A festival of two halves: Saint Martin is the shining star of SXM Festival

Upon the descent into Princess Juliana International Airport, Saint Martin/Sint Maarten's natural beauty is visible at just about every vantage point; emerald green hills that peak dramatically above the horizon, cream-coloured dunes, mind-bogglingly blue waters. I'm here for SXM Festival, a five-day event that promises to combine day-and-night dancing with all of the bells and whistles expected from partying in paradise: Sunset and sunrise parties on the beach, poolside dancing, fire performances, cocktails beneath a palm tree canopy. The festival's glittering promotional videos across social media allude to a union of idyllic island getaway and technicolour rave — serene horizons, intricately-decorated booths brimming with ecstatic DJs and punters, staggering production and a crowd mostly consisting of bikini clad girls with diamanté-encrusted faces. Hell yeah!

Named after Saint Martin/Sint Maarten's airport code, and its unofficial nickname, SXM is set to welcome 5,000 punters to this 88sqkm Caribbean island across March 12 to 16. Split in half, Saint Martin and Sint Maarten are technically two different territories, with the north being an overseas collectivity of France (and therefore part of the EU) and the south a constituent country of the Kingdom of Netherlands. Despite this, visitors are rarely aware of when they are crossing over into a different territory; if you do notice, it's usually from a tiny sign on the side of the road that announces "Bonjour!" or "Hallo!" respectively.

With a population of around 74,000 — Saint Martin/Sint Maarten punches above its weight in personality. Its tourist board-approved nickname "The Friendly Island" is present on license plates across both its French and Dutch sides, and honestly... It's a completely truthful claim. The locals are more than happy to stop for a chat, hang out, share a cig with overseas strangers — everything comes with a smile.

The country’s tourism officials claim that the island is made up of “well over 100 cultures” and is “uniquely diverse” due to both immigration from the surrounding islands, alongside North America and Europe. A melting pot of Creole, Caribbean, European and American sensibilities — here you can find cars blasting out soca parked up outside bakeries serving fresh-out-the-oven baguettes in the morning, while at night, baseball grounds and football pitches lit up by floodlights side-by-side.

To mark its eighth edition, the festival has locked in a mixture of household and up-and-coming names for this year's line-up, including Danny Tenaglia, Nicole Moudaber, Camelphat, Âme, Kitty Amor, Sam Divine, Tinlicker and many more. While much of the festival's format has remained the same from last year's edition, SXM confirmed that it would be "eliminating" its VIP program for 2025 to stress the festival's "ethos of unity" — though, it's important to note, "designated bottle service areas will still be available." Tickets for the festival come in three and five-day packages, while those wanting to really go in on their SXM experience can also buy passes for its Satellite parties, one which is set to take place at the highest point on the island's Dutch side - Sentry Hill - for a special day-to-sunset-party, and the other a party at a glamorous villa which features prominently in SXM's pre-event promotion.

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Having first visited the island in 2003 for a New Year's Party, SXM’s founder Julian Prince - a Canadian DJ and producer - quickly recognised its potential as a holiday-meets-festival hot spot: "But back then, there weren't many festivals that people would travel to," he says. Spurred on by the growing popularity of Coachella, Burning Man and BPM - the latter of which takes place across the Caribbean Sea in Costa Rica - Prince threw the first edition of SXM Festival, a four-day boutique event, in 2016. It's clear that these three festivals have had a massive influence on the overall aesthetic and vibe of SXM, which seems to lie somewhere between bohemian luxury and jaw-clapping, EDM-inspired luminescence — whether it's the feather and sequin-adorned headdresses worn by attendees or the ostentatious, laser-fuelled stage design.

My first taste of SXM Festival comes courtesy of Thursday's kick off party at Bamboo Beach, which transforms from a laidback beach-side venue in the daytime to glowsticks akimbo by night. Consisting of two stages, the Forest Stage and the Beach Stage, Bamboo Beach still retains the markers of its non-festival function as an easy-going beach bar for holidaymakers on arrival, with driftwood benches directed at the horizon and palm-frond-topped bars. A local toilet attendant even divvys out bottles of citronella in squeezy ketchup bottles to us as we wash our hands to avoid getting bitten by mosquitos in the cool evening air — beaming with pride as I explain that it’s the greatest invention I’ve ever seen.

