Garbicz Festival Review+Guide: What I Wish I Knew Before I Went

Garbicz Festival is a unique and epic transformational electronic music festival in the lovely forests of western Poland, a few hours from Berlin. This festival is a bit funky, very artsy, well-curated, and self-expression-centered, with lots of fun extras like cabarets and dinners, amazing food and wellness options, music going pretty much 24 hours a day somewhere, and great vibes all around. 

I wrote this Garbicz guide because I found it so hard to find information about the festival online (or anywhere) before going for my first time, even after reading everything on the website and beyond. I’m here to help you prepare other first timers for your Garbicz trip and tell you everything I wish I knew before I went, as I really felt I was going in blind in a lot of ways and that’s never fun!

Venue 

It’s called Garbicz because it takes place in a tiny town called Garbicz, Poland. There are a few ways to get here that I’ll explain below, but first, some details about the venue itself.

This is an incredible slice of private forested land right in a refreshing, cool lake. The stages are tucked into lovely tree-lined clearings so you always feel like you’re dancing in the forest. It’s honestly the perfect size festival for me at least, with about 15k people apparently and taking about 30 mins end-to-end, give or take – this makes the venue size super manageable, and it feels quite possible to locate lost friends here, unlike many festivals. 

There were a few WiFi points in the center for anyone who wanted it (not me 😇)

A quick overview of the venue:

• Lichtung: this is the massive and multi-faceted wellness area with many different areas, including a yoga and workshop space, quite a few food stalls, A performance and show area, and a group meal space. A lot of the add-ons are here too, such as the sauna/banya, sound tube, brain scans, and other cute small spaces.
• Weise: if there was a main stage, this would be it – this is the big central stage where most of the bigger acts play. There’s more space and a clear dance floor.
• Wald: the heavy techno stage, opens to a big grassy area 
• Juicy: a tree-filled stage in a bit of a natural amphitheater where some of the funkier music is played, but a lot of house, etc too
• Loco Paradiso: a super awesome tree-covered stage area with fun structures to climb 
• Junkyard: a funny little area in the middle with more chill activities like karaoke, a hidden vinyl dance club, and more 
• Thingo: a fun smaller stage that always seemed to be going OFF whenever we passed by 
• See: the quirkiest stage made to look almost like a little multi-colored wooden village, with equally quirky music – I’d say more tech house and funk vibes playng till about 9am daily
• Buk: a stunningly beautiful stage near the end of the lake/venue, also made into a natural tree-filled amphitheater with direct lake access and some other food and stalls nearby. Some other bigger names played here, too.
• Art forest: amazing place to wander through trippy installations, laser art, sculpture, random little bars, and lots of other fun stuff you wouldn’t expect 
• Wine bar: maybe my low-key favorite place at Garbicz – styled incredibly to look like a pirate ship with treasure and decor and vibes and great djs and lots of delicious wine.
• Food area: there are a few food areas spread throughout the venue with so many delicious options to eat! 
• Ambient Stage: chill area with some more relaxed music and pillows and chill area, some performances too 

The Lake at Garbicz

The Lake is definitely one of the most incredible features of the Garbicz venue. It lines an entire side of the grounds, with a few designated swimming spots and a main pier, and some places you can find your way down for a dip. The water is deep, crisp, and refreshing – it’s a tiny bit chilly but in a good way on a warm day. It’s truly a delightful festival feature, and the pier totally fills up with people each day.

Transportation – Getting to Garbicz

Figuring out how to get to Garbicz was one of the biggest question marks for my group while planning our trip, so I’ll outline all the options for you below.

Most people arrive in Berlin to go to Garbicz, which is the easiest place to get there from. If coming from Poland, I’d recommend taking the train or looking for ride shares, as there are many coming from cities.

