Why EDC Korea? No, no, it's not quite a case of "collect them all", although, is it? :) The actual answer is that I enjoy travelling the world through festivals and getting to meet fellow EDM and Trance lovers around the world. Every country has their own customs and flair, and it's nice to see PLUR around the world indeed.
so glad to see the ever cheerful and colorful insomniac entertainers
and we had a meetup with the international EDC crew :)
The Grounds... How was EDC in Asia and how does it compare with EDCLV, EDCMX, and EDC Orlando?
So let's get this out of the way first in case that wasn't already obvious: nothing in the world compares with EDC Las Vegas, as far as "wow" factor goes, and that includes the other EDC editions, that are lovely, but simply not as big. I haven't been to every EDC location, but I do believe EDC Mexico, which I did go to, is the 2nd largest, and this one probably ranks 3rd in size, just a bit ahead of EDC Orlando. No idea about EDC China since I'm still not sure about going there, and if anyone has been to EDC Thailand this year, I'd also be curious to know.
Footprint-wise, the event was pretty big, but it also had some dead space in the middle and hills that were a bit of a pain to navigate. The ground was also uneven and somehow wet in places despite no rain, that was a bit weird. But we got the stages we are used to, and they were top notch.
Kinetic field looked a lot like EDCLV!
beautiful
Stereo Bloom:
Circuit Grounds:
Bionic Jungle:
Boom Box:
It wasn't the plan, but this ended up not only being the coldest EDC I've been to, but flat out the coldest festival I've been to, and that includes some cold EDC Vegas nights as well as cold Dreamstate San Bernardino nights. It was around 10C, but the wind was relentless and windchill made it feel freezing or below freezing. On day 2, I came with a full sweater and basically 3 layers on the top and I was still kind of cold. I was also wearing a ski hat below my dreamstate LED hat, and gloves. It was that cold, really.
The painful cold did not ruin our party spirits though, people soldiered on :) And double thumbs up to all the insomniac entertainers wearing those colorful outfits that did not seem that warm, and somehow surviving through those cold nights. That was some serious dedication!
how on earth did they survive, wearing this?
The Merch store lost an opportunity to sell over a thousand sweatshirts. They ran out quickly :)
that was the shortest the line ever was, it got much much longer later
There was one combined beauty/kandi station:
felt a bit weird that they were combined :)
And then there was this. Lost in translation? haha :)
There was a pretty big skydeck, I'm not sure how occupied it got, but it looked fairly nice. It was only for mainstage:
Of course a big plus of EDC is all the pretty lights. and the insomniac crew did a good job bringing a nice pixel forest to the venue:
the fire from the statue was a good place to be a big warmer in the siberia-like cold :)
And of course the were more lights:
The nearby Inspire hotel had its own:
And the fun thing was that we were a stone's throw (almost) from Seoul/Incheon International Airport, where I flew out of the next day back to SFO, but the planes were not landing over the festival, so you could not hear them and they were barely noticeable. except maybe to the pilot geeks like me :)
EDM Lovers in Korea and Asia
So I need to admit that the event wasn't packed. It ran from 17:00 to 03:00 and few people were there before sunset despite the weather not being vegas like and already cold during the day (for Vegas, you don't really want to go before sunset). I have no idea if enough people came to cover the costs the of the event, but if so, it was close, at best.
But the crowds that did come were dedicated. There were a good amount of professional kandi traders who made the event even more fun, and enough people who came with cool costumes despite the cold. Thanks to all of you.
Some professional Kandi traders :)
Plus a few pictures with friends:
Blaztoyz!
PvD!
G.O.
Marlo
The 2 days of festival
The first day, I opened the window of the hotel and thought "mmmmh, it's a bit cold, I'll put an extra layer between my t-shirt and my LED shirt (in blue in this picture):
Kataklops!
