‘Look Behind You’: Our Time At Primavera Sound 2025

words and photography by Chloe Flaherty.

Primavera Sound granted me an atmosphere-only photo pass–no artists, stage, or photo pit. I spent three days facing the crowd.

The festival is eclectic in everything from the music they book to their attendees–this year, bringing in almost three hundred thousand from a multitude of countries. This translates to an incredibly unique group of people: disaffected teenagers and awe-struck dads (pushing 60, he’s still got it), women with loose hearing-aids and boys swinging accidental upper-cuts, couples with drunken kisses and musicians undercover. On the fringes, you have security discreetly taking videos of Sabrina Carpenter while their managers pretend not to notice. It’s three days of nonstop movement, turnaround, and contact with the people around you. As a photographer, without the privilege and limitation of the three-song limit I’ve come to associate with a press pass, I got beat up, broke my camera, and shot as much as possible.

If you turn away from the stage, there is a world of chaos, worship, sweat, and spit.

I started with IDLES at eight pm on Thursday evening and ended with Turnstile at three am on Sunday morning. In the pit, with no universal language to grasp onto, you have to rely on other means of communicating. Day one, I misjudged the drop and got caught in the middle when Joe Talbot (IDLES) split the crowd into two. The man next to me only spoke Spanish but saw the look in my eyes and–no words–scooped me backwards by my collar. I owe him my camera and my teeth.

I saw the same excited glint in the eye of the middle-aged man singing “Boys in the Better Land” during Fontaines D.C. as the twelve-year-old reciting “Pink Pony Club” during Chappell Roan. She was ten times more intimidating, however.

I’ve flirted with different examples for the feeling of the crowd: It’s a ponytail in your mouth, a sweaty hand on your back, an excited agreement that whatever you’re about to see is so cool. 

The word I’ve come to use is “democratic”--at its worst, you are all experiencing the exact same thing, but, at its best, you are all experiencing the exact same thing.

For every headliner, I stood where the security and emergency responders stood—-in a little crevice off the side of the stage that was at an incline. It was an absolutely shit view of the performance, but an incredible view of the crowd. It’s primarily used for watching shifts in people’s movements for safety, but the people I stood with (fans and staff alike) were as enthralled by the masses as I was, and it truly is that: massive.

When you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with someone from a country you’ve never been to (Luxembourg?), speaking a language you don’t speak (German?), wearing an outfit you would never think to buy (Adidas tracksuit), it creates a kind of empathy for the unknown. If not full understanding, it’s a feeling that the world is large as hell and at least you’re in it.

Outside of public transportation, there are few places where we gather in these kinds of numbers. To choose it, to pay for it, speaks to our desire for closeness. We don’t often get the opportunity in our day-to-day life to see how alike we all are—especially on the scale that is a festival crowd. 

If you turn to face the crowd, you will see what the musician sees: a sea of people from God knows where, who all came to see the music.

Look behind you.