Dancing Into The Tropics: My Weekend At CASA BACARDÍ Goa

There are music festivals, and then there are weekends that feel like you’ve briefly relocated to another continent without ever leaving India. CASA BACARDÍ’s first-ever Tropical Edition in Goa was very much the latter.

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Held on 7th and 8th February at W Goa, the festival didn’t just borrow from the Caribbean playbook — it embodied it. From the moment I walked in, there was a shift in energy. The air felt heavier with basslines, brighter with colour, and lighter with inhibition. This wasn’t about standing politely with a drink; it was about movement, sweat, rhythm, and surrendering to the moment.

Three Stages, Three Moods

The music festival unfolded across three distinct stages — Treehouse, Rockpool, and Cave — each with its own personality.

Treehouse was all golden-hour magic. Think sun dipping while bodies swayed in unison. Rockpool leaned into that open-air, barefoot-on-stone energy, the kind where you lose track of time because the drop is just that good. And Cave? The cave was for the committed. Dark, pulsing, hypnotic — the sort of space where the outside world ceases to exist.

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The line-up was a seamless blend of global heavyweights and homegrown favourites. Ukrainian duo ARTBAT delivered a set that felt cinematic — melodic techno that built slowly and then detonated. Da Capo brought Afro-house grooves that were impossible to stand still to, while Sistek and Kilimanjaro kept the tempo high and spirits higher.

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On the Indian front, Lifafa was a personal highlight — there’s something about hearing familiar indie vocals ripple through a sea of strangers that feels oddly intimate. Tech Panda x Kenzani brought their signature fusion, while Anyasa and Onfaya leaned fully into the Afro-inspired electronic wave that clearly defined the weekend’s soundscape.

Afrobeat and Afro-house weren’t just genres here — they were the pulse. You could feel how strongly it resonated with young India: expressive, rhythmic, communal.

More Than Just Music

What made this edition stand out was how participatory it felt. It wasn’t a festival you simply attended; it was one you stepped into.

Drum Circle Workshop

Between sets, I found myself at a drum circle workshop, slightly self-conscious at first, then fully immersed. There’s something incredibly disarming about collective rhythm — strangers lock eyes, laugh at missed beats, and suddenly you’re part of something shared.

The Afro music workshop turned the dance floor into a lesson in connection. Even if you had two left feet (guilty), it didn’t matter. The point wasn’t perfection; it was presence.

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Elsewhere, there were mixology sessions where bartenders walked us through the anatomy of the perfect serve. Signature cocktails like the Caribbean Smashed Mojito and Tango Wit’ Da Mango tasted exactly like the weekend felt: bright, playful, slightly indulgent. International bar takeovers from Tropic City and Havana Social added to the sense of globe-trotting without the jet lag.

And then there was the drip zone, a full-blown celebration of streetwear and self-expression, think bold prints, Caribbean influences, fearless styling. You could feel how seamlessly music and fashion bled into one another.

“Do What Moves You” — Actually

It’s easy for brand philosophies to feel like slogans. But over those two days, “Do What Moves You” genuinely felt lived in.

There was no single “type” of person there. You had seasoned ravers, fashion kids, couples on a spontaneous weekend trip, and friend groups celebrating nothing in particular. What united everyone was a willingness to let go — to dance a little harder, to talk to strangers, to try something new.

By the time the final late-night set wrapped in the Cave, my voice was gone, my step count was absurd, and so was my broken heel, and my phone gallery was a blur of neon lights and grinning faces. But more than that, there was that rare post-festival feeling: not just exhaustion, but fullness.

And honestly? I’d book my return to that tropical state of mind in a heartbeat.