THE STORY
The idea for Isabelle was born at a dinner table in Saint-Tropez, after years of hosting private parties at the family home that had grown from a few hundred guests to over 1,600. What had begun as gathering among friends had outgrown itself, and with it, the ambition to turn it into something the village itself could be part of.
Isabelle takes its name from the mother of its founder, JC Murray, whose family has shared a deep connection with Saint-Tropez for more than sixty years. She shared her passion for music and dedicated much of her life to marine conservation, completing a master’s thesis on shark conservation in the French West Indies before going to pursue a PhD. The festival was conceived as a gift, a son’s homage to the woman who shaped him. She did not live to see it realised.
The festival went ahead in her name and in doing so became something greater than its origins. Not a memorial, but a living expression of what she stood for: music as a form of community, the village and its heritage as something to be cherished, and nature as something worth protecting. Her love of the ocean and her generosity of spirit remain the festival’s compass.
The festival’s emblem tells its own story – the hammerhead was the shark JC most often encountered scuba diving with his mother, belonging equally to the ocean she dedicated her life to studying and to the memories they shared within it.
What JC has built is not simply a festival. It is the continuation of a relationship with a place, carried forward through music, community and purpose – in the name of a woman whose passion for the natural world outlived her.
“Held in the historic setting of the Citadelle, Isabelle refl ects the spirit of Saint-Tropez while contributing to a cause close to our hearts.” — JC Murray, Founder
That passion has a direct expression in the festival’s charitable initiative through which a portion of every edition’s proceeds supports Fundación Malpelo, a Colombian foundation dedicated to the conservation of Malpelo Island’s marine ecosystem off the Pacific coast. The foundation’s work spans shark migration research and tagging across the Eastern Tropical Pacific corridor, enforcement against illegal fishing in partnership with the Colombian Navy, and environmental education for local fishing communities. Attendees are invited to contribute directly, and the initiative is integral to the fabric of the event rather than incidental to it.
THE 2026 LINEUP
The 2026 programme reflects the same standard of curation that has defi ned Isabelle from its fi rst edition. Michael Bibi headlines alongside Mau P, Luciano, The Martinez Brothers and Marco Carola, returning for his third consecutive year. Monolink, Gordo, Ahmed Spins, Francis Mercier and Luciano complete a lineup that spans the breadth of contemporary house and electronic music — performed not on an arena stage, but within the ancient stone walls of a seventeenth-century citadel, as the sun sets over the Mediterranean below.
FULL 2026 LINEUP (A–Z)
Ahmed Spins
Beltran
Elvis Guetta
Francis Mercier
Gordo
Jean-Marc
Lea Kdoch
Luciano
Marco Carola
Mau P
Michael Bibi
Monolink
Raphael Sinclar
Stephane Karl
The Martinez Brothers
Vanjee
