Sound Waves

Sound Waves is the techno festival of Wilson Neves, the founder, and of Bernardo Bernardes, who runs it with him. The promoter on the ticket sheet is EXUBERPINK. It started about twenty years before 2025, in São Pedro de Moel, and it rotated along beaches until it settled in Esmoriz in 2017. Esmoriz is in Ovar, near Porto. In one conversation they called the summer the 16th edition and the 18th anniversary, with the pandemic pause in between. In 2025 they called it the 20th anniversary. On 11 July 2026 another sheet called it the 21st. The counts do not close. All three stand.

It is a long day on the sand. The sheet for 5 July 2025 opened at 17:00 on Saturday and closed at 14:00 the next day. Someone who walked it spoke of more than twenty hours. Both stand. Two stages. The main one and the Vicious. 16 and over. Neves says he built it because Portugal barely had electronic music, and that electronic music was a niche.

On 5 July 2025, on the beach at Esmoriz, Nima, of Visual Studio, ran the images. The sound held through the night. Fatima Hajji and Rebekah carried the hard techno. SNTS arrived dark as the sun came up. Basswell put on Massive Attack, Lunar and Bass Down Low. Oguz crossed hard techno and trance: So Alive and Dance Square Anthem. Onlynumbers mixed new tracks with the old ones. Parsa Jafari, also written with the name cut in another account, was on the main stage. Both stand. Joanna Coelho and Miss Sheila played together. Luciid and Ornella followed: schranz, Diggy Sound, and a remix of Innerbloom, by Rüfüs Du Sol, that stopped people for a moment and then moved them again. Ornella played twice. At dawn, Lorenzo Raganzini put on a techno with metal in it. Fantasm, Novah and Jazzy closed the main stage. The 5 July sheet also named AEREA, BLK. and Cloudy. Those sets were not walked.

The Vicious was shorter in sound and more rhythmic: trance that moves and melodic schranz, with people from Portugal and from Spain. The older crowd came over to that stage. On the main one, thousands. Nobody left a gate number for that July.

The rest of the 2026 main sheet went on with 6EJOU, GTH, Klofama, Kuko beside Johannes Schuster, Ornella, Række beside Røy, Restricted, Sheila, Slvl beside Ush, SPFDJ, Svetec beside O.B.I. and Toxic Machinery. The second stage on that sheet put Becda Caldas, GA7O beside Paisana, GIØ, Gui Bez, Luna, Lunekova, MakeCatBleed, Morgazz beside Cunha, Neltech, Ophell, Pharah beside Satyr and Trik. None of that was walked. On 8 July 2023 the sheet, again in Esmoriz, announced 21 hours and put Indira Paganotto, Nico Moreno, Charlie Sparks, Basswell, Miss Sheila and Ornella. That night was not walked either. Bernardes says a 21-hour day is prepared across a year, and that Esmoriz leaves a few days to see Porto.

The sheet for 11 July 2026, again at Praia de Esmoriz, put Adrián Mills, Cloudy and Trym, and spoke of about twenty-one hours, from 17:00 to 14:00, with two stages and 27 sets. A count from after puts about 5,000 people and tickets from 40 euros. The order of the tracks that day was not walked. Before that, the winter sheet put 14 February 2026 at the Carlos Lopes pavilion, in Lisbon, as a third winter edition. That night was not walked either. 5,000 is that July count. Thousands is the 2025 beach. 16 is the age at the gate. 21 hours is the sheet. More than 20 is someone who was there. The counts are not averaged.