An aerial view of a dirt road curving through green Karoo veld towards a long line of mountains under a wide, pale sky

The home of Vortex

Karoo 62 Escape

A private nature reserve in the Klein Karoo, and the ground both Vortex festivals stand on.

Explore the reserve

Where

Western Cape, South Africa

Map

Karoo 62 Escape

01The venue

The PlaceYou Are Coming To

Karoo 62 Escape is a private nature reserve in the Klein Karoo, in the Western Cape, on Route 62.

Indigenous bush runs from the valley floor to the mountain line. Wildlife and birdlife live in it. There are trails through it, and views out over it, and at night a sky far enough from any city to be worth staying up for.

It is quiet in a way that takes about a day to get used to. That is most of the reason Vortex comes here — and it comes twice: Open Source in summer, Phoenix Festival of Fire in winter, on the same ground.

02The reserve

Bush, MountainAnd Open Sky

Layered mountain ridges fading into haze at sunset, with a band of gold along the horizon and dark bush in the foreground
  • An old whitewashed cottage beside a bare thorn tree and a wooden ox wagon, low mountains behind and flowering scrub in front, in late golden light
  • Two kudu bulls with long spiralled horns standing in dense green hillside bush
  • A close view of small yellow flowers on a grey-green Karoo shrub
  • A flowering hillside above a dirt track junction, with a small sculpture of mirrored discs set on a circle of stones

Photographs of the reserve, courtesy of Karoo 62 Escape. They show the venue, not the festival.

03Before you drive

GettingThere

The reserve sits on Route 62 in the Klein Karoo. The map link opens the location we hold.

View on Google Maps

Directions are being confirmed

Driving directions, the route we recommend and the entrance to use on the day will be published here once they are confirmed. We would rather leave this blank than send you down the wrong road in the dark.

  • Recommended route
  • Driving distance
  • Road conditions
  • Festival entrance
  • Parking
A row of timber cabins with steep triangular gables and dark metal roofs, standing in low bush under a deep blue sky

04Where you sleep

StayingOver

You can camp, or you can sleep under a roof.

What is built on the reserve runs from a bed and a door that closes, through cabins and caravans set out in the bush, to self-catering cottages with a kitchen and somewhere to braai. Canvas tents come already pitched, for anyone who would rather not travel with one.

All of it is booked separately from your festival ticket.

Accommodation and booking

05Being here

OnThe Land

The bush

Karoo scrub and thorn, low enough to see over and dense enough to lose a path in. It flowers. The photographs on this page were taken when it did.

The wildlife

Kudu and zebra move through the reserve, and the birdlife is constant from first light. This is their ground and you are walking through it.

The night

Far enough from a city that the sky still does what it used to do everywhere, and dark enough between the lights that you will want to stop and look up.

What you may bring, how fires work and how the reserve is to be left are set out in full in the Open Source visitor guide.

Read the visitor guide

Sprinkler mist drifting over a wood-chip forest dancefloor in daylight

The summer gathering this place holds

Open Source

18–20 December 2026

Tickets on sale
Forest canopy at night lit blue, yellow and purple, with dreamcatchers strung between the trees

And the winter one

Phoenix Festival of Fire

25–27 June 2027

Dates confirmed