Ikarus Festival 2026: Southern Germany Just Won May

Let us talk about what is happening in Memmingen this May because Ikarus Festival 2026 is the kind of event that makes you open a new tab and start looking at travel options before you have even finished reading. Running from 22 to 25 May at Memmingerberg Airport in southern Germany, this is four days of electronic music on a site that has absolutely no right to be this good.

The whole thing takes place on the grounds of a former military airfield, with house, techno, deep house, hard techno, psy-trance and more across over 100 international acts on multiple stages. Someone looked at an old airfield and decided this is where the rave goes. Honestly, correct decision.

So What Actually Is Ikarus

From 22 to 25 May, Memmingen Airport flips into a vast open playground for electronic music with open air stages, camping fields and music running continuously deep into the night. The setting is genuinely one of a kind. Dark shelters, patches of forest and a massive camping area sit right alongside the stages, giving the whole weekend an atmosphere that sits somewhere between a serious club night and something you would only experience once. That combination of concrete, woodland and open sky is what makes Ikarus different from every other festival on the summer calendar. The campsite this year covers more than 200,000 square metres and for the first time introduces a car camping option alongside the existing basic, comfort and caravan setups. You can make this your entire personality for the weekend and nobody will question it.

The House Music Side of Things

This is the part house heads need to pay attention to. The programming deliberately crosses genre lines to bring different corners of the electronic world onto one site, and the house and melodic end of the lineup is genuinely well thought out.

Alle Farben is one of the most recognised names in the German house scene, spending years crafting a sound that lives right at the crossover point between deep house warmth and dancefloor energy. His sets consistently pull in people who would never normally call themselves house fans, and that ability to bridge worlds is exactly what Ikarus is built around.

Clara Cuve is also on the lineup and she has been quietly doing the work for a while now. Her sets carry a cinematic, deeply grooved quality that feels considered rather than just functional. Having her on the bill shows the festival is thinking about the actual experience of standing on the floor rather than just stacking names on a poster.

BUNT. is confirmed as well, an act that has built a devoted following through melodic house and emotionally charged electronic music. If you have ever stood on a dancefloor at five in the morning and felt completely overwhelmed by a piece of music in the best way possible, BUNT. makes music specifically for that moment.

The Rest of the Lineup Is Also Unhinged in the Best Way

Paul Kalkbrenner, Deborah De Luca, Lilly Palmer back to back with Maddix, Reinier Zonneveld live and Brutalismus 3000 live are all confirmed for the main Olymp Stage. That is a chaotic mix of sounds all sitting under one festival roof and a big part of why Ikarus feels like it belongs to everyone rather than one specific crowd.

For anyone wanting to go harder and darker, the Minos Tent and Hade Cage stages deliver exactly that, with 999999999, Alignment, Charlie Sparks, Klangkuenstler, Kobosil and Nicolas Julian pushing relentless sound through the night.

Holy Priest is also bringing his Holy Shit Show to the Olymp Stage, and between the heavy sound, intense visuals and the sheer chaotic energy of the whole thing, it is built specifically for people who want total release on a dancefloor. The name alone tells you everything before you even look at the poster.

Why You Should Actually Go

The festival grounds open each day from 15:00 through to 04:00, with the campsite welcoming people from Friday morning at 09:00 right through until Monday afternoon. Ikarus has been running since 2015 and the list of artists who have performed there is genuinely serious.

Previous editions brought in Dixon, Richie Hawtin, Nina Kraviz, Solomun and Charlotte de Witte, which tells you exactly what level this operates at. The 2026 edition is shaping up to be the most ambitious version yet.