The change in gear comes just after sunset, as throngs gather on the beach to watch a dance troupe, clad in gold chain bikinis, perform a fire dance as the sun goes down — all soundtracked by Phil Conti playing a mash-up of familiar house anthems. Seemingly out of nowhere there are drones circling overhead, multicoloured lights adorning the trees in every direction and light-up bottles of Grey Goose visible on every surface. By the time French DJ and producer Notre Dame steps up to the decks for his synth-laden, hypnotic closing set, the crowd is packed around the booth, entranced.

Though there is a flamboyant quality to that first night at Bamboo Beach, its energy is unquestionably intimate in comparison to SXM's main area Happy Bay, which consists of two stage, Ocean and Arc, with the former sitting parallel to the site's long sandy coastline and the latter tucked inland. The Arc Stage is elevated above the crowd within a shell-like dome which emits an extravagant, near-overwhelming array of lasers, fluorescent lighting and pyrotechnics. Its edges are lined by light-up tiki towers, butterfly wings and bottle tables on raised platforms to give, what we assume, those high-spending customers a better view of the action and the crowd below. It feels like there is a conscious effort to make the Ocean Stage feel more "underground", which has its DJ booth at just above eye level, with a vine-like roof that weaves and warps above the dancefloor, more reminiscent of Ibiza venues like Space there's still room for a showstopper however, as the stage projects trippy visuals and cartoons on the dramatic cliff space above.

The programming between the two follows a similar pattern. The Ocean Stage is the place for loopy, mesmeric intensity as ÂME’s Kristian Beyer delivers everything from bass-infused tech-house to sharp-edged electro, followed the next day with Maz and Peace Control, who keep things on the rolling, minimal end of the spectrum. While over on the Arc Stage, Haitian-born waft-inducer Francis Mercier is plying the crowd with wall-to-wall sing-a-long bangers, with both the depths of the dancefloor and the bottle service platforms turning to each other in recognition as he drops of a tech-house rendition of Tame Impala's 'The Less I Know The Better'. Saturday follows a similar vein, with Scouse duo CamelPhat shelling out party anthems on the Arc Stage such as Borai and Dennham Audio's edit of Strike's 'U Sure Do', Jimi Jules' 'My City's on Fire' and, of course, their chart topping 2020 track 'Cola'.

The set-up works. Bleary-eyed dancers wanting to sample repetitive beats can do so below the swirls of the beach-side canopy, while those in the market for some good old fashioned EDM fun can lift their arms to their LED-adorned peaked caps to salute at Tron-esque light show, as the high-spenders on the tables above watch on in awe. Likewise, the walkway between the venues across the shoreline feels like a win, so anyone experiencing a slight case of sensory overload can have a sit down, catch a breather, and find a meeting point with their friends at the various neon-drenched installations. The queues for the bars, toilets and the (single) wristband top-up station are slow, with the bars in particular appearing to be slowed down by the cocktail-heavy menu. After about 30 minutes at one bar, I'm fantasising about can-only bars at home. However, as the crowd thins into the early morning, it's no longer an issue.

The same can't be said for SXM's satellite Villa Party on Saturday, where getting a bottle of water in the 28-degree afternoon heat takes 45 minutes. Overwhelmed staff plead with punters to forgo cocktails, seemingly having trouble dealing with a lack of reception for card readers and crowds ordering multiple drinks wanting to make up for the wait. The Villa is admittedly beautiful; a white-walled mansion that combines European and Central American architecture, with a grotto-esque pool that looks painfully tempting — but it becomes increasingly difficult to appreciate as the party grows busier, the queues for toilets and drinks grow longer, and a lack of anywhere to sit beyond the garden walls becomes more stark. While Happy Bay felt exemplary in how crowds moved around the site, the Villa is tiring to navigate — countless bottle service tables tightly line the outskirts of the dancefloor, with queues taking up much of the rest. and punters relentlessly stop in the middle of the venue's walkways to take selfies against the sunset backdrop. It's no wonder that customers seem to grow irate, considering that entry to this party - a Defected Records showcase - is only available to five-day pass holders, many of whom have shelled out an extra $150 on top of their $460 festival ticket.

