Review: Mysteryland 2014

Last Saturday (23-08-14) Mysteryland celebrated its 21st edition on the Floriade recreation area in Holland. The longest running music festival worldwide was, once again, completely sold out and ready to amaze with it\’s line-up and unique atmosphere. 60.000 people traveled from all over the globe to watch major artists like NERVO, Kaskade, Steve Aoki, Pendulum (DJ Set), Boys Noize, Coone, Carnage and Sigma.

For me, it was the first time visiting this magical festival hidden in the woods. After parking my car and walking for about 20 minutes through the forest I entered the terrain where the beats came at me instantly from all directions. Just looking around was enough to understand why the festival is called \’Mysteryland\’. On my left there was the impressive mainstage, build out of gigantic cards. On my right there was a forest filled with art. Huge lit up lampshades, dragons, balloons, it was all way too much to see in one sighting and even now I feel like I\’ve missed things.

The terrain consisted out of 2 huge areas featuring 21 stages connected by a bridge. In between you could find a collections of rarities and relax zones including a huge pineapple pina colada bar made out of balloons, a wooden totem pole, a jazz club, a geisha\’s paradise and even a huge golden Chinese \’Lucky Cat\’ statue.

Mysteryland will be visited for the full experience, but most of the attendees will be there to see their favorite DJ\’s play live. My personal favorite sets were performed by NERVO who always put so much love and energy in their sets, Steve Aoki with his iconic cake throwing and a really fun Drum & Bass B2B set by Dutch artists Nymfo & Karimooo who replaced Rusko because of illness.

Before the festival came to a close we were treated with a huge firework show which took place from the mainstage. I will definitely be going back next year now I know what I can expect. I will then also be paying more detail to the smaller works of art that are hidden everywhere. There are currently talks about expanding the festival over an entire weekend so we could even have a multi-day festival next year.

Final score:
Atmosphere: 10/10
Line-up: 09/10
Sound quality: 08/10
Location: 08/10
Stage setup: 08/10

One small point of attention for the organization is definitely the signage to and in the car park. Parking your car at day it\’s fairly easy. Finding it back at night is a totally different matter. Maybe they could divide the parking areas in letters and make sure the roads are better lit next year.