OMG, what a mistake in planning. Yeah, 10C is already cold but that not account for the siberian wind that brought the wind chill level to below freezing. I'm not going to lie, I was cold and uncomfortable the entire first day. So on Day #2, I came with a full sweater as my 3rd in between layer, a ski hat below my LED hat, and gloves. Well, even with all of that I was still kind of cold, but less uncomfortable at least:
Anyway, here are some pictures from both days:
Day 2 was trance day at Stereo Bloom:
great trance from Casepeat
and my friend Kataploks
Giuseppe Ottaviani
Paul Van Dyk
Marlo
A bit of bass at Circuit Grounds:
And what's a better way to end the night than with Blastoyz?
Because the taxi/rideshare situation, was iffy, at best, I left a tiny bit early right after Blastoyz's set, and barely got a glimpse of the very legit fireworks to close the show at mainstage. They were pretty. Too bad they were so late:
The shuttle situation was not ideal. At the time I bought tickets, or my hotel, there were no shuttles listed on the frontgate website. Maybe the shuttles were on the other korean only website, but I never heard about any until a few days before the event, by which time it was too late to matter. It was unfortunate that there was no shuttle going around the local hotels close to the venue. They were only a 5 to 10mn drive away, but it was a 30 to 45mn walk in frigid cold. Using taxis/ubers did not work well as there were not enough and once the few that were available, drove away to a farther hotel, people left over without one, were kind of screwed. I personally chose to leave early and miss part of the show not to get stuck, which was not ideal either. The fireworks at the end of the last day were really nice, but I only saw them a little bit through the taxi window.
Korea law on tickets is a bit unusual (for instance it's somewhat illegal to resell tickets), so it's probably because of that that EDC had separate ticket selling sites for Koreans (interpark) and foreigners (frontgate). Not an issue, really, just interesting. The one downside is that it was difficult to resell a ticket if you couldn't go since you had to go pick up your bracelet in person and only could resell it to someone else, there, and that was maybe not even legal:
VIP didn't really feel worth it. There were viewing areas for most stages, but they were off center quite a bit, and I didn't really see any other benefits. For instance, it was disappointing that they didn't have a bunch of gas heat lamps in VIP, huge opportunity lost. For the most part there weren't any places to sit either or a VIP concierge with cool trinkets, or nice bathrooms in most VIP areas. This is probably the first insomniac festival I went to where VIP really didn't feel worth it.
Security was reasonable outside of taking people's unopened packs of gum, and a few things like that.
Food options were good and took real money (credit cards). All good on that front. Drinks worked the same, no issues outside of water, see below...
No water refills? This was both surprising and disappointing for an insomniac event, but apparently the only water source was a single plastic bottle vendor, which claims that they are recyclable, but given that we've been lied too about plastic being recycled for the last 20+ years and most of it ends up in landfills or the ocean, I'm not going to take their word for it. More generally, what happened to water refills, especially in a 1st world country where tap water is drinkable?
This next comment is not just for this EDC, but also for EDC Vegas and others. I realize the line is fine in which advertisers and sponsors to allow. This is the same problem google had and eventually settled with Sergey's "don't be evil" motto and google not allowing any advertiser that was considered to sell evil things. I'd like insomniac to consider the same thing, and a quick search returns "No, Google Ads does not allow advertising of vape products, including e-cigarettes and e-liquids. Google classifies these products as "Dangerous Products or Services" and prohibits their promotion on Google Ads and other platforms it owns or controls. This policy also extends to Google Shopping listings." as well as "Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), Facebook Ads, and most other major platforms do not allow electronic cigarettes and vape products to advertise on their site". Now that some vape vendors have even been caught adding even more addictive synthetic chemicals in their vapes to make them even more addictive, does Insomniac really want to be linked to this?
As mentioned above, the entire festival went well, was well layed out, production quality was good and things went well for an event that was first time in that location (the last EDC Korea in 2019 was in another location). The one thing that felt short in my opinion was the VIP experience, but everything else was quite good given again that it was pretty much a "first time" thing.
