Progressive House Paradise: Balance Croatia 2025 Festival Review and Highlights

August 2025 saw the inaugural edition of the Balance Croatia festival, with a 5,000-strong contingent of the global progressive house community descending on Tisno – a small village on the Adriatic coast halfway between Split and Zadar. Anticipation had been sky-high since the line-up dropped late last year. Many claimed it was the greatest progressive house line-up ever assembled in one place, and it was hard to argue as scene icons such as Sasha, John Digweed, Hernan Cattaneo and Nick Warren were joined by industry stalwarts and rising stars alike. The biggest challenge would be deciding who to see – though thankfully, most DJs would be playing for at least a couple of hours, longer than is often the case at major festivals.

My journey out to Croatia got off to the most interesting start imaginable: a chance encounter with DJ Fish56Octagon at Luton Airport! We got chatting, and I handed him a USB stick loaded with some of my unreleased/unsigned tunes. This seemed to be a good omen for the days ahead – and, as it turned out, did lead subsequently to one of my tracks being played at the festival (more on that later)!

I eased into the trip with a night in Trogir, near Split, before bussing up the coast to Tisno the next day in time for the Thursday evening ‘pre-party’ at the Garden Resort festival site. This was a fun one, and with DJs programmed until midnight it was a really strong night musically in its own right. On arrival, Hicky and Kalo were playing on The Pier, followed by Simply City. The vibe felt social and intimate with several festival DJs already milling around the site. 

By 10pm the crowd had swelled sufficiently that, in a change to the programming, the larger Beach stage was opened up for Mariano Mellino’s set. The dancefloor was rocking and the scene idyllic as moonlight beamed down on the stage to a soundtrack of high quality melodic progressive house music. You could feel the energy in the air and that sense of anticipation that the next 4 days were going to be something truly special! Here he is playing Aleyum – ‘Collision of Concepts’ and the Roger Martinez remix of M.O.S. – ‘Nanda’.

The Yard stage looked like the place to be to start proceedings on the Friday. Jamie Stevens was playing and the atmosphere great as the crowd filled up quickly from the start. There was something about that time of day, with it being the last couple of hours of daylight, that made it extra special and it was a great time to connect with others on the dancefloor and share in a collective musical appreciation of a DJ/producer in Jamie Stevens who is consistently one of the best out there.

Colombian Kamilo Sanclemente then followed in The Yard. This was the first time I had seen him play and he impressed with some nice atmospheric prog.

Then it was off to the Beach for Nick Warren, whose Soundgarden brand was hosting the stage tonight, with him following on from Miss Melera and Armen Miran. I found a nice spot at the back of the dancefloor and then didn’t leave for the next 3 hours as one of my favourite DJs took the dancefloor on a beautiful melodic journey. This included a new remix of the John Creamer & Stephane K classic ‘I Wish’, and towards the end, his new collaboration with Mercurio on The Soundgarden called ‘Turbulence’, with some more driving tracks along the way.

Next up was Marsh at Olive Grove. Arriving half way through, my time in this arena started with a bang as he dropped his ‘Dead Synthy’ collab with Sasha, one of the biggest tracks of the year.

In recent times Marsh has done a really good job of remixing some great classic tunes from that late 90s/early 00s progressive trance era and he showcased two of his best examples here: firstly, his remix of James Holden’s ‘Nothing’ and shortly afterwards the Bedrock classic ‘Heaven Scent’ – great moments in the context of this festival.

To close out the night it was then back to The Yard for three hours of Sasha and Digweed. The set began dark and hypnotic, and started to pick up more energy and momentum as it reached the halfway point. Their set was good although a few of my friends commented that the sound in the arena could maybe have been better. We joked that the Funktion-One system must have been taking a battering with eight festival weekends in a row at the site – Defected the week before, with Dekmantel and Dimensions to follow.

As the end of the night approached, some bigger tunes came out including an Underworld bootleg, a teasing in of the vocal from the classic BT – ‘Mercury and Solace’, a mashup of Hot Chip – ‘Flutes’ with Camelphat – ‘Cola’, and then a remix of Tiga’s ‘Sunglasses at Night’.

Just after 5am, and with the set encore continuing on slightly beyond its scheduled ending, I decided to call it a night. As I left, I could hear the iconic trance vocal of Jan Johnston echoing out across the site as the first flickers of daylight introduced themselves. The track in question was a remix of the classic Libra presents Taylor – ‘Anomaly – Calling Your Name’, originally released on Platipus back in 1996. Hearing this in the distance was a very fitting way to end my day two. It became even more poignant in retrospect after news broke that the producer responsible, DJ Taylor, had sadly passed away a couple of weeks after the festival.

Day Three

Again, The Yard was the place to be at the start of Saturday. The Aussie duo GMJ & Matter played very well, a set packed with groove and building melodic atmospheres. As expected, the set featured a number of their own productions, climaxing with ‘Conduits’ from Matter’s artist album released at the end of last year, and ‘EXT 135’. Like the day before, the opening set in the Yard had been one of my favourites and it really set the tone for what was to follow. Ezequiel Arias, one of the stand out performers when I was at Anjunadeep Explorations last year, then took up the baton and he did not disappoint, keeping the energy high.

After an hour of Ezequiel it was time to head over to the Olive Grove for Fish56 Octagon. There had been some further developments since I handed him the USB at Luton Airport – he had DMed to say he really liked the music and would try to play one of them in his set. Of course, there are never any guarantees as a DJ has to play to the dancefloor in front of him/her but I was hopeful. It had been an objective to have my music played at the festival, but my advance efforts to get it into the hands of some of the more established progressive house DJs hadn’t exactly gone according to plan. However, after hearing one of my music mentors Paul James Nolan say he would be coming to the festival ‘armed to the teeth’ with USBs, I thought why not load up a handful myself!

Fish56Octagon, best known for his engaging Instagram content, proved here that he has the DJ skills to back this up and played a really cool set. In many ways it was eclectic with the places that it took the dancefloor to, but still with an overarching coherence to the narrative and story. Following on from Tara Brooks, he started with Royksopp’s remix of Felix Da Housecat – ‘What Does it Feel Like’, a track I have got on vinyl somewhere but had largely forgotten about. He then quickly moved into more high energy territory with tracks from the likes of Because of Art, Dusky and Aubrey Fry & Jimpy’s – ‘ACiDEM’.

Was he going to play something of mine, if so which one, and how would he fit it in? These were all questions going around my mind at this point. Hopes were fading as the bpm counter rose through the set, but it remained plausible, and as the set moved into more progressive territory, I dared to dream once again. Into the mix came Luke Chable’s classic ‘The Shepherd’ followed shortly afterwards by Medway’s ‘Geno Sequence’. However, with 20 minutes to go the set was getting increasingly harder and it seemed that the moment had passed. Then it happened: out of nowhere he was mixing out of a tough and techy Meat Katie & Ben Coda track into my new demo ‘Expeditions’. It was a bold mix given the differences in styles but brilliantly executed. It was a great feeling experiencing the track in that environment and seeing the crowd respond positively to it – a moment I’ll never forget!

From there the night soared, the atmosphere electric in anticipation, as Guy Mantzur led into three hours of Hernan Cattaneo, to be followed by Guy J. Hernan’s set on the bass heavy soundsystem in the Yard was non-stop groove and energy and featured the occasional trance-tinged surprise. I heard something that reminded me of ‘El Nino’, definitely Binary Finary and, to finish, Cass’ new remix of Cass & Slide – ‘Perception’. The videos below capture the vibe.

I briefly left the Yard at the end of Hernan to catch Croatian DJ/producer Petar Dundov at the Beach. My rationale being that I can see Guy J any time I like in London whereas Dundov seldom plays in the UK. As such, it was a rare and must see opportunity to catch one of my favourite producers and the man behind the seminal albums, ‘Ideas From The Pond’ and ‘Sailing Off The Grid’. His set, under the moonlit sky, was magical, fitting the serene setting perfectly.

As well as missing the start of Guy J, I was also missing James Zabiela, another big favourite of mine from back in the day, and everyone said he delivered big time on his set here. But it is what it is with festivals – you can’t see everybody! While I had done a reasonably good job up until this point in navigating the dreaded set clashes, over the course of a weekend there were always going to be some tough decisions.

For the final hour, I returned to the Yard for Guy J, where things went up a level still as his set reached its climax. At 5.45am, as the sun came up, he dropped his own remix/edit of Faithless – ‘Insomnia’ followed by his unreleased remix of The Acid – ‘Accidents’. It definitely felt that this finale to his set was one of the ‘moments’ of the festival when things hit a peak – euphoric, unifying, unforgettable. It truly was a very special time and a privilege to be there!

DAY FOUR

By Sunday, energy reserves were running low. I’d managed to miss the entirety of Alex O’Rion and only caught the last 10 minutes of Nicolas Rada before Danny Howells took over at the Beach, tonight hosted by Glasgow’s Skyline and featuring a large contingent of Selador artists. After easing myself in there, it was off to The Yard for Tim Green, whose feel good music really picked me up when I needed it, especially his remix of Underworld’s ‘Two Months Off’. 

Quivver followed Howells at the Beach with a genre-blurring set blending 4/4 grooves with some more breaksy tunes. There was then time to duck into the Olive Grove for the final hour of Gai Barone and Kasey Taylor’s b2b. Their finale — Gai Barone’s remake of Humate – ‘Love Stimulation’ — was magical and the night started to go up a gear from here.

Back at the Beach, Anthony Pappa impressed with his high-energy selections, dropping tracks such as Ezequiel Arias – ‘Reanimation’ and then Paul James Nolan’s remix of Funk D’Void – ‘Diabla’ at the start of his back-to-back-to-back with Dave Seaman and Quivver. This one particularly tore the roof off!

Over at the Olive Grove, D-Nox provided a perfect ending to adventures in this arena with his driving prog beats. The festival then concluded with Patrice Baumel in The Yard. On my late arrival, he dropped ‘Total Departure’ by Christian Smith & John Selway. From there he took his foot off the gas for a less intense but fitting finale to an incredible four days where everyone had gone hard, inspired by the amazing music across all the stages.

It was great to see progressive back on the main stage in this way. From a UK-centric standpoint, when I first went to festivals like Creamfields and Homelands in the early 2000s progressive had a much stronger presence  – something that has faded over the last two decades. There was a gap in the market for this and Balance Croatia delivered big time.

Balance head honcho Tom Pandzic had certainly put his balls on the line. In today’s climate, launching a new festival is high-risk but the payoffs can be large if, like Pandzic here, you go all-in with a big vision and execute it down to the finest detail. Balance Croatia was a bold throw of the dice that paid off spectacularly. Big kudos to Tom and all the team and partners behind it! Here’s hoping for another unforgettable experience next year, assuming they do it all again. Until then!