• Hire a car or a ‘Garbicz Taxi’: Berlin is crawling with these before the festival. You can find drivers in a lot of ways, but try to join any WhatsApp group you can find and surely contacts will be shared for drivers or companies organizing drivers. I believe the going rate should hover around €150 one-way, or that’s what we paid anyway (ended up at €200 because we had too many stops and took long, oops)
• Take the Bassliner bus from Berlin: book tickets early as they sell out. These Garbicz direct buses leave from Berlin Ostbahnhof very often on Wednesday and Thursday and the weekend of the fest. It’s a cheap and easy way to get there.
• Take the train: you can get a train to the station ‘Rzepin’ and they say there will be taxis shuttling people. I believe there are sometimes direct trains from Berlin (but definitely check beforehand) and definitely trains from all over Poland, esecially main cities. I took a direct train to Gdynia from here after Garbicz, and it was seamless. Just make sure to buy your ticket online beforehand or ask the conductor immediately upon boarding.
• Rent a car: renting a car is a nice way to get to Garbicz and have the option for dry storage through the event if it does rain (which it probably will). You will need a parking pass for this option. The parking lot is apparently just not super close, so you’ll have a bit of a walk to walk-in camp, or I believe you can take a shuttle to the top entrance.
• Rideshare: the WhatsApp groups are popping off with ride offers and requests before the event, from many directions. Check groups or blablacar for someone with extra space. 
• Rent an RV: in terms of rentals, this is the best option that allows you to camp inside the festival grounds in the thick of it all as long as you have an RV pass. There’s a lot of RV camping on site and often in quite central areas.

Important to know: a lot of the drop-off options leave you with a pretty long walk into the venue, which can get tough in the heat with tons of camping or travel stuff. The parking lot has a shuttle to the venue, I believe. 

Important re: security: the German and Polish police are absolutely crawling around the border during, before, and after Garbicz, stopping cars and apparently most Bassliner buses, and conducting full searches both on the way into Poland from Berlin and on the way back to Berlin. These were some of the most intense searches I have ever heard about happening at any festival in the world (and I’ve been to many). Keep that in mind and don’t have anything on you.

Lineup 

Garbicz has a well-curated lineup within a slightly more specific sector of electronic music. The majority of the music is within the house and techno (and tech house) umbrella, with your varieties of funk, disco, minimal, and the like, with live performances scattered through the days and some unique shows.

Honestly, this is the type of festival you come to for the vibe and not to chase a schedule all weekend – it’s the kind where you trust that the curation has been done well, and your favorite moments are more the stages you get pulled into than specific people you wanted to see. That said, there are some big names – recently, like Adam Port, Ame, Mira, Damian Lazarus – who you’ll plan around, too, but for my group it was not more than a couple per day if that.  

Crowd at Garbicz

The people here are generally older, experienced partiers from around the world. The majority of the attendees and crew are from Berlin or live in Berlin – honestly, more German than Polish, haha. There are tons of European festival lovers, Berlin club scene regulars, plenty of burners, and also, more recently, people from all over the world, from North America to Australia and Asia. 

Vibe and Ethos

More than a nationality, Garbicz is perfect for the inclusive, experienced burner-type long-time festival goer who has been to a lot of festivals and has arrived at an event like this after many years in the scene. I ran into people from my last decade of festival travel, and it was pretty special to experience the vibe and type of human that had been curated very well here. 

It’s not commercial at all, and the festival tries to protect that aspect of it by having ‘no photos on the dance floor’ rules that many interpret to mean not taking phones or cameras out at all, but Garbicz has a fairly sized media team running around taking photo/video too. This rule sometimes ended up slightly divisive, as some guests would enforce their interpretations of this rule on other guests trying to respectfully document their experiences. But for the most part it worked well and people feel their privacy is protected here, which I believe is the main point.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also note that the vibe here is well and truly, hilariously feral, lol. That’s all I’ll say about that. 

Atmosphere/Decorations/Production and Art Installations

There’s a lot of amazing art here, and the stages are wonderfully intricate; I believe there are some permanent structures here which gives build teams an opportunity to get more creative and go more in-depth than they could with something that’s torn down annually. But even the non-permanent stages are epic. A lot of the stages end up looking like little colorful makeshift wooden villages – very similar to Holzmarkt 25, one of my favorite Berlin hidden gems with a club, food stalls, bars, and seating/events along the river in Friedrichshain.

