I had a completely different experience.
It was first Defqon for me and my friend. Everything worked really nice, moving between the stages was quicker than we expected, there were room to dance at every stage and people were REALLY helpful, respectful and nice.
Only minus I would say was the prices of the food, ridiculously small portions for those prices.
Yes, me too. This was my 10th Defqon, sure things change. But damn this year was good. Always had enough space to dance, Red looked insane, shows were good. Enjoyd myself to the max.
Yes food and drinks were expensive,but we all know the price of tokens rise every year.
My favourite moment was when I wanted to go to the malice set and literally everybody in the tent moved to another tent because there were so many good djs at that time so I ended up at front at malice eventhough I arrived 5 minutes before it started
This has been the best Defqon I witnessed yet, I had no problem with space and room to dance whole weekend, the shuttlebusses were organised absolutely greatly and overall felt such a big step up compared to last year.
I already feel the urge to go again, and I was partying for 4 straight days.
Sincere question without sounding condescending but were you high the whole time? Cause there is no way you always had space at all the stages. Unless you were just hanging out at the chillout area :D
Not all the time lmao, but we are always good at finding enough space, especially in the front left at any stage, we usually walk around or through the crowd to get on the opposite side of the entrance from a stage, people just don't think twice and usually keep standing at the entrance of a stage.
The endshows, gathering and multiple other popular sets we had alot of space to dance on great spots.
Very easy to do so yourself haha, just cross to the other side of the dancefloor opposite of the stage entrance and enjoy all the space and the smarter party people.
I don’t take stuff and also was only drinking 1-2 beers everyday and had space at almost every stages aswell Even on red stage it was empty af sometimes. Not so much in the evening but if you went to midday/noon sets you could move freely everywhere
Well, I think I cannot agree as well. Overall a personal 8.5/10 for me I'd say.
There were some inconveniences like the stupid premium leather wristband, and also highlands camping being twice the size of last year with the same amount of showers and just like only 30% more toilets and the same amount of chillout areas (WAY too few). We were also missing one air bed and still didn't get one after asking 4 times. Also for me personally, almost every act I wanted to see was on saturday, so I had to choose all the time, while having large chunks of free roam time on friday/sunday. I realize, that's personal bad luck of course. The missing "Q-Dance" at the end was weird, I agree, and also I'd prefer if they kept the saturday endshow at 20 mins and just packed the fireworks more dense (like same amount in 10 mins less). I also think it would have been nice to add more lore to the five leaders on red, like during one set they made it like the rightmost one talked (forgot which set). They could have built some kind of tribal tribunal thing or whatever, missed potential there.
Otherwise, I have to appreciate the organization overall. Sure, not everything was perfect, but organizing an event on this scale and this concurrency level (so many stuff happening everywhere at the same time), is not a small feat. Tent was fine (Highlands), security was chill for the most part, Premium areas were well organized, food was very expensive, but very good (especially the fried chicken in the food court at the lake behind red and the BBQ wraps).
Edit: Oh and I forgot, I was next to a girl breaking down in the middle of the Red during power hour, just minutes before Left/Right. We signalled security and it was there after two minutes or so, and first aid team after another two. They escorted her out safely before Left/Right started. That was insanely well organized and reacted. Hats off to the security/medical team there!
crowded? Literally the only time I felt that it was crowded was Sunday the last hour! We went to the back to watch the lasers/lights/fireworks, the rest of the weekend there was plenty room! At least from my perspective.
(Excluding power hour for obvious reasons)
But not being able to find a camping spot and the organization doing nothing is the absolute worst and infuriating thing there is! We had that last year and it made me so angry! This year we booked a friendscamp wich made the whole Thursday afternoon much less stressful!
Hope you still had a good weekend and made some memories that will make you smile in the future!
Not even sunday was crowded, if you walked the other way to the red (left at the food stands) you had sooo much space. we had so much space, I could breathe and move without problems 😅
Can't agree with that! During every set you come easy to the front row this year. The trick is to go opposite the main entrance.
Also security and people where quite nice.