Though the crowd seems to mellow, or at least turn their energy towards the decks, when the sun goes down and Sam Divine begins her set, turning the crowd into a sea of hands, fans and phones as she drops Nic Fanciulli's 'Set Me Free' along with bangers from Deetron, Low Steppa and Soulsearcher. I consider my own prejudices, am I just dehydrated? Letting inconveniences put a dampener on a glamorous villa party experience? Everyone here seems to be having an absolute ball. As Divine brings in the opening bars of Robin S' 'Show Me Love', one punter sprays a bottle of ($755+) Moët straight into the pool as handful of fire dancers dance around its edges in scenes so ostentatious they would surely send a Victorian child to their grave.

SXM's other satellite offering, a Panorama Party atop Sentry Hill, has another big hitter from Defected's roster, as Kitty Amor joins us in taking a cable car to the hill's summit to dish out her signature blend of Afro house, melodic euphoria and a couple of cheeky bangers thrown in for good measure... THEMBA's 'Murder on the Dancefloor' remix, we're looking at you. It's an undeniably picturesque location, with the height providing a vantage point to see most of the island, alongside the neighbour St. Barts and Anguilla — with even the cable car ride giving ample opportunity to see vervet monkeys creep above the tree tops for a curious look at visiting humans. Operating the stairlift are a group of guys, who bop along to Merengue on their radios and warmly greet the ascending throngs as they switch cars — chucking us a cold can of sprite halfway up. While the beaches, the villas and the stages are one thing — this party feels like a real Saint Martin experience, which makes sense considering the founder sees the festival as both a business venture and a welcome tourist attraction for the island.

SXM's first edition In March 2016 was a rampant success, spurred on by the growing trend for overseas visitors wanting to combine holiday (or vacation) and festival experiences. The festival held its second edition in March 2017 with an expanded, eye-watering line-up featuring some of dance music's biggest names, such as BLOND:ISH, Sonja Moonear, The Martinez Brothers, Richie Hawtin and Jamie Jones. However, months later, the island would be hit by Hurricane Irma - a catastrophic Category 5 storm that destroyed much of the Saint Martin/Sint Maarten's infrastructure and devastated its heavily tourism-reliant economy. "Buildings were destroyed, they couldn't get repaired, everyone was like: 'how the hell do we get out of this?'" says Prince. The festival’s fans were among those helping to get the island back on its feet, raising over $38,000 CAD to support relief efforts via a GoFundMe campaign. SXM would return in 2018, a move that was welcomed by local authorities wanting to encourage visitors back to the island as it slowly recovered from Irma's destruction — though they once again hit a block in the road when, shortly after the festival's 2020 edition, tourism was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. "We thought we were double dead, you know," says Prince. "But everyone picks themselves up... we come back, Saint Martin/Sint Maarten is a beautiful and resilient place."

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"Everybody here is on team tourism, and we're just happy to bring something that's fresh and new. At the end of the day, when you really look at the project it's like a marketing machine for the island. It's 5,000 people coming for a week and then talking about the island the whole year," he continues.

There are reminders of the knife-edge the island's inhabitants exist upon everywhere here: Homes and hotels destroyed by Irma lay vacant in a state of ruin on the highway, buckets collecting rainwater can be seen outside open doorways. Recent data suggests 19% of households on the Dutch side earn less than $558.66 a month, while a recent European Commission study on the French side - which is part of the European Union - found that the territory has a "high poverty rate" with 32% of the population unemployed. This is despite the tourism industry on both sides of the island combined being worth around $700 million each, or $1.5 billion combined. It’s clear that the island isn’t just divided down the middle as a territory, but economically — between those who have a financial stake in the island, and those who live and work here.

