Best Of British 2011: Best Festival - SW4

There are a whole load of explanations as to the success story behind SW4 and the reasons why it repeatedly hits the top slot of the list of most favoured fabulous outdoor fun-time retreats. We think we’ve nailed it. Firstly, it’s because it comes in a handy, compact, bite-size chunk — it’s not one of those huge, sprawling, trek-and-a-half of a festival types. It’s slap-bang in the middle of one of our capital city’s greener parks, Clapham Common, on a flat-as-a-pancake piece of land. It’s a ridiculously close hop, skip and jump to tube stations. Despite having the competition of taking place on one of the busiest bank holiday weekends of the year, it never fails to deliver the goods.
All respect is due to Lock N Load Events, the promotions group that provide the backbone of SW4. Naturally it’s their constantly clever choice of line-up that plays the biggest part in this story — two days worth of eye-watering and heart-pumping, discerning and ear-pleasing live acts and DJs plucked from a pick ‘n’ mix sweetie bag of high-quality house, techno, trance and electronica.
Last summer, Judge Jules had this to say about the fest: “It’s an institution and it’s my local festival,” while d&b avatar Andy C opined, “SW4 last year was a smasher! So good to see London getting down like that. Pure vibes all weekend.”

Choose a day, arrive for the duration and leave with time enough to be back home, tucked up with your favourite hot milky beverage. Yeah right. The after-party action sparked off the back of SW4 allows them some relief from the constant battering and nitpicking by a small group of local residents.

As with previous years, an ensemble of the DJ Mag team descends on the Common to co-host a tent — this year the mighty Sasha, Simian Mobile Disco and Steve Lawler were amongst our chosen few.