Nov 6

Nov 6 C2C Festival 2026: Twenty-Five Years of Turin After Dark

For its 25th edition, C2C Festival took over Turin from 29 October to 1 November with four days of experimental electronics, avant-pop, hip-hop and club music, spread across seven venues, a record for the festival. COEVAL was on the ground from the first night to the last, documenting the weekend in real time through Instagram stories and photographs: the surprise guests, the singalongs, the long nights at Lingotto and the quieter hours inside Turin's theatres. Here is our look back at an anniversary edition that reminded everyone why Turin keeps its place on the international calendar.

The Officine Grandi Riparazioni opened the festival on Thursday. Wendy Eisenberg set the tone with electric guitar, violin and drums, a warm indie-folk start to the evening. ML Buch followed with a solo set of slow-burning experiments, joined in its final stretch by a string quartet that lifted her songs into something close to chamber music. DJ Python and Clara 3000 kept the floor warm until The Avalanches took the stage, and when Jamie xx stepped up for "All You Children", the whole hall danced. Shygirl closed as the revelation of the night. She opened with "Alyse" and paired new songs from her forthcoming album Swallow! with older tracks, rebuilt in a rock direction with a live guitarist and drummer.

Friday started early at Teatro Regio, where Kode9 and ML Buch took part in public talks in front of a largely international audience. By night, Lingotto Fiere turned into two vast halls of sound and light, with hyperpop and avant-pop at the centre of the programme.

Oklou was one of the most awaited names of the night, and she delivered. The French singer and producer, whose album choke enough became one of the defining avant-pop records of 2025, filled the hall with a set of soft synths, airy melodies and a voice that stayed close and intimate even in a space the size of Lingotto. Her music asks for attention, and the crowd gave it, standing still for long passages and singing along on the songs they knew by heart. The highlight came when Underscores joined her for "Harvest Sky", a duet that turned the room into a single chorus and gave the evening one of its warmest moments.

Arca came back to Turin as one of the artists most closely tied to C2C. Her history with the festival goes back to 2016, when she arrived with visuals by Jesse Kanda, followed by returns in 2017, 2022 and 2024. This year she offered a semi-improvised audiovisual performance, where sound and image grew together in real time. Arca shaped the set on the spot, cutting from dense, distorted textures to fragile vocal passages, with the visuals following every turn. It was a performance built on risk and instinct, and the audience followed her all the way.

Robyn gave the weekend its most emotional moment. Yung Lean joined her for two songs, Jamie xx came back out for "Life", and the crowd sang the chorus of "Dancing On My Own" back to her before a standing ovation of almost two minutes. Chanel Beads completed the main bill, while over in the Dazed Room Theo Parrish played for seven hours straight, a long, patient journey through Detroit soul, house and deep house.

On Saturday at noon, Smerz played an intimate concert inside the velvet rooms of Teatro Carignano. That night at Lingotto, Harlem rapper and skater Liim opened with a mix of hip-hop, jazz and soul, backed by a keyboardist. Elias Rønnenfelt of Iceage brought the guitars with a solo set, while Danish singer-producer Fine, with a three-piece band, delivered a live show of folk, blues, jazz and Americana led by her soft, clear voice. Kelela, who first played C2C in 2014 and now releases on Warp, gave a set of alternative R&B, with "The High" built over the instrumental of Massive Attack's "Teardrop".

Then came Yung Lean and Bladee, and the energy of the hall jumped. Twenty-four hours after his guest spot with Robyn, Yung Lean returned to the stage as a frontman, dynamic and in constant motion, working every corner of the stage and pulling the crowd with him track after track. Bladee answered with his own cool, hypnotic presence, and the two built a set that felt loose, physical and fully alive, one of the most energetic performances of the entire weekend.

Chuquimamani-Condori held the late hours with a DJ set rooted in her own experimental vocabulary, and Kode9 and RP Boo went back to back through footwork and hardcore at full speed, a run of broken rhythms and sudden accelerations.

The closing slot appeared on the bill only as question marks, and the reveal became the talk of the weekend: Arca, back for a second set, joined by Bill Kouligas. The Berlin-based founder of the label PAN, a central figure in experimental club music for more than a decade, stepped up next to her for a surprise b2b. Together they played a final set of sharp edits, heavy low end and unpredictable switches, two selectors pushing each other until the very last track. For many in the room it was the perfect ending for a festival that has always trusted its audience to follow it into the unknown.

For the first time, Sunday stood as a full chapter of the festival. OGR hosted Carl Stone, Grouper, Marina Herlop, Headache and Lorenzo Senni, the Italian name on the line-up. Afterwards, a single ticket opened two clubs at once, Le Roi and Notorius, for the final hours of the edition.

This year also brought C2C Curators, a free training programme for young music curators, whose twelve participants will keep working with the festival through 2027. With more than 60% of its audience arriving from abroad, C2C closed its 25th edition as a meeting point for listeners from all over Europe and beyond. The next edition runs from 28 to 31 October 2027.