A First Timer & A Disco Mum’s Return – A Review of Love International 2025

Each seemed to bring something fitting for the occasion.

Over at the Garden stage, Paranoid London delivered their signature acid-driven live set – turns out bass-driven chaos on a summer night still works as therapy. Dancing by the beach with a cold drink doesn’t hurt either.

The Olive Grove had some great moments this year, including our reunion with the Gun family crew. Those Monday night sessions and late-night moments when the crowd finds its rhythm – that’s where Love International earns its reputation and delivers that festival buzz you actually remember.

The Garden site itself has this knack for making time disappear, whether you’re catching the sunset over the Adriatic or floating on a boat with a drink. At some point, who’s keeping track? It’s the kind of festival where you feel part of something, particularly when the sun goes down. Whether you’re stage-hopping or just taking a moment to breathe, Tisno has this way of making everything feel a bit more relaxed.

Love International 2025 wasn’t just another anniversary show. After a decade, the festival is still finding ways to move forward while keeping its community intact. You show up for the music, end up with a holiday, and if you’re lucky, catch a sunrise or two along the way.

Here’s a few words from our sponsors for 2025’s edition… Nick from the Gun and Nadia Ksaiba’s return…

Nadia Ksaiba – A disco mum’s return 

Having not been to Tisno for 13 years, a festival abroad for 6, or more specifically, a festival for nothing more than a weekend of pure Lolz, I was apprehensive about what the experience could entail.   Was I out of the loop? How out of touch am I with the music scene? These were some of the questions I asked myself after I had booked. 

I have been dipping in and out of festivals and clubs since becoming a parent six years ago, but beyond DJing, I don’t have as much time to dedicate to what was once my everyday.  Day parties and leaving clubs before 2 am are my go-to these days, but now all rules were off the table, just so long as I made my plane on Monday afternoon…

Tisno was not how I remembered it. It turns out I don’t remember much, except that it was very special. The sea is very, very blue, the squid is delicious, the boats are still there, and perhaps the DJ booth may have swapped ends on the beach stage.  

I also have vivid recollections of entering the dance floor at Barbarellas on a bike many years ago… actually, that’s not a memory, I just have photographic evidence.

My first time at Love International, though, did not disappoint. There were DJs for days, over an incredible line-up, which I don’t feel I explored enough and should have packed more into my schedule than I did. I’m kicking myself about who I didn’t see. It was seven days in a row, over four stages on site, sometimes 24 hours, two boats doing two boat parties a day, plus huge parties at Barbarella’s. No wonder it’s in its tenth year, there is so much to experience.

I made a schedule to ensure I saw who I wanted to see – it was very helpful. The boat party line-ups looked the most fun; daytime, beautiful scenery, but having been pregnant and having two children, staying hydrated with only two toilets was not going to work for me. I did make it onto the Night Institute boat party for Optimo, Jordon Nocturne and Blackbones, though, which was very special. 

Each night at the beach stage was incredible, with DJ Nature and Prosumer being a real treat.  After rinsing every release on my radio show I was finally able to fully commit to Paranoid London’s raw analogue grooves on the Garden stage – a great open-air stage.  The duo’s lo-fi punk take on acid house pulsated through my brain, much like the oscillators on the synths they were made on. Warehouse Preservation Society were particularly great (and not on my schedule) when I ended up at Barbs on the wrong night. I’m not entirely sure how I managed a night out with no voice, but it meant I had no choice but to get my head down and dance. 

Barbarellas was intense and exhilarating, and has accurately been described as the best club in the world. There, I had my epiphany, that I realised that, shock, I really liked raving open air in the warm air of a festival. Sounds obvious, but with that in my head, I was gutted to have missed CC Disco and the finale from Horse Meat Disco. 

The more intimate spaces were probably the most fun for me and often caught me off guard on the tiny stage at the Terraza, which often kicked off, like when Sarahtonin went B2B with Rosie Ama. Hearing some New Jack Swing right when all three stages were belting out the peak time bangers was perfect.  The daytime sessions on the mini beach pier and the expertly curated Sunrise sessions were also joyous.

Love International is such a magical place with so much going on, I can see why everyone keeps returning. I can also see why so many people end up rebooking their flights from having TOO MUCH fun… it is what I did, and I am all the better for doing it. Because of that, I got to witness Decius close the R$N x Gun stage on Monday night and also see Floating Points B2B Palms Trax

Being at a festival as an active participant is etched into my muscle memory.

Love International is up there with the best of the best. 

Nick Stephens – A First Timer

Shocking that it’s taken me until 2025 to pop my Balkan cherry, but there you go – I will preface this by adding that as a father of three, foreign music festivals are not the annual norm for me.

So this year, instead of watching on with the usual hand ringing, absence anxiety (or FOMO for you kids) – I was there right in the sun-dappled thick of it.

Where Brits abroad are concerned, I find encountering them can often resemble the feeling of having to overhear someone’s loud conversation on a bus – there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with it, it’s just a bit annoying. This was refreshingly not the case here. It was clearly a crowd here for the music.

First off, to the uninitiated, the festival site set up is absolutely stunning, the crystal blue sea cuddling up to the party’s edge really lets you know you’re not in Kansas anymore – and that having fun is probably fast incoming.

That said, my wing man, Danny and I spent most of the first night off-site, trying to consume Barbarella’s, in all its last days of Rome glory.

A lineup of Ben UFO & Craig Richards ensured a wild turnout. Lots of familiar turns, gurns and crowd surging lunacy in a setting that rightly earns its reputation as one of the unmissable visits of your time in Tisno. Crazy good.

Our festival visit, however, was timed around our Ransom Note X The Gun stage on the Monday evening – ideally situated at the olive grove area of the main festival.

Thanks to a nerve-settling engagement with a bottle of tequila pre-dj set (thanks Wil), what ensued was one of the best nights out I’ve had in a long time. All of your pals around you, DJing while the sun goes down,  watching everyone losing their collective shit to Vladimir Ivkovic dropping The Fall – and Decius’s general levelling the dance floor in its entirety…  

It was a heady, jubilant carnage that shall forever remain etched in the minds of those who saw me enjoy it. 

Next year, please x

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