Now, was this EDC remotely close to EDC Vegas? Of course not, nothing is. Even EDC Mexico definitely felt bigger and better if you wanted to travel to another EDC outside of the Vegas one, but EDC Korea still went well and was lots of fun outside of the cold. If you're in Asia or it's an easy flight, EDC Korea definitely is worth going to. If it's not an easy flight but you wanted an excuse to go visit Korea, which is very much worth visiting (that was my case), it's also a very good reason to go. The koreans at EDC were all lovely and fun to be with (as opposed to my recent report on Ultra Miami where PLUR was somewhat lacking, for instance).
Thanks to everyone who welcomed us (both the local korean trance family and EDM lovers, and the insomniac crews and entertainers)!
π
2025-04-04 01:01
in Clubbing, Dreamstate, Festivals
I cannot believe it's been 7 years already since our last 2 Day Dreamstate in San Francisco. There was a DS SF NYE last year, but that was while I was with my family in France, so I couldn't attend that. So happy this one worked out.
It was a very welcome Trancefamily SF Reunion:
David and Sony both got to open the vision stage, congratulations!
Welcome back to SF, we missed you!
Back to DS, each time there is a new venue, we always get to wonder how good it will be and what the setup will look like, and I'm happy to report that the production level was the best we've had in SF, bar none! The insomniac folks continue to be overachievers, and the dream stage was absolutely wonderful. Even the smaller vision stage had very nice lighting and lasers:
And vision was cool too:
Thanks to the magicians in the dark who made all the lights, happen
The lineup had more DJs that were lesser known to me, which is not a bad thing per se, although many played too much techno for my taste, with a few hours slots where both Vision and Dream had techno, and that was not my favorite, obviously, but clearly most of the crowd seemed happy with it, so I guess that works out (and as I've written before in my last reports, techno has been creeping in everywhere, even in what used to be a State of Trance).
Day 1
After Blur opened (sadly in the dark, so I don't have any good pictures of him), Anthony from Xijaro and Pitch, was next:
Day 1 Summary:
Day 2
of course, went to support our local boy, Sony ;)
The show (lighting and lasers) for Armin was outstanding:
Ilan proposed on stage, she said yes ;)
Day 2 Summary:
People
This was of course a great time to meet fellow trance lovers:
meetup day 1
meetup day 2
yes to people who brought LEDs!
someone stole my hat :)
Had fun taking pictures with my new and improved LED outfit freshly built for the event :)
I was ready for Anthony, this time :)
ulrich!
Kim, our former TFSF marketing lead
2 for the price of one :)
but we did better later
Triode!
then had fun with Yoji-San :)
that was his idea, brilliant ;)
Thoughts/Conclusions
Honestly, for a new venue, even for an experienced team, many things went right. As I said earlier the production value was amazing.
Of course, nothing is ever perfect, especially in a new venue. Things I noticed:
The event was close to selling out (or barely sold out) on saturday, and it was a lot of people. Enough people that the main floor access got closed multiple times, which is understandable, but it was more vexing for people with VIP tickets to also be denied access to the VIP platform, because it filled up multiple times. I guess it was tricky to get the capacity numbers, right, and they oversold VIP somewhat (since any VIP ticket holder should have guaranteed access)
Security at the entrance, was a bit too thorough and too slow, causing long lines to get in for many. Also, they did not allow totems or many things that would have normally been allowed at a festival, including Dreamstate Socal. Transparent backpacks were allowed though, and so were LEDs, at least.
if you knew where to go, there were bathrooms available, but some of the obvious ones got mobbed with very long lines, at times. This was not ideal.
Vision also had good production value for the smaller room, but too many times, the DJ wasn't lit up at all, and you couldn't tell who was playing. A bit unfortunate for them.
Too much techno for me, but some liked it. Pryda/Eric Prydz however did not seem like a fit for the event and I didn't hear anyone say they really enjoyed his set.
On the flipside, Armin who has been playing way too much techno in his sets for my taste, including at a State of Trance, did an actually quite good mostly trance set that I quite enjoyed. Goes to show, you never know ;)
The event was a success and clearly the best one we've had in San Francisco, yet.
