Many in recent years have thought to whip up a slice of dance music delirium among Europe’s winter peaks – witness Snowbombing in Mayrhofen, Austria, Bulgaria’s Horizon festival, Snowboxx in France’s Alpe d’Huez and superstar DJ Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Festival in Leysin – giving club-loving skiers and boarders a choice of parties that now ranges ranging from the chilled-out, chinstroking muso-fest to the full-tilt rave onslaught.
Trust scintillating St Moritz, throwing its Chanel fur hat in the ring late in the game, to utterly nail the glamour, luxury and world-class DJ talent of the top-drawer Ibiza experience at its first attempt. The Graubünden resort followed its own time-honoured tradition for success and crashed a cable-car full of cash at the project when it launched last winter, booking in David Morales, Louie Vega and Tony Humphries probably the most important living names in house music as its headliners.
These self-styled ‘Kings of House NYC’ return this month for the second edition, a four-day smooth grooves marathon with a line-up of 40 top DJs from nine countries around the world. The jawdropping roll-call includes more megastar names like Derrick Carter and talents representing the clubbing superbrands of Pacha Ibiza, London’s Ministry of Sound and Defected’s Glitterbox night, a smash hit from Ibiza’s Boom! last season which in the maverick team of Horse Meat Disco adds peerless proto-disco to a line-up rich in house, deep house and electro.
Twelve venues across the resort’s spectacular slopes and town will host sessions that run from 11am, when DJs will be spinning a soundtrack to the Freeski World Cup action unfolding at the Corvatsch course, through mellow twilight sets at various après bars and village squares – Louie Vega and wife Anane’s Sunset Ritual on the Saturday promises to be a blissed-out highlight – before ski boots are swapped for dancing shoes ahead of the main-event parties at three of the resort’s swishiest venues.
Tickets are available on a day-by-day basis, as a four-day festival pass or, bundled with extras like lift passes and accommodation as part of one of the packages offered by several of the event’s 13 local hotel partners, which range from three- to five-star.
The Carlton Hotel in St. Moritz is offering a night in a junior suite or suite including a four course dinner at the restaurant Romanoff and a Summit Evening-Pass with access to all venues on March 14, including the Kings of House event for CHF1140 for a Junior Suite or CHF1860 in a Suite.