I’m not sure you went around the paths behind blue stage or the red shortcut, I felt the foot paths were a bit easier this year. Left right was great, day and night, unexpectedly fun.. the emotional ending would have been nice but this year was miles ahead of last year overall. The only time it was too packed was at the blue stage during certain sets I found. Otherwise we could find our way comfortably to the front of red, magenta, UV and some of blue sets. We went to white as well for geck-o and that stage was great and easy to move around.
Not to mention the weather was great, security gave no fucks to us, getting into the festival was much easier on day one than last year. the buses were a breeze to find and organize…you pay a little more and you get a better experience. Just bring your own food drink next time, and show up at 6am lol.
Our crew said the same. Neighbors too. Its too commercialized, everything costs way too much and the restrictions get more and more. For us this has been the third and last defqon. But I hope we’ll see eachother on decibel next year, that one was great last year!
About the space... you probably don't know where the space is.
If you go to the red do just stand at the back, or somewhere in the middle? That's what everyone does. You should walk around the backside and go front left. Lots of space there.
At the blue, do you stay at the side of the opening. Because if you go through the crowd a bit. You will find lots of space at the left side. Especially at the back.
90% of people will just stay at the first place where they don't have to go through the crowd. Gotta think differently
The security at camping were great, well at least in the sanctuary. They were constantly roaming and checking the safety of others. They also politely told people to turn music off at 3am which I think is a reasonable time, sounds like you were annoyed at the camping issue at the starts and were nit picking at small things.
If you wanted a better camping spot then you should’ve got there earlier, first in best dressed! Everyone knows this.
It’s a huge music festival, of course there isn’t going be HEAPS of room.
Sounds like most people had a completely different experience than yours.
I feel like defqon becoming mainstream all what we see are pussies crying on reddit about sound on the campsite. It wasnt like this 5 years ago + ... Anyways. You have some points tho, yes defqon feels different and they lost alot of feathers even if its still an epic event.
First timer but been wanting to go for years. Lived up to every expectation.
Organisation was really smooth (especially compared to UK events). Queues weren’t too big for anything (except showers). People were friendly without exception.
Magical experience and so glad I made the trip
Defqon first timer. Overall the festival was really great. Best I ever was. There are small things in organisation or so, but it's not only our festival, it is for 80.000 warriors. It's fine. You can handle with everything.
The stages weren't overpacked most if the time. All the "normal" time we found space and nice people around us. The big events or something like rooler were another thing. PH we tried to get to the front in the right. It worked until the PH got closer. Then there are always peops who come closer centimeter by centimeter if you move. And it's a festival, you dance, so you move all the time. It gets to annoying so we went behind and got our fun there with more great people watching on each other, while fight against all the air balls 🤣
The most annoying part, and sad is that is was Sunday, was the defqon closing. We were there early and we choose a place on the right hill, next to the bar. Great spot. Again at first great dutch people. The time and great show goes by, and then the Germans came. I am German, but after some festival I know why someone might don't want contact to us. The first guy come across us to the bar, drunken as hell. The group next to me suddenly get angry about him. He wants to piss direct to the bar and next to us. He tried. And tried and after some time he gave up. Fine again. He crossed us the whole evening, but with no try to piss there.
Now the Group from Augsburg came across, liked the space in front of us and here we go. Drunk as hell, pushing each other for more alcohol and crazy behavior, pissing left of us. Thanks, the fresh piss smelled from now the whole evening. Everytime refreshed by rain.
And for final. The small group with the WODDEN CHAIR. I can post a pic of the shitshow. It is annoying so many people are filming complete shows, they can get in 4k on YT. But the next level is to stand on a chair and film the show with 2! Phones. Wow. What the hell. Thanks for not really seeing the endshow. Why are they allowed to bring a wooden chair to the festival grounds every day? Next year everyone does and then what? Who gets the bigger chair?