As per the previous report on Maddix OTC, the cool thing about Winter Music Conference in Miami, is all the DJs who are there in town for the week and many end up performing at various clubs during the week, in this case after Ultra in the evening. Because Ultra is in the middle of the city, it has a midnight curfew, and that's a good way to go to parties afterwards. For Trance, La Otra had us covered with a great trance lineup: Gabriel and Dresden, Aly and Fila, Ferry Corsten, Alexander Popov, Adam Scott, Kristina Sky, John 00 Flemming, Giuseppe Ottaviani, and more...
Got to see many friend DJs again, awesome!
I was slightly worried that security at the club would be picky and difficult, but they were super nice, which was a great surprise. Thank you.
Friday Night
lots of DJs came to hang out
Lovely night, eventually had to go to bed to get a bit of sleep before the next day that started at noon at Ultra
Saturday Night
The next night, the end of UMF didn't feel essential, and I wanted to avoid the guaranteed mess it was going to be to stay until the end and hope to get an uber, so we left a bit early and went back to Otra for more trance and hanging out with more trance DJs who were also there to enjoy the night.
Before I start, I fully expect some who mostly, or only goes to Ultra to want to tell me how wrong I am, but if so, can I invite you to look at my other festival reports and try other festivals like EDC Vegas or Beyond Wonderland Socal, or Dreamstate Socal, and then come back and tell me what you think? And if you have been to many other festivals (good for you), if you feel my review is blatantly unfair or incorrect, please send me feedback (DM on FB or IG) and I will definitely hear what you have to say as well as take fixes/corrections.
Let's mix things up for fun and start with the end :)
So, let's start with the end ;)
Should you go, Would I go back?
I try to be positive and look at the bright side, I can't say Ultra was a bad experience like Creamfields, or Lumi, both in great part due to terrible security teams, but overall it was on the disappointing side for a top world festival that's been around for so long. Why is that?
They are stuck in a place that's too small. I'm told they did try to move to the island across the bridge, but that did not work out.
I actually feel they did about as good a job with the footprint they have, clearly they had many years to refine it. Sound bleed was limited, at least 3 stages were quite good, but the other ones were ok-ish at best, like the psytrance stage on day 2 that had two big trees in front of it and blocked most pictures of the DJs and LED board with their name
Ok, except for mainstage. It was borderline a death trap if you were on the wrong side and were hoping to get out during a bit set. Getting around was almost impossible during the bigger sets at night. Worse, if you were in the middle and you did secure an ok spot, there was a constant stream of people crossing and pushing in all directions, pretty much 0 PLUR on that front
I do want to give thanks to all the fine folks who did spread PLUR and smiles, but there weren't enough of them.
And back to the mainstage problem, there were 2 stags on the other side, and they were almost impossible to get to or out of without getting past mainstage, which was super hard at times. There was no path around or behind that could get you across (or at least none that I found).
This is where you'd tell me I should have paid for VIP, which given it was over $1000 felt unreasonable given that Ultra is nowhere close to EDC and does not warrant prices like this, I've read that the experience in VIP was also not great (too many people) but I didn't get to check for myself.
oh, did I saw $1000 for VIP? It was actually between $1500 and $2000, a complete joke
The ASOT stage was actually ok and easy to get in and out, although the entire dancefloor was quite slanted which can be an issue if you're actually dancing
The techno stage (Resistance) was quite decent and the only one that survived during the terrible rain storm on sunday
Yeah, the rain, it's florida, the stage I usually avoid because I'm not a fan of unpredictable terrible weather and hurricanes. Despite Ultra being early in the season, as weather is worsening and becoming more unpredictable worldwide, last year had torrential rains during the event, and this year was even worse, 4H of very heavy rain, rain that was so bad that all stages shut down but one, and the last one was only kept running thanks to the heroics of the tech steams that were literally dealing with enough water to collapse the entire structure and flood the DJ booth
So the sunday lineup was greatly impacted, many DJs never got to play their sets, and unfortunately Ultra never pushed schedule updates to their own app (apparently you had to know to go on some website that did have an updated lineup somewhere).
