Last year the buzz already was getting quite big around this annual festival amongst my friends, and a lot of people were trying to get their hands on tickets until the very last day.
In the Netherlands you have this exchange service for festival tickets which actually works surprisingly good. If you have your ticket and are not able to go, you can upload and sell it there and the system remembers the ticket number to see if it has not been sold already multiple times.
But that didn't work for this festival selling the online, because the only way to get your hands on some ticket is getting a hard copy of it. And those ones are only sold through someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows the source.
On other words, 'Woetstock' festival (you pronounce this the same as the original woodstock festival but then writing is in Dutch) you can only access if you have a connection with someone who is hosting it.
Because of this concept, you only get friendly people in there, and there is hardly any situation going on. And that is because everyone knows each other in some kinds of way. No fighting, no stealing.
BYOB
And that no stealing concept is a good thing, because this party is a BYOB concept but then with like 3000 people. For the people not familiar with this, it means 'bring your own booze' and that means nothing there is sold, and everyone just brings their coolers with drinks.
As you can see here, that means that there are coolers everywhere and that makes it look even more funny.
Honestly I can get where this is coming from. No booze permit means it is a lot easier to get that permit from somewhere to organize this festival. But also for the consumers it means that this festival is not about making as much money and profit as possible, which is usually done on the drinks.
It is means with only the entrance fee of the festival, which you can see has been spent very well on the lights and speakers and stuff, and you own booze this can turn into a quite cheap day on the town compared to regular festivals at the moment.
Also included? Free food just to pick up. No hassle on that (even though there were not enough stands, heck you need to eat something right?)
On to the music
Another thing of this concept of everyone who knows everyone: The people DJ-ing and playing there, no one gets paid out of this, it is all about the honor getting to play there and bring some friends along with you.
And the people walking around and making sure the dixies are still stocked? All volunteers. Everyone just wants to be here and that is a cool concept.
Ow yeah, the music! Honestly, it wasn't the most cup of tea for me as I prefer some heavier more upbeat music. But I also very much enjoy the concept of have some summer beats in an outdoor space, and when the sun is out...Well let's say it doesn't have to be such heavy music then anymore.
And just having a festival in the woods brings really something extra if you ask me. The whole lighting with the trees as a backdrop, that just really finishes it all off.
I mean come on, look at the red lights from the distance and the smoke in there, isn't this something magical?
One of the finer views of the scene if you ask me
Ow yeah back to the music. So no particular names playing there except for that two friends were playing and that of course then becomes the storyline of where you are heading throughout the day.
But I was surprised by all of the nice things hearing in the different stages, yeah there are 4 stages here. Unbelievable that all of this is organized just by a group of passionate people who have zero intentions of making a profit out of it at all.
And that does something with the vibe everywhere. There is hardly any littering because everyone knows this is all done by volunteers to clean it up again, and half of the people of the festival are volunteer, so you get it. That does something with the atmosphere were everyone comes together. Everyone wants this small festival in the small town to continue to exist, so there is no bullshit going on.
Strange how the human brain works then right?
In other words, this was a very fun and successful day and I enjoyed to the fullest. The only question now that remains is, how do I get my hands on a hard copy ticket next year?