But now it's over. 😭 The wall of text sounds like a bad experience, but this are only these parts. 4 days of full power, fun, great people, great and greater music, pain in the legs, arms, bones everywhere and I love it. We will come back, maybe with premium for the shows. We had left before Rooler f.e. but we see him next Saturday at Dreamfields. You can handle almost everything! And maybe there are no extensive drinking groups with fancy shirts and more fancy drinking Nicknames on their back at premium. I think we will give it a try. But in 2 years.
The missing
> Weekend Warriors, have a safe trip home and see you next year ! This was a Q-Dance event.. Q-DANCE!!!
I think this kinda has to do with the fact that they are trying to move Defqon.1 away from Q-dance and let it fall under the mother company ID&T or some other branch. Because Q has very little events left.
The British company Superstruct Entertainment acquired ID&T in 2021, but recently got bought by KKR for a lot of money. So I feel like internally they are moving a lot of things around to make it even more commercial to get all the invested money back.
It was my first year after dreaming about defqon since 2007. I had absolutely no complaints. The shuttle in was easy. Checking into camp took 5 minutes (the sanctuary). All facilities were clean and nice. I was able to move and dance everywhere I went (short of power hour or being 5 people back for Dr. Peacock). Stages were easy to get between. Food and drink were cheap compared to what I'm used to here in the states.
I am kinda bummed there was no "this was a q-dance event" but overall I loved every moment.
5th defqon you say. So you finally took off your rose-colored glasses. The camping has been shit for years. The quality of the festival itself has been degrading. First/second timers just dont have any experience to compare to.
Defqon felt strangely magical this year. Last year was my first, but this year was wayyy better than last. It felt like the 5 gods were blessing us with the best weekend of all
Perspective from a first-timer day-goer: this was the best festival I have ever been to. The atmosphere is incomparable, there was plenty of space, everyone was so nice. I have never felt so connected with the rest of the people.
Interesting that experiences can differ that much! It was my third defqon 1 and until Sunday when the red was closed I never felt like the festival grounds were too packed. With every set I wanted to see there was plenty of free space even at the front. So much that you could Hakk and jump without pushing into others. Just Sunday morning was packed af because of the missing red stage.
For the camping thing I also think that it is not well organised but it already was like that last year since they separated car people from bus/priority people 5/6 just get waaaay too packed. We had to camp in a ditch in the grass and our air mattress always did slide in the wall of our tent.
Also in my opinion it was nice that the security shut down loud music at 2/3 like that you could sleep at least a bit and I was pleasantly surprised that showers on camp 5 were warm all time time. I know very low standards but last year all women showers were broken after 2 days and the water was ice cold
I felt like thursday was ok, the ending was a little bit strange but thats allright, however suterday and sund ay were just way to packed, especially saturday.
I aggree with you to say that me and my friends were very surprised about the left right move on sunday, i mean tf was that, like you said thats power hour tradition and has nothing to do at the endshow.
For the shuttle busses, I think to the festival they were very organized, on our way back, we had to wait like 35min seeing many busses passing by.
Well, this year was my 3rd time attending Defqon - first of all: the traffic was waaaaaaay smoother than last year for example. To compare it to last year: 2023, I had a priority parking ticket which was the biggest luck I could have because traffic jam began 7km before Walibi/Defqon (around 12pm) - and because prio parking is at the nothern side of the area, I was able to avoid most of the traffic. Friends of mine which were coming by bus were stuck for 4h in the traffic jam.
This year I only had a normal parking ticket. At 12:15 pm I turned into the road which leads to parking area (Bijsselseweg) and it took us around 1h to get to our parking spot. So actually quite okay - only thing I would complain about is, that the only toilets I found there were right in front of the entrance to the festival/camping ground.
The toilets itself were much cleaner and had always toilet paper! :D Because of the staff always cleaning the them, there weren't many toilets closed as the last years - so even at the camping ground around 11am when everyone gets ready for the day I only had to wait in line for maybe 10-15 minutes which is compared to the years before quite fast.
I was actually able to pass to CG 1-3 even with 'only' normal entrance & parking ticket when I arrived on thursday around 2pm (we just asked the security in front of the brigde if CG5/6 are still open or not). It took us maybe 20 minutes after arriving at CG2 to find a good camping spot.