Speaking about the app, it was plain bad for a festival of that caliber. It had one job, to show the schedule and let you save what you wanted to see, and then just show that. It failed miserably at that one job on both Android and IOS. Worse, on Android the app really completely did not even show Armin playing mainstage at all, despite multiple attempts on several days. Come on Ultra, you can do better
just to show I'm not joking, notice the hole at 1750 after Morten, that's where Armin was...
Another thing I was not overly impressed with was the security at the entrance. They were not creamfields bad, or lumi bad, but the security line on Friday was pretty ridiculous (almost 1h30) probably because they were too thorough until they were told not to on the 2nd day, but come on, it's not the first time they do this. At the same time, there were not enough lines for a festival that big, hence the ridiculous lines with no fewer than 4 helicopters hovering and recording this entire line barely moving, probably for local TV news (but with 4 different helis, just to make sure). Kind of pathetic, really.
I got lucky with security on day 1, but day 2, it got down to "why do you have 5 USB cables, you need to leave some behind" as well as "you have too many safety pins (aroudn 10) in this tiny plastic bag, you need to leave half behind" (barely paraphrased). They were nice enough to let me in with my 2 phones, 2 handheld cameras, and multiple USB battery packs, as well as the LED outfit (unlike creamfields and lumi), but they made me leave behind LED shoelaces, a backup small raspberry pi microcomputer (size of a matchbox), and other semi expensive gear I had to abandon in a plastic bag outside and hope it would still be there on my way out. Of course, my brand new LED outfit I was testing, broke during the day and was super hard to fix without all the things I was forced to leave outside (I then had to leave early that night to get them back before security left and got lucky it didn't rain), I totally understand security guidelines are not trivial and I bring random looking unusual stuff :) but they sure acted very random and confused about what to do. I used the opportunity that I had to get my bag back on night 2 to show them why I was carrying that stuff (i.e. my outfit working at night), and after that they were cool and nice the next day. Thanks to them.
always good to make friends :)
but earlier that day, I really struggled to fix my brand new LED outfit without my tools. Not fun...
and I still need to re-state that the tech teams did a pretty incredible job given all the challenges they have to deal with, including massive rain.
as for the money machine part, it feels that they could be more generous. For starters, a few DJ'ing at the event only got a single day wristband. Not even a wristband to go to the other 2 days. That feels petty :-
But yeah, unless you live in Miami, you should go to Beyond Wonderland instead, it's not even close ;) (hell, even if you live in Miami, unless you can't fly, you really should consider Beyond, it's so much better on about all levels). And seriously, if you don't find $2000 insulting for VIP tickets for an overcrowded show in a small park, I'm not sure what to say...
All that said, let's get back to reviewing the Ultra Festival itself:
Grounds
as mentioned above, getting in sucked. Almost 1h30 in line to get through security, unacceptable
finally through, but took so long that we missed the entire first set plus half of Ruben's set
the park is otherwise pretty
it's fun to party in such a location with such a background
People
as I mentioned, Ultra could use more PLUR, but there were still some folks who were wearing fun outfits, and kandi trading opportunities ;)
The Torrential Rain on Day 3
Day 3 was a complete clusterfudge. It was raining hard, and I mean hard for hours in a row. We were denied entry for 30mn or so while lightening was going on, and then they did let us in, but only one stage was running, and barely given the Noah's Ark levels of rain:
yeah, you don't say...
'friday' was a mistake, it was sunday
that's the amount of water in the air
eventually water got in and was trying to flood the DJ booth
the ASOT worldwide stage was actually quite decent, but it was sad to arrive 90mn late and miss
missed half of Ruben de Ronde due to the very slow security, but the 2nd half was very enjoyable
Nifra went more into Techno, as she has been doing recently
Miss Monique was playing at the real Techno stage, next door
live stage
then, back for Maddix
the visuals were not bad
ending with a b2b2b
The next day was psytrance day:
unfortunate stage location with trees in front of it
mainstage earlier in the afternoon, was bearable, and honestly the only time it was worth being there. After that, it was so overcrowded that it was unbearable:
randomly found Armin playing at mainstage, which was not announced at all in the android app ("you had one job, ultra...")"
