Marc's Blog: festivals - Malta Trance Festivals: Rong vs Euphoria vs Captured

People fairly often ask me which Malta trance festival they should go to, and why. I've listed them in the order they appear in the calendar, and been twice to each of them. First, I can recommend all 3 of them, and given what has become of lumi, all 3 are welcoming festivals in a lovely country (Malta) with either chill enough or super nice security folks and policies. As you can guess this matters to me. Yes, Lumi has more trance in 4 days than all 3 of those festivals, but can you really see 4 DJs every hour, including when they are in on bad stages with no space, bad sound and/or terrible sound bleed? I realize some people actually like the anxiety of missing sets, stage hopping and agonizing on which of your favorite 2 or 3 DJs, you're going to miss for the next slot (on that Note, Dreamstate Socal which is my favorite trance festival worldwide, is also terrible on this issue with up to 6 stages and some epic sets I missed because I couldn't see them all).

So, before I dig into these 3 malta trance festivals, my other favorites are:

Dreamstate Socal is #1 to me for the night and lights, costumes, atmosphere

Dreamstate SF is #2 because it's 45mn from where I live and still 2 days, therefore beating all other one day dreamstate events

In Asia Unkonscious is fantastic and run by lovely people (and yes, that counts)

in the UK, Timescape is 3 days and lots of lovely trance and DJs too, run by the energizer powered Rick "never sleeps" Weekender :)

Now, let's go back to Malta

Rong vs Euphoria vs Captured

Rong Malta simply wins on "lineup, lineup, lineup". You want to see all your favorite big name trance DJs. Rong is where it's at, it costs more but it pays for them, and if that's what's important to you (I won't judge, I melt for many of them), Rong is where it's at. Its main drawback in my opinion is Uno is too small and I'm not a fan of that place anymore, especially with their new likely low paid contracted staff, especially security. Similarly Cafe del Mar has become too small for that crowd. Days at Uno had 2 stages, the rest of the days, just one stage.

Euphoria Festival Malta is indeed the cheapest and most grass roots of the 3. It does have the most DJs, and 7 days next year, 7 days! Yes, many of the DJs are not "big name DJs", but so what? They are lovely and they play trance, isn't that the most important thing? It's really a nice and a breath of fresh air to enjoy festivals that simply have more of a family and friends feel and where you're going to get real trance. As of 2026, a bit of psytrance was also added, which is a plus for me :) (but Captured has more). EW had one night with 2 stages, rest of the days were one stage.

Captured Festival Malta would go in the middle, it had more of a mix of DJs between lesser known, cheaper to book and easier to meet before/after their set, to bigger name DJs that cost more, come with riders (a list of expensive alcohol bottles to provide before/after the show), that are less likely to mingle in the crowd. Depending on the day, it was 1 to 4 stages of music (the most of all 3 festivals). This was the only one of the 3 to have psytrance (on day 3 only).

For comparison, Lumi would fit here as bigger even (4 stages for all 4 days and 11h/day), and most DJs (too many for me) in that amount of time.

All 3 festivals have boat parties now, and all 3 go to multiple locations around the island. Captured spends more time at the Gianpula complex, and that happens to be my favorite location in Malta.
Euphoria will stand out as the 'cheapest' of the 3, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. How is Euphoria different? It's actually a small festival in size, and purposely so. It's meant to be affordable, and to focus on trance music and fun. There is no VIP, no backstage, and DJs, when not on the decks, are part of the crowd and the party. What else can you ask for? This is the lumi from 10 years ago, before it got too big, and that I never got to attend before it was too late. I don't have a time machine, and I did ask Craig Conelly :) to go back and experience these nice and small lumis, but that didn't pan out :) With EW, I don't need one anymore, those are the lovely vibes that are hard to find anywhere else today.

So, the winner is...

Haha, nice try, I'm not going to give you a winner. All 3 of them are good for their own reasons, all have their own drawbacks, and all are worth going to. I had a great time at all 3, but in different ways and for different reasons. Go to all 3 if you can, or the one that is at the time that matches your time off schedule.

I think I'll be pragmatic and maybe point to your time off calendar as well as your budget. All 3 are fun in their own way, and none of them are a bad choice, and by that I mean no showstoppers or things that really would turn you off like some of the stuff at the trance festival that shall not be named anymore :) If some of you think I might be hard to please, actually I'm happy by default, and you have to give me clear reasons to be unhappy with unnecessary BS. I am sensitive to clueless security (I used to be a security engineer, so I know a thing or two about the topic and call easily tell clueless from real security), and BS like fake festival money which is thankfully absent from all 3 today. Also none of those 3, unless that other festival, did any nickel and diming, which I hate.