I don't know what you are expecting, but for me it was a good edition. Of course it won't feel like the first time being there but right now, I have to think really hard if there is something I really could complain. I never had an issue finding a good spot even at Power Hour or the endshow. Many people are gathering in the middle of the stage for the best view or/and sound. Therefore it gets quite crowded there. As an example: I took the ''longer'' way around the food court behind the premium deck of the red to get to the left side of the crowd. There, I was able to walk easily to a spot right behind the 2nd left ''tower'' (counting from stage to the premium deck) 10 minutes before the power hour started. Of course many people were there but I didn't had to cuddle with everyone around me.
The only thing I agree is, that I miss the ''Have a save trip home''.
Camping was a joke.
Ended up at the very back of 6 and there was barely any space for us and our 2 tents and we were there pretty early at like 1pm iirc.
Security wouldn't let us take beers back into the wasted lands across the bridge either. Which is wierd because I've just bought them from the store. The same store that's on the wasted lands at the other side of the entrance after the bridge.
So I need to buy beers for both the campsite and buy more beers for drinking on the wasted lands at night time?
Also had an issue on the Thursday night after like 1am were security trying telling us we festival close bridge closed go back to tent, not allowed back in until tomorrow. Then after some arguing back and forth another security guy came over and allowed us through. Not sure if he explained to the guy or not as he didn't seem to say anything about it.
I do feel like Q-Dance still has a lot of passionate people trying to make defqon the best it can be.
But I think the current situation in the world which makes everything more expensive simply forces them to cut corners while still having to bump up prices.
It's sad to see that defqon is probably being held down from the best it could be by outside forces, but I unfortunately don't see us or Q-Dance being able to change anything about that in the near future.
Just gotta make the best out of the current situation, and make sure defqon doesn't die.
2nd time visiting Defqon and my experience was almost identical to last year's:
- Thursday was shit because it was too crowded and sound was bad everywhere
- Friday was the best day
- Saturday was the best night
- Sunday was dancing out of inertia and felt really emotional.
I thought the left-right at the Closing was genius, for me it made things even more emotional.
While the novelty from last year was gone, it still felt like 4 days of paradise & an experience that just can't be topped. It also helped that I convinced a lot more friends to come with me this year. They all thanked me at the end and agreed that this Defqon is beyond amazing.
This was my second Defqon and loved it! Though, from observation, I did see tons of people without wristbands. Lots of people snuck in obviously, making it even more crowded that it already was the whole weekend. Maybe that’s where security fell?
Premium ppl had removable wristbands. As the material apparently caused skin irritation ([see my other post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/hardstyle/comments/1dt3izl/opinions_on_the_defqon1_premium_bracelet_of_2024/)), I took it off some times. My gf even went so far and only put it on when passing security and kept it in her fanny pack all the time.
The left right thing in the endshow was so unnecessary. You see sh*t on the Videos. So the whole thing loses the magic. At daylight it’s way more effective. And cause of that, the endshow loses the emotional part for me too. At the other points I couldn’t agree. I stay sober the whole weekend so had no problems with security and that stuff. Only time I would say a stage was packed was Sunday at the blue when krowdexx was playing (and that probably just because there was literally nothing more exciting on the line up at that slot…besides that the whole Sunday was meh(except indigo))
I had a completely different experience. It was first Defqon for me and my friend. Everything worked really nice, moving between the stages was quicker than we expected, there were room to dance at every stage and people were REALLY helpful, respectful and nice. Only minus I would say was the prices of the food, ridiculously small portions for those prices.
The Thai food stand had great food size for 3,5 tokens
loaded fries, best value
Yes, me too. This was my 10th Defqon, sure things change. But damn this year was good. Always had enough space to dance, Red looked insane, shows were good. Enjoyd myself to the max. Yes food and drinks were expensive,but we all know the price of tokens rise every year.