Art and mirrors hanging and reflecting through the trees, vibrantly colored dj booth decor, and TONS of strucgures to stand on and climb at the stages made dance floors feel extra magical, and the installations in the art forest were epic to experience at any time of day.

Sound quality here is fantastic, and the production value at each stage is impressive too, from fog and lasers to crisp, high-quality speakers (so good the sound travels all the way back to your tent from 3 stages at once! lol)

Where to Stay – Camping Guide to Garbicz 

Camping was another huge question mark for me coming into Garbicz. We were meant to be with an organized offsite camp, but it got full at the last minute, so we were well and truly on our own coming into the venue after opening on the Thursday (which I would not really recommend).

We arrived around 1pm on the Thursday (after gates opened up to everyone beyond early arrival at 10am) and one of the staff members literally told us, ‘there’s not much left, you’re really the last ones to arrive’ which is obviously absurd, as the event had only been open to everyone for 3 hours and many people came in after work Thursday or even Friday (and popped up tents in every nook and cranny around the whole venue).

What I wish I knew about camping at Garbicz:

•  Early arrival on Wednesday is nearly essential to get a ‘good’ spot . This is an extra pass with an extra cost.
• Good spots (loosely meaning ‘shaded and not like right in front of at least 1 stage’ for this purpose) get tougher to find the later you arrive and the more space you need
• Most of the camping sites are loud. That’s just the reality. I don’t think many of them aren’t within direct sound of at least 1 if not 2 stages besides crew camp, silent camp (for RV’s and requires a seperate ticket), and anything near Lichtung, which fills fast. Earplugs are non-negotiable, not that they work when the stage is super close, lol.
• You *should* stay in the designated camping areas, but you kindof can camp anywhere as long as it’s not blocking any emergency exit paths from stages or crew areas (I guess there are more of these than you think). I mean, once the main areas are full, there’s not much else people can do besides start filling up any possible space. Tickets include camping, so people are entitled to camp somehow even if they arrive later.
• The camping is not organized at all. It’s a free-for-all and a bit hectic. It’s truly every man for themself. You just show up and search for a spot.
• The best areas are Lichtung, N3-4 by the lake (but can be loud) and really anything shaded. These are labaled on the site map. The staff camping is massive and has the best area – it often feels like there’s more staff than guests here.
• Many of the glamping tents looked like they were in pretty direct sunlight, and I questioned if they’d be worth it. I didn’t see inside one, though.
• Yes, everyone camps or stays in RV’s. No one commutes or stays in town. 
• If you don’t have camping gear, you can get EVERYTHING at Decathlon beforehand for quite cheap – they are in pretty much all major European cities and there’s a HUGE one in Alexanderplatz. Check out my festival camping checklist for my camping tips and essentials.

Organized campsites: there are some organized campsites that kindof run their own thing at Garbicz, which is cool. I heard about Wasabi (very central in the festival) and Simba (which was just outside the grounds across the street). They had their own areas, opportunities to rent tents, and even events sometimes. 

We got lucky with a great makeshift camp spot that was a bit outside the lines, but if we didn’t, we might have been camping in the sun in front of the heavy techno stage, lol. I’d just play it safe and come a day early, or you’ll be gambling with 5 nights of sleep.

Amenities & Other Things on Offer

There’s al ot of interesting stuff going on at Garbicz. They offer paid experiences that you can purchase before the festival starts, some of which are very interesting. They have cabaret shows, banya/sauna ceremonies, interesting wellness upgrades like brain scans and sound tube healing, and also lots of meals based around themes like an inner child brunch, fungi-focused dinner, schnitzel sessions, wine tastings, and more. We didn’t love our brunch experience so I wouldn’t specifically recommend one, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try one again another year.

There are tons of performances and really interesting things going on; I suggest checking out the schedule or wandering around the grounds in the afternoons to catch these.