Despite this, local businesses are seemingly embracing this electronic event on their doorsteps; hotels, bars and restaurants are littered with SXM Festival flyers, beach bars are laden with make-shift DJ decks for attendees having a cold drink before making their way to one of its venues — cab drivers take in our English accents and quickly surmise: "Off to the festival then?" In fact, across the seven days I spend on Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, much of the places we visit seem to match the festival's overall, overriding mood and aesthetic — that same bohemian-yet-polished, glittery energy that seems to coat everything that SXM is. It's clear what's missing... it doesn't feel like I'm in the Caribbean at all.

The tourist hotspots that sit around capitals Philipsburg and Marigot bear little evidence of the culture of the Creole/Carribean people that make up over 80% of the island's population, instead they feature a string of glitzy restaurants and tourist-catering bars lining the beaches. Any signs of local culture is similarly absent from SXM Festival; though the line-up is notably diverse, with acts coming from multiple continents across the world, including from the surrounding islands, there is no soca to be found here — instead, the experience caters to its target market: Young, wealthy, North American and European festivalgoers.

VIP tickets, which are commonplace in the US, have been outlawed this year, though it wouldn't be a stretch to say bottle service tables serve a similar function. It’s a huge dampener on the overall vibe; the elevated platforms of customers paying thousands for bottles above the crowds at the Arc Stage feel particularly dystopian, as are the whoops and cheers as sparkler-wielding hosts deliver $1000 bottles of Moët and Don Julio to the bottle service tables at The Villa Party — I can't pretend my dry throat doesn't feel that much dryer as I watch a girl approach tables across the venue with caviar as I enter my 40th minute queuing for a drink.

Combined with the pre-event videos of scantily-clad ladies screaming as Champagne corks fly into the air, this clear focus on appealing to rich male punters really causes an attitude problem in the crowd — with men constantly approaching women on the dancefloor, thrusting drinks at them and arguing with staff behind the bar. It’s irritating, but easy to ignore. However the uncanny valley feeling of a festival that feels completely disconnected from its location is much harder to shake off.

This isn't just an SXM Festival problem. It's an issue that exists throughout the Global South – tourism is a blessing and a curse — something that creates an economic vacuum, forcing poor communities to rely on it, while simultaneously stripping them of their identity and pushing up the cost of living. While SXM Festival’s organisers have donated to funding initiatives for local people and, likely, feel bringing business to the island is a net good — the juxtaposition between the glamorous lifestyle the festival attempts to sell to its mostly white clientele and the realities of the mostly Black people who live here, is unsettling.

On my last day at SXM, I ask Prince if there was a possibility to introduce a locals day, or maybe more artists from the island to take part, he responds: "What I've seen lately is a lot of locals starting to mess around with electronic music; they send me the music, and it's almost there y'know? The truth is, in the Caribbean there is an awakening towards these types of genres — you see it in warehouses, there's Indian music mixed in, next thing you know, it takes off because it has cultural meaning."

"But also, I think it's fair to expect music to adapt to a festival, we need to be consistent with what we offer and maintain our own identity. It's gonna take a little bit of time, we knew it would be a big pioneering job,” he adds. So for now, the only interactions that I have on-site at the festival with people born on the island are from taxi drivers, toilet attendants, food truck workers and security guards — always appearing to exist in the background.

And it's a shame, because the stage production and lasers? Grey in comparison to the bright yellow buildings selling Robbies Lottery. The sound of bottles popping is no match for the shouts and laughs of teenagers standing around a parked motorbike blasting out calypso and zouk. On one taxi journey, a cab driver leans out at a van and shouts "You hate the island" as he spots someone fly tipping before turning to us and rolling his eyes and declaring “have some pride man”, and I tear up more in that moment than any sunrise could possibly muster. As I depart, looking over those same picturesque cliffs, they seem ordinary and nondescript in comparison to Saint Martin/Sint Maarten’s greatest draw.

SXM’s social media pages allude to a mission of spreading “love”, welcoming “family” and promoting “togetherness”, yet during my time here, the interactions I have that really embody those notions come from local people. The people of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten may feel the benefits, someday – but it's difficult to reckon with the way in which they are sidelined at present. If SXM Festival wants to achieve that sense of coalescence, then surely it would make sense for the people and the culture that make this island so unique to be involved in the party.

Head to SXM Festival's Instagram for more updates and to join the waitlist for next year's event.

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter