We attended the Caprices Festival in the Swiss Alps back in 2021, but the the festival is back again this weekend, April 14-16. If you are lucky enough to be attending this year, read all about our experience, so you can get super hyped for the best weekend of EDM music of the year! For more info on Caprices head to their site to learn more about Caprices 2023!
About Caprices
The Caprices Festival is most well known for its glass Modernity Stage located at top of the ski resort of Crans-Montana in the Swiss Alps. We accessed the stage via the ski lift gondola, and it was such an amazing way to enter a music festival. This year there were two other stages as well, the Forest Stage and the Signal Stage. Both were also accessed via ski gondolas, up in the mountains of the resort.
Getting There
Caprices is held in the Swiss Ski Resorts of Crans Montana. This area is located about a two-hour drive east of Geneva. We flex into Geneva via Zurich on SWISS from Boston. We spent a day in Geneva before heading to the mountains.
The resort is accessible either via car or train. But once you are there, you do not need a car, everything is very walkable.
Where to Stay in Crans Montana
Crans-Montana is filled with cure ski chalets and alpine hotels. So there are plenty of options if you are coming into town for Caprices. We stayed at the beautiful Hotel Royal, located just minutes from the gondola to head up to the Modernity Stage.
The Hotel Royal is a quintessential Swiss Alpine hotel—the cozy vibes are off the charts! Our room had a beautiful balcony overlooking the hills and the mountains and in September that meant waking up to a beautiful green landscape and a bright blue sky.
Each morning we also got to enjoy their delicious breakfast featuring lovely fresh pastries, sausages, eggs, and fruit. Oh, and the cappuccinos were delicious as well.
Safety Precautions at Caprices
Caprices put in very strict COVID safety requirements for all attendees and artists at the festival. According to Joseph Bonvin, President of Caprices Boards of Directors, “This year the Caprices will be all about renewal. We are creating a COVID-free-zone inside the festival. This involves checking all festival participants for the SWISS COVID-check QR code. If festivalgoers do not have the QR code because they are coming from outside the EU, they can be tested on-site using the SUMMIT clinic test center. With the creation of a COVID-free-zone, all restrictions inside the festival will be lifted so guests can not only feel safe, they can also fully enjoy the festival as they have in years past.” This meant that to attend, you needed to be either fully vaccinated, have recently recovered for COVID-19, or have received a negative test result within the last 72 hours.
The Festival
Big names played at Caprices. Some of our favorites included: Solomun, Apollonia, Hot Since 82, Guy Gerber, and many others. The experience of seeing these international acts play in a setting as unique and as beautiful as on the top of a Swiss mountain was just the perfect way to return to big events like this. With plenty of space, fresh air, and sunshine, this was such a fun way to return to Switzerland after two years!
For more travel stories from our trips to Switzerland read about St. Moritz and Zurich.