As far as amenities go, they have free showers in a few places on site; you sometimes will just have to wait in line. I never saw the lines too long because many people consider the lake a shower for the weekend, haha.

Money 

Money here works by topping up your wristband. There are plenty of top-up stations, including some small DIY ones. The food stalls and bars use Polish zloty as the currency.

Food/Drink and Prices at Garbicz Festival

The food options are awesome, and there are options all around the venue. You’re never more than a few minutes away from some food or drinks. Some things I ate over the weekend are: pizza (one of the most delicious), meat pies, Indian curry, shakshuka, breakfast eggs/bacon,

Certain bars serve certain drinks – there’s not a standard bar menu here; you can find beer bars, wine bars, cocktail bars, and of course bars that serve a combination of all the above. Keep your eye out for the natural orange wine in cans and even a mezcal slushie.

Festival Tickets/Price

Tickets start around € 250 for SUPER early release, and they go up to over € 350. They usually sell out, but people align their selling prices with demand on the official ticket reselling platform, TicketSwap. My friend got her ticket for € 280 the week before and mine for € 380 with a random price spike a few days later. Sucks for me. It’s hard to predict so buy as early as you can, of course.

Garbicz Security

As I mentioned above, the police at the Germany/Poland border this weekend are ruthless and have stops for most vehicles on the main roads as well as the Bassliner busses. I heard crazy stories of things like swabbing RV surfaces, cavity searches, and going through medicine bags and asking about each and every pill and asking for prescriptions (and sometimes even confiscating things anyway). Honestly, wild, and sounds traumatizing.

BUT, there’s no security at the festival. Once you arrive at the magical fairy wonderland of the festival itself, you are safe from the evils of the outside world 😛 There’s no security or police inside or to get in once you arrive at the venue.

Fashion – What People Wear

Self expression is at al all-time high here – with a lot of fun creative colorful outfits, some nudity, and some people simply dressed comfortably! Anything goes here – dress how you like, and if that involves copious amounts of fur and sequins, people will love that too.

Bathrooms

It’s pretty much all porta-potties here, folks. They are not always pretty. They do clean them regularly, but just be safe and bring your own toilet paper, trust me on that.

Weather

From what I understand, Garbicz weather is usually quite moderate with a decent amount of rain. There have been hotter years, some very rainy years, and some with a bit of everything. Last I went, there were a couple of days above 32 °C, then rain, and the temperature hovered around 26- 28 °C during the day and got cold enough for jackets on most nights. Honestly, perfect (apart from the rain).

Timings

Something is always going on here. Some stages go until 9-10am daily, and some stages like Weise begin around 12 with some live performances before working their way into dj sets leading up to sunset, and places like the Ambient Stage and Lichtung have most of their activities during daylight hours. There are at least a few stages running at any time of day, and always food and bars open too.

Crew at Garbicz

I heard a few people joke that the attendees pay for the Garbicz crew’s party, and I have never been to a festival where I agree with that more 😛 There’s SO much crew here, and I think a lot are on site for a really long time. It’s like their annual pilgrimage from the city into the forest, and the crew is just as into the party as everyone else.

It’s not a bad thing, and a lot of the crew are talented and hardworking and probably spend weeks getting the site and stages ready. But it did become a running joke that the people who serve you food/drinks are usually more “out of it” than you are, lol. Usually in a funny way. I became friends with quite a few staff at my favorite bars, all legends. I wouldn’t always ask them for help if I needed it though haha.

Final Tips for Garbicz

• Arrive as early as you can to get a shaded campsite.
• Have a waterproof tent (I think they all are these days, though)
• Document your memories, friends, and outfits, but it’s a good time to keep your phone away.
• Daily lake swims refresh the soul
• Don’t carry substances on the roads in and out of the festival.
• Check out a few sessions at Lichtung, from talks to yoga.
• Try at least one of the upgrade sessions, like banya ceremonies or dinners.
• Give yourself time to wander and get lost – you might just find your favorite artist or performance.