stage. Meanwhile, much has been made in the Finnish press of how 50 per cent of tickets this year have gone to international guests – something, I would later learn, was intentional.

“I feel like we’ve been able to create a modern extension of the Midsummer tradition,” Solstice co-founder Joni tells me, who is Helsinki-based but has been visiting the remote Ruka area since a child. “You come here, you’re with nature, you’re in a cabin with your friends, and you get to go to a festival with a new extended family. There’s a lot of meaning in that.”

The first thing that struck me was the sheer openness of the festival site. Having grown accustomed to the perimeter fences of most traditional music festivals, and in an age where grumpy bouncers police dancefloors with visible disdain, the ability to roam as far as the eye could see felt almost revolutionary. Each of Solstice’s four stages are surrounded by panoramic views and the quickest route to Ruka Village, where I and most other attendees are staying, is down a black diamond ski slope. More than once while plodding down the near-vertical mountain face in the 2am sunshine I was asked by a fellow festival-goer (invariably dressed in gorpcore and flower garlands): “Are we actually allowed to go this way?” The answer was yes – but slowly. 

The second pleasant surprise was the music programming – which, given Solstice’s scenic location, really didn’t need to be as good as it was. Highlights included 71-year-old dub master Mad Professor – who turned up 30 minutes late to his set, cryptically blamed the Finnish police, and then dove into explosive live dub re-workings of “Welcome to Jamrock”, “Bam Bam” and “Billie Jean” (we must resist the Michael Jackson renaissance, but, also, it was kind of cool); the first lady of drum n’ bass and Metalheadz co-founder DJ Storm; and, Belgravian downtempo wizard Vladimir Ivkovic. Meanwhile, The Hut Stage, with its unbroken midnight sun viewpoint and bookings courtesy of cult New York radio station The Lot, held it down for the new generation with standout sets from Lyzza, DJ Fart in the Club and Toma Kami. 

Although the music started at 4pm, the remote Arctic landscape provided no shortage of daytime activities. When not raving, my downtime was spent hiking, riding the village gondola and ‘Rukacoaster’ (“Like a rollercoaster but in the fells,” goes the ride’s official tagline), swimming in a lake (bring mosquito repellent; I was riddled with bites), watching reindeer, and, of course, chilling in the sauna.

All of this came as a pleasant surprise to the village locals. During one steam session, I came face-to-face with a butt-naked Finn drinking a Karhu beer who, after realising I was new to the area, became visibly excited. “I’ve been coming to Ruka for 20 years, and to see foreigners connecting with nature it’s... incredible!” he beamed, throwing his arms and legs wide with joy. I felt totally welcome (even if I struggled to maintain eye contact with him). 

Relaying this experience to Tessa Suopani, head of Kuusamo region marketing over campfire-cooked fishballs the following day, I was provided with some crucial context. “[For locals], it’s like being told that what they consider normal is actually valuable,” she explained. “There isn’t much industry in this area, and every second household relies on tourism. This obviously peaks in the wintertime, and so a big goal with Solstice Festival was to attract visitors during the summer.” 

The idea of growth is complicated – having now reached its full 2,500 capacity, Solstice Festival is limited by Ruka’s remote infrastructure. “The aim is not to increase how many people come here now,” Joni, who is also the co-founder of Helsinki nightclub Post Bar, tells me. “It’s to evolve what we already have. We want to focus on quality.” These growing pains were evident this year in  the festival’s official afterparties in Ruka and the return coach to Oulu airport – both of which were wildly oversubscribed. 

Still, these feel like minor caveats compared to the unparalled experience Joni and his team have created. Back at the festival’s closing night, dancing with my back turned to Lyzza’s hedonistic club set and facing the red ball of fire rising before me, I had a stark realisation: either of these experiences would be world-class in and of themselves. Together, however, they make for one of the best festivals on earth.