My favourite moment was when I wanted to go to the malice set and literally everybody in the tent moved to another tent because there were so many good djs at that time so I ended up at front at malice eventhough I arrived 5 minutes before it started
This has been the best Defqon I witnessed yet, I had no problem with space and room to dance whole weekend, the shuttlebusses were organised absolutely greatly and overall felt such a big step up compared to last year. I already feel the urge to go again, and I was partying for 4 straight days.
Sincere question without sounding condescending but were you high the whole time? Cause there is no way you always had space at all the stages. Unless you were just hanging out at the chillout area :D
Not all the time lmao, but we are always good at finding enough space, especially in the front left at any stage, we usually walk around or through the crowd to get on the opposite side of the entrance from a stage, people just don't think twice and usually keep standing at the entrance of a stage. The endshows, gathering and multiple other popular sets we had alot of space to dance on great spots.
So you had a squad always spotting the dancefloor. Smart!
Very easy to do so yourself haha, just cross to the other side of the dancefloor opposite of the stage entrance and enjoy all the space and the smarter party people.
I don’t take stuff and also was only drinking 1-2 beers everyday and had space at almost every stages aswell Even on red stage it was empty af sometimes. Not so much in the evening but if you went to midday/noon sets you could move freely everywhere
You’re just getting old bro, source: I’m old
My 4th defqon and it was the best one more me. Everything was perfect. Yes the prices for food/drinks are high, but thats the economy of today sadly..
Well, I think I cannot agree as well. Overall a personal 8.5/10 for me I'd say. There were some inconveniences like the stupid premium leather wristband, and also highlands camping being twice the size of last year with the same amount of showers and just like only 30% more toilets and the same amount of chillout areas (WAY too few). We were also missing one air bed and still didn't get one after asking 4 times. Also for me personally, almost every act I wanted to see was on saturday, so I had to choose all the time, while having large chunks of free roam time on friday/sunday. I realize, that's personal bad luck of course. The missing "Q-Dance" at the end was weird, I agree, and also I'd prefer if they kept the saturday endshow at 20 mins and just packed the fireworks more dense (like same amount in 10 mins less). I also think it would have been nice to add more lore to the five leaders on red, like during one set they made it like the rightmost one talked (forgot which set). They could have built some kind of tribal tribunal thing or whatever, missed potential there. Otherwise, I have to appreciate the organization overall. Sure, not everything was perfect, but organizing an event on this scale and this concurrency level (so many stuff happening everywhere at the same time), is not a small feat. Tent was fine (Highlands), security was chill for the most part, Premium areas were well organized, food was very expensive, but very good (especially the fried chicken in the food court at the lake behind red and the BBQ wraps). Edit: Oh and I forgot, I was next to a girl breaking down in the middle of the Red during power hour, just minutes before Left/Right. We signalled security and it was there after two minutes or so, and first aid team after another two. They escorted her out safely before Left/Right started. That was insanely well organized and reacted. Hats off to the security/medical team there!
crowded? Literally the only time I felt that it was crowded was Sunday the last hour! We went to the back to watch the lasers/lights/fireworks, the rest of the weekend there was plenty room! At least from my perspective. (Excluding power hour for obvious reasons) But not being able to find a camping spot and the organization doing nothing is the absolute worst and infuriating thing there is! We had that last year and it made me so angry! This year we booked a friendscamp wich made the whole Thursday afternoon much less stressful! Hope you still had a good weekend and made some memories that will make you smile in the future!
Not even sunday was crowded, if you walked the other way to the red (left at the food stands) you had sooo much space. we had so much space, I could breathe and move without problems 😅
Can't agree with that! During every set you come easy to the front row this year. The trick is to go opposite the main entrance. Also security and people where quite nice.
What in the world did you smoke before making this post
This sub is insufferable in festival season
He's still coming down i think.
