Does something really feel superior than a festival sunset? You have spent the day dancing in the sun, drinks are in hand, headliners are quickly to take to the stage, and that sweet, sweet golden-hour light is providing almost everything and absolutely everyone a dreamy glow.
If that sounds like bliss to you, you could possibly want to know that there’s essentially an complete festival devoted to that precise lovely moment. It is known as Corona Sunsets Festival, run by – you guessed it – beer brand Corona. The festival has been celebrating sundown in a handful of balmy areas – which includes Mexico’s Tulum and the Dominican Republic’s Santo Domingo – given that 2016.
This year it’s taking off on its initially globe tour, expanding to more than a dozen areas. It’ll travel to some of the globe’s most celebrated outside destinations, from the beaches of Goa to the hills of Tuscany, billing the sunset as the ‘ultimate headliner’.
Getting identified a household in Cape Town for the superior aspect of a decade, the festival is currently a landmark occasion on the Mother City’s cultural calendar. A fitting location, then, to kick off the tour on April 1 – and the setting, at a nation club suitable on the seafront, is as killer as promised.
As you descend the measures top to the festival, you are met with a view of the glittering Atlantic Ocean appear to the left, and you see the undulating Twelve Apostles mountain variety to the suitable, the craggy peak of Lion’s Head.

Photograph: Corona Sunsets Festival
The Cape Town edition of Corona Sunsets is on the smaller sized side, as festivals go – but with numerous zones and two stages spread across the all-natural slopes of the reserve, there’s a lot of space to breathe, take in your surroundings and discover. The just about endless photo opps include things like a swing set overlooking the beach and massive, sunbeam-clad archways framing the stage and the sea. The festival hinges on the premise of disconnecting and bringing individuals closer to nature – which is beautiful, if a small incongruous with the queues forming to snap a pic for socials.
Venture a small additional, although, and the work that is been place into the festival’s experiential components is clear. More than right here, a drop-in cocktail-creating session is underway more than there, attendees are joining drum circles, art classes, and carpet-weaving workshops. A laidback village and a small face painting could possibly look fairly typical for your typical day festival, but right here crowd engagement is taken quite a few measures additional – specifically when it comes to the festival’s eco-themed initiatives.

Photograph: Corona Sunsets Festival
A devoted eco-village set up subsequent to the smaller sized stage attributes an upcycling station, sustainable fabric dying, a guerrilla gardening zone and pieces from an ‘environmental artivist’. All through the festival, there is not a scrap of rubbish in sight – nor a single piece of plastic. Corona’s sustainability manager, Sasha Croak, tells me that she took on the function of the ‘plastic police’ when organizing and inspecting vendors at the festival. It’s all really on-brand for Corona, who in 2021 became the initially worldwide beverage brand to attain a net-zero plastic footprint.
Each and every cease on the worldwide tour promises to be curated about the place, and experiencing its Cape Town edition, I’ve no doubt that they’ll attain that. Just about every aspect of this occasion, from the layout and experiences to the music and meals, couldn’t be replicated anyplace else. Though American residence DJ Louie Vega requires a headline slot, it is the line-up’s largely South African artists – from the second stage’s roster of Capetonian DJs to soulful singer Msaki and indie artist Jeremy Loops – that draw the largest crowds. The only true downer is the ubiquitious corporate branding. (We get it, Corona: you personal this factor. But it could possibly be good to allow the crowd to take in Cape Town’s spectacular scenery without stamping your logo on absolutely almost everything.)

Photograph: Corona Sunsets Festival
And what about the ‘ultimate headliner’? How, precisely, do you base a headline act on a thing as unpredictable as a sunset? Nicely, you just have to hope that luck is on your side. Cape Town has famously temperamental weather: the day right after the festival, the city and seafront are engulfed in white sea fog, regardless of forecasts promising blue skies. But the festival’s sunset moment is as spectacular as promised. As the sky turns orange, drummers and dancers take to the stage, ‘eco fog’-filled bubbles stream more than the crowd, and almost everything – from the mountains to the sea – is bathed in dreamy golden light.
The festival is set to go on to 14 more destinations about the globe, which includes Colombia, Japan, Peru, Italy, Greece – and even, bizarrely, the UK. How they’ll assure a beautiful sunset in 1 of the world’s rainiest countries remains to be noticed, but here’s hoping they’ll pull it off.
Time Out travelled as guests of Corona Sunsets Festival.
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