This was my 4th Mysteryland and somehow. something was different.
For the last 3 years, ML has always been the "best festival of the year" for me. So I thought: This can't fail. "weer of geen weer". After a (finally!) perfect Decibel last week, I was really looking forward to this.
ML has always been a good chance for me to get rid of a lot of money. Mostly because of too many or too few tickets. I think that's what happens, if you don't want "anybody to miss that best-party-of-the-year". This year, 80€ was far over-the-top. But hey, I also would have paid 1000€ for the Q-stage in 2008! (I hope, noone from ID&T reads this
The day started out well until I got a very expensive SMS saying "sorry, got too drunk yesterday. Won't be there today". That left me with an extra ticket and ~60km, because I was already on the way. AND: Why would someone build a "snelweg met gevoelt 10 spooren" and a tempolimit of 100 (A2). Very annoying if you live in Duitsland
Parking:
Hasn't been much of a problem the last years. The only anoying thing: The long walk to the terrain. So I tried something else and went to P-Zuid (~16:00) which was only a few meters from the entrance. WOW! Finally this seemed to start out well! (same thing on the way back. ~23:45 op de snelweg!) The only reasons to NOT complain about the 14 euros for parking.
The party (or kind of. ):
I came to ML for Q-dance and trance (I knew, that there won't be a real trance stage this year). I don't like house/electro/techno stuff, but on ML, even that has always been quite cool.
But a walk around fast felt like a "waste of time" this year. And that was not only caused by the bad weather. The mainstage was the cheapest I've seen this year. And that on the most expensive festival.
Time for me to see, what I've come for. But first: Let's stay in file "op de stomme" bridge! Can't remember having had that problem before. The Q-dance stage:
Looks good! Time to start. It felt a little smaller than previous years, but a nice concept.
Music and "geluid" were good. The weather was overall good as well. It didn't rain that often but thankfully a lot of "modder" has already been there! The next "floriade" will be in my bathroom, because I have 51% of the terrain on my shoes now.
The small river-of-trash at the Q-stage was a nice idea as well, because it gave a free view on the stage if you stould right behind it. After all, I finally had some fun at ML. And since all the other areas felt uninterresting this year, I wasn't scared to miss something elsewhere.
Wildstylez missed his flight? Who cares if you have Isaac-A²-RanD-Coone!
The endshow (Q):
Promo was not my music (except for "Drop-It" of couse). I like the newer Hardcore stuff much better than that some years ago. I would have prefered a more mainstream-approach like Evil Activities.
The end: Nice, but nothing special. Compare it to 2010! That was "monumental" -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LMn3Chr1i4
This year, it was not more than "at least present". Even at Qontinent two weeks ago, Q-dance did something amazing. And that on a party were everything else looked quite "budget".
Fazit:
- The modder was anoying
- There were far too many people
- Higher price => Cheaper stages(!)
- Didn't felt like "something to remember" this year
+ Q-dance "goed"
+ Collecting trash for free munten
+ P-Zuid
I personally found Dance Valley the better party. Even though that was completely messed up too. But especially this makes the two best comparable for me.
UDC did their best to avoid a "disaster" with budget-tickets and "mooie aankleding". ID&T just made as much money as possible.