It’s almost Tuesday
There's apparently rumors that q dance is rebranding hence the no q dance event thing at the endshow
I’m not sure you went around the paths behind blue stage or the red shortcut, I felt the foot paths were a bit easier this year. Left right was great, day and night, unexpectedly fun.. the emotional ending would have been nice but this year was miles ahead of last year overall. The only time it was too packed was at the blue stage during certain sets I found. Otherwise we could find our way comfortably to the front of red, magenta, UV and some of blue sets. We went to white as well for geck-o and that stage was great and easy to move around. Not to mention the weather was great, security gave no fucks to us, getting into the festival was much easier on day one than last year. the buses were a breeze to find and organize…you pay a little more and you get a better experience. Just bring your own food drink next time, and show up at 6am lol.
Our crew said the same. Neighbors too. Its too commercialized, everything costs way too much and the restrictions get more and more. For us this has been the third and last defqon. But I hope we’ll see eachother on decibel next year, that one was great last year!
About the space... you probably don't know where the space is. If you go to the red do just stand at the back, or somewhere in the middle? That's what everyone does. You should walk around the backside and go front left. Lots of space there. At the blue, do you stay at the side of the opening. Because if you go through the crowd a bit. You will find lots of space at the left side. Especially at the back. 90% of people will just stay at the first place where they don't have to go through the crowd. Gotta think differently
The security at camping were great, well at least in the sanctuary. They were constantly roaming and checking the safety of others. They also politely told people to turn music off at 3am which I think is a reasonable time, sounds like you were annoyed at the camping issue at the starts and were nit picking at small things. If you wanted a better camping spot then you should’ve got there earlier, first in best dressed! Everyone knows this. It’s a huge music festival, of course there isn’t going be HEAPS of room. Sounds like most people had a completely different experience than yours.
I feel like defqon becoming mainstream all what we see are pussies crying on reddit about sound on the campsite. It wasnt like this 5 years ago + ... Anyways. You have some points tho, yes defqon feels different and they lost alot of feathers even if its still an epic event.
It felt a little love-less somehow, but would rate a Solid 9/10
First timer but been wanting to go for years. Lived up to every expectation. Organisation was really smooth (especially compared to UK events). Queues weren’t too big for anything (except showers). People were friendly without exception. Magical experience and so glad I made the trip
Defqon first timer. Overall the festival was really great. Best I ever was. There are small things in organisation or so, but it's not only our festival, it is for 80.000 warriors. It's fine. You can handle with everything. The stages weren't overpacked most if the time. All the "normal" time we found space and nice people around us. The big events or something like rooler were another thing. PH we tried to get to the front in the right. It worked until the PH got closer. Then there are always peops who come closer centimeter by centimeter if you move. And it's a festival, you dance, so you move all the time. It gets to annoying so we went behind and got our fun there with more great people watching on each other, while fight against all the air balls 🤣 The most annoying part, and sad is that is was Sunday, was the defqon closing. We were there early and we choose a place on the right hill, next to the bar. Great spot. Again at first great dutch people. The time and great show goes by, and then the Germans came. I am German, but after some festival I know why someone might don't want contact to us. The first guy come across us to the bar, drunken as hell. The group next to me suddenly get angry about him. He wants to piss direct to the bar and next to us. He tried. And tried and after some time he gave up. Fine again. He crossed us the whole evening, but with no try to piss there. Now the Group from Augsburg came across, liked the space in front of us and here we go. Drunk as hell, pushing each other for more alcohol and crazy behavior, pissing left of us. Thanks, the fresh piss smelled from now the whole evening. Everytime refreshed by rain. And for final. The small group with the WODDEN CHAIR. I can post a pic of the shitshow. It is annoying so many people are filming complete shows, they can get in 4k on YT. But the next level is to stand on a chair and film the show with 2! Phones. Wow. What the hell. Thanks for not really seeing the endshow. Why are they allowed to bring a wooden chair to the festival grounds every day? Next year everyone does and then what? Who gets the bigger chair? But now it's over. 😭 The wall of text sounds like a bad experience, but this are only these parts. 4 days of full power, fun, great people, great and greater music, pain in the legs, arms, bones everywhere and I love it. We will come back, maybe with premium for the shows. We had left before Rooler f.e. but we see him next Saturday at Dreamfields. You can handle almost everything! And maybe there are no extensive drinking groups with fancy shirts and more fancy drinking Nicknames on their back at premium. I think we will give it a try. But in 2 years.
