Just before Christmas several hundred Europeans made a pilgrimage to the Austrian alpine town of Obertauern for the inaugural edition of A Winter Garden — a festival organised by the family behind The Garden Resort in Tisno, on Croatia’s coast. For five days, guests at the PLACES by Valamar hotel spent their mornings on the slopes, followed by lively après-ski sessions and club nights featuring live music and DJ sets curated by The Garden team and their collaborators. The hotel also served plentiful breakfasts and dinners, providing consistently good, fueling meals to keep guests energized throughout the day.
—
—
Brummie couple Nick and Charlotte Colgan first established themselves in Croatia with The Garden Festival, which began in 2006 in the Adriatic city of Zadar and quickly grew in popularity. In 2012 the festival moved 30 miles south to Tisno, and helped establish The Garden Resort as a hub for summer music culture. The Garden Festival ran until its final year in 2015, after which the team continued to host and produce a variety of summer festivals at the site, including Love International, Dimensions, and Outlook Origins.
While the scale of the events has grown significantly, the operation remains very much a family affair, built organically over the years and largely free from corporate sponsorship. This ethos was clearly highlighted at A Winter Garden, where both Nick and his son Ben performed DJ sets, with Ben increasingly taking on a central role within the business.
—
—
It’s fair to say that this first edition of the festival acted as a pilot event, with plans already underway to scale up and return in March 2027. Reflecting on things, Nick Cogan tells CLASH: “The thinking behind it was exactly the same as that of the first Garden Festival back in 2006. We wanted to have a mixture of friends, family, people we work with, promoters, the tourist board, press and hotel partners all in one place to see whether we can turn it into something that’s going to expand and move forward.” This thinking was emphasized throughout the lineup, with parts of the lineup being curated by their associates at Love International, Hohcajt Events, Dobar House and more.
He continues, “First and foremost, everyone who went had a great time, which is the most important thing. It was a really good tester, and the idea is to set up a similar model to what we have in Tisno, with a capacity that, over time, eventually reaches about 5,000 people across multiple venues and hotels.”
What’s also impressive about the way the event operates is The Garden team’s prioritisation of themselves as an independent company. After the final edition of their own festival, the family continued to host external events on their site in Tisno and went on to set up The Garden Brewery, with their beer now distributed internationally and served at A Winter Garden, where it proved extremely popular among guests.
Nick Colgan explains: “The only year we had any negative feedback at any of our events was when we sold Tuborg beer, and it drove me absolutely mental. At the time there was only one beer company in Croatia, so a good friend of mine suggested I open a brewery, and said it was easy. Of course, it wasn’t… But we managed to get it together and open The Garden Brewery in Zagreb in 2016, and it was the best thing we ever did. It guaranteed us sales each year, and meant that we could go a step further and cut out corporate beer sponsorship.”
Obertauern itself is a town with a rich musical history. In March of 1965 the sleepy Alpine resort was thrust onto the global stage when The Beatles chose it as the location for the snowy ski scenes in their film ‘Help!’, drawn by its reliable late‐season snow and striking mountain backdrops.
—
—
During their roughly two‐week stay, the Fab Four were based at the Hotel Edelweiss, now the PLACES by Valamar hotel, which also serves as the accommodation for A Winter Garden. Locals acted as ski stunt doubles for the film, as none of the band members knew how to ski. That visit also included one of the band’s few unscripted musical moments: an impromptu performance in the bar of what was then the Marietta Hotel for a crew member’s birthday, marking The Beatles’ only unofficial concert in Austria.
Those attending the festival can encounter traces of the band’s visit. The PLACES by Valamar hotel displays an original Ringo Starr drum kit used during their stay, and throughout the village there are monuments, memorabilia and tributes to the band’s time here, which has since become an enduring part of Obertauern’s cultural identity.
The five-day event was soundtracked by a strong variety of artists, including South African jazzy house pianist GuruLogic, German house DJ Gerd Janson, Croatian DJ and producer Ilija Rudman, and more.
While still in its infancy and very much an idea in development, the inaugural edition of A Winter Garden demonstrated real potential for growth, showing how the festival could expand organically in the years to come. The town itself is vibrant yet intimate, with accommodation that is comfortable, well-appointed, offers breathtaking mountain views, and provides easy access to the ski slopes. The musical curation was clearly thoughtful and carefully considered. It’s exciting to imagine how the event will evolve when it returns in 2027.
—
—
For more information and updates, visit awintergarden.hr.
Words: Finlay Harrison
Photography: Filip Popovic
—
Comments are closed.