Terminal V Croatia's main bill runs 100-plus names deep this year, but the announcement that actually matters landed in the small print: three nights at Barbarella's Discotheque, and the opening one pairs Alarico back to back with Ben Klock.

That is not a filler slot. Klock built his name on the four-hour, lights-off sets that made Berghain's Klockworks lineage a reference point for an entire generation of techno DJs, and Barbarella's, the open-air, past-dawn club on the Dalmatian coast that both the Guardian and DJ Mag have ranked among the world's best rooms, is exactly the kind of space that rewards that style. Pairing him with Alarico, whose sets lean rawer and more physical, sets up a b2b with real tension built in rather than two similar DJs trading tracks.

Why does the after-party lineup matter more than the main stage?

At a festival this size, the main stage names, Hannah Laing, Ewan McVicar, Ellen Allien, Len Faki, Trym, are booked to fill four open-air stages across five days for a crowd that is there for the whole holiday, sun sets included. Barbarella's after-hours is a different contract: midnight to sunrise, no daytime programming to balance against, and a room with its own decades-deep reputation to protect. That is where a festival's actual curatorial nerve shows up, and Terminal V used it to book 999999999 and Interplanetary Criminal style range alongside a straight sunrise set from AZYR on July 18.

The Barbarella's programme is where Terminal V spends its credibility, not its marketing budget.

What's actually on each Barbarella's night?

Friday July 17 opens with Alarico b2b Ben Klock. Saturday July 18 hands the room to AZYR for a sunrise set. Sunday July 19 closes the run with Interplanetary Criminal, Faster Horses b2b Sam Alfred, and Dr G b2b Kim Swim, with further names still to be confirmed. Shuttle buses run between The Garden Resort and Barbarella's through the night, a roughly 15-minute journey, alongside the festival's own boat-party programme cruising the Adriatic during the main event.