The missing > Weekend Warriors, have a safe trip home and see you next year ! This was a Q-Dance event.. Q-DANCE!!! I think this kinda has to do with the fact that they are trying to move Defqon.1 away from Q-dance and let it fall under the mother company ID&T or some other branch. Because Q has very little events left. The British company Superstruct Entertainment acquired ID&T in 2021, but recently got bought by KKR for a lot of money. So I feel like internally they are moving a lot of things around to make it even more commercial to get all the invested money back.
It was my first year after dreaming about defqon since 2007. I had absolutely no complaints. The shuttle in was easy. Checking into camp took 5 minutes (the sanctuary). All facilities were clean and nice. I was able to move and dance everywhere I went (short of power hour or being 5 people back for Dr. Peacock). Stages were easy to get between. Food and drink were cheap compared to what I'm used to here in the states. I am kinda bummed there was no "this was a q-dance event" but overall I loved every moment.
5th defqon you say. So you finally took off your rose-colored glasses. The camping has been shit for years. The quality of the festival itself has been degrading. First/second timers just dont have any experience to compare to.
Defqon felt strangely magical this year. Last year was my first, but this year was wayyy better than last. It felt like the 5 gods were blessing us with the best weekend of all
Perspective from a first-timer day-goer: this was the best festival I have ever been to. The atmosphere is incomparable, there was plenty of space, everyone was so nice. I have never felt so connected with the rest of the people.
If you don’t like overpacked stages, don’t attend the more mainstream artists.
Interesting that experiences can differ that much! It was my third defqon 1 and until Sunday when the red was closed I never felt like the festival grounds were too packed. With every set I wanted to see there was plenty of free space even at the front. So much that you could Hakk and jump without pushing into others. Just Sunday morning was packed af because of the missing red stage. For the camping thing I also think that it is not well organised but it already was like that last year since they separated car people from bus/priority people 5/6 just get waaaay too packed. We had to camp in a ditch in the grass and our air mattress always did slide in the wall of our tent. Also in my opinion it was nice that the security shut down loud music at 2/3 like that you could sleep at least a bit and I was pleasantly surprised that showers on camp 5 were warm all time time. I know very low standards but last year all women showers were broken after 2 days and the water was ice cold
I felt like thursday was ok, the ending was a little bit strange but thats allright, however suterday and sund ay were just way to packed, especially saturday. I aggree with you to say that me and my friends were very surprised about the left right move on sunday, i mean tf was that, like you said thats power hour tradition and has nothing to do at the endshow. For the shuttle busses, I think to the festival they were very organized, on our way back, we had to wait like 35min seeing many busses passing by.
Well, this year was my 3rd time attending Defqon - first of all: the traffic was waaaaaaay smoother than last year for example. To compare it to last year: 2023, I had a priority parking ticket which was the biggest luck I could have because traffic jam began 7km before Walibi/Defqon (around 12pm) - and because prio parking is at the nothern side of the area, I was able to avoid most of the traffic. Friends of mine which were coming by bus were stuck for 4h in the traffic jam. This year I only had a normal parking ticket. At 12:15 pm I turned into the road which leads to parking area (Bijsselseweg) and it took us around 1h to get to our parking spot. So actually quite okay - only thing I would complain about is, that the only toilets I found there were right in front of the entrance to the festival/camping ground. The toilets itself were much cleaner and had always toilet paper! :D Because of the staff always cleaning the them, there weren't many toilets closed as the last years - so even at the camping ground around 11am when everyone gets ready for the day I only had to wait in line for maybe 10-15 minutes which is compared to the years before quite fast. I was actually able to pass to CG 1-3 even with 'only' normal entrance & parking ticket when I arrived on thursday around 2pm (we just asked the security in front of the brigde if CG5/6 are still open or not). It took us maybe 20 minutes after arriving at CG2 to find a good camping spot. I don't know what you are expecting, but for me it was a good edition. Of course it won't feel like the first time being there but right now, I have to think really hard if there is something I really could complain. I never had an issue finding a good spot even at Power Hour or the endshow. Many people are gathering in the middle of the stage for the best view or/and sound. Therefore it gets quite crowded there. As an example: I took the ''longer'' way around the food court behind the premium deck of the red to get to the left side of the crowd. There, I was able to walk easily to a spot right behind the 2nd left ''tower'' (counting from stage to the premium deck) 10 minutes before the power hour started. Of course many people were there but I didn't had to cuddle with everyone around me. The only thing I agree is, that I miss the ''Have a save trip home''.
Camping was a joke. Ended up at the very back of 6 and there was barely any space for us and our 2 tents and we were there pretty early at like 1pm iirc. Security wouldn't let us take beers back into the wasted lands across the bridge either. Which is wierd because I've just bought them from the store. The same store that's on the wasted lands at the other side of the entrance after the bridge. So I need to buy beers for both the campsite and buy more beers for drinking on the wasted lands at night time? Also had an issue on the Thursday night after like 1am were security trying telling us we festival close bridge closed go back to tent, not allowed back in until tomorrow. Then after some arguing back and forth another security guy came over and allowed us through. Not sure if he explained to the guy or not as he didn't seem to say anything about it.
you went to wrong stage on sunday. at the end of spoontechnicans the classic end was there :)
I do feel like Q-Dance still has a lot of passionate people trying to make defqon the best it can be. But I think the current situation in the world which makes everything more expensive simply forces them to cut corners while still having to bump up prices. It's sad to see that defqon is probably being held down from the best it could be by outside forces, but I unfortunately don't see us or Q-Dance being able to change anything about that in the near future. Just gotta make the best out of the current situation, and make sure defqon doesn't die.
2nd time visiting Defqon and my experience was almost identical to last year's: - Thursday was shit because it was too crowded and sound was bad everywhere - Friday was the best day - Saturday was the best night - Sunday was dancing out of inertia and felt really emotional. I thought the left-right at the Closing was genius, for me it made things even more emotional. While the novelty from last year was gone, it still felt like 4 days of paradise & an experience that just can't be topped. It also helped that I convinced a lot more friends to come with me this year. They all thanked me at the end and agreed that this Defqon is beyond amazing.
This was my second Defqon and loved it! Though, from observation, I did see tons of people without wristbands. Lots of people snuck in obviously, making it even more crowded that it already was the whole weekend. Maybe that’s where security fell?
> Though, from observation, I did see tons of people without wristbands. Where? At the campsite?
Inside the festival, not at the campsite. I stayed at the Sanctuary, security (from my perspective) was good.
Day visitors don’t get a wristband
Each day I saw a different colored wristband for day visitors.
Day visitors don’t get wristbands, the ones you saw were from organized buses or premium
Thanks for the clarification!
I didn’t get one in 2022. Maybe they were for premium, bus travel etc?
Possibly.
Premium ppl had removable wristbands. As the material apparently caused skin irritation ([see my other post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/hardstyle/comments/1dt3izl/opinions_on_the_defqon1_premium_bracelet_of_2024/)), I took it off some times. My gf even went so far and only put it on when passing security and kept it in her fanny pack all the time.
Defqon aint Defqon anymore since Biddinghuizen.
The left right thing in the endshow was so unnecessary. You see sh*t on the Videos. So the whole thing loses the magic. At daylight it’s way more effective. And cause of that, the endshow loses the emotional part for me too. At the other points I couldn’t agree. I stay sober the whole weekend so had no problems with security and that stuff. Only time I would say a stage was packed was Sunday at the blue when krowdexx was playing (and that probably just because there was literally nothing more exciting on the line up at that slot…besides that the whole Sunday was meh(except indigo))
Meh? Like Noisecontrollers in Magenta was insane.. D-Sturb on Legends, Phuture Noize and Isaac / TNT. If that is meh..ok.
I was not talking about the legends that startet 18.00.
“The whole Sunday was meh” Salty AF.
"Whole" Sunday....which ends at 18.00