Didn't stay that much longer that evening since security had half my stuff (hundreds of dollars worse) at the gate and were going to leave at 22:30 from what they said, so I left early to get my bag back, but that was a plus since the afterparty at Otra was loads of fun
After the Day 3 rain I described above, many hours later, the rain subsided, but it took a while for the stages to re-open:
We still got a few fireworks at night:
the drone show was not fully visible unless you were at mainstage, which was flooded and crowded
Ended the night with Above and Beyond, but left 15mn before the end to avoid being left with no ride out at all (not enough ubers):
And that qas it for Ultra!
Conclusions/Suggestions
Honestly, Ultra has been running for long enough, I doubt that they care about feedback. They have a money machine like tomorrowland (except TMRL is actually not overcrowded in comparison and the footprint is many times better), the place is small enough that even by overselling it, it's not really that many people, so if they lose a bunch, more will come. That said, if I have to list just a few:
the current location is too small for the amount of people coming. It's a disservice to people who buy tickets to sell that many for that location
more security lines to improve flow and maybe a bit of extra training for them on what true threats are (and that's not an easy topic). Taking USB cables or replacement LED shoelaces from someone to prevent risk of strangling (and I mean, come on, how many people have been strangled by shoelaces in festivals) is utterly pointless if they are wearing shoelaces already and those shoes are allowed in.
waterproofing more stages?
offering a lot more covered areas given the very obvious chance of terrible rain.
For attendees, as I said before, the obvious answers are to go to Beyond Wonderland Socal and EDC Vegas instead.
But how about WMC, Winter Music Conference
Well, half unexpectedly, as much as Ultra was not bad but not super enjoyable either, the parties before/after were actually a lot of fun. It was nice to be able to hang out with all the DJs that were in town anyway due to WMC. I wouldn't say it's worth for me to go back to Miami just for the out of UMC, but if going to Miami is easy and doesn't conflict with snowboarding plans ;) it's a fair amount of club parties all in one place over a few days.
Sunday night had another party, but I had an early flight monday morning to go directly to tahoe to catch a snow storm :)
The parties were definitely fun, maybe not flying across the US or the world, for, but if you're already there, absolutely worth going to, and in some ways, they were more enjoyable than UMF itself.
One nice thing about Winter Music Conference in Miami, is all the DJs who are there in town for the week and many end up performing at various clubs during the week, before or during Ultra. You can actually spend the week in town and go to parties all week without ever going to Ultra itself.
Maddix did the first party we went to, a 7H OTC at Mad Club Wynwood, with lots of B2Bs with other DJs who were in town. It was an interesting mix of different kinds of techno depending on which DJ was playing for that slot.
I was slightly worried that security at the club would be picky and difficult, but they were super nice, which was a great surprise. Thank you.
nice neighborhood
Randomly found a few people outside while heading out ;)
So, every time I went to see a laser show, from someone else, including Gareth's Laser City shows (and honestly I preferred "laserface" to "laser city" as a name), my reaction was unfortuantely always "it was nice, but laserface 2018 was (so) much better. Nothing has come close since then". Until today.
Ok, Bill Graham is a very nice venue, so that helped, but this time was the first time that Gareth brought more lasers than 2018 and made a great show out of it, and it was super impressive. This is now the new benchmark as the best laser show ever!
warning, lasers will be in use, haha
Arrived early to meet friends and attempt to get a good seat for the show. To be honest, the 2 opening DJs didn't play anything to write home about, it was burning time for the next 3H until Gareth would start. I'm sure they're not even bad DJs, but I'm guessing they had clear instructions not to shine too much, bummer...
So it was a good time to meet friends and take pictures :)
maybe not visible, but I also had the new prototype of my thinner and flexible LED outfit
The 2 DJs I had never heard about before: Robot Sunrise and Vision V:
sold out!
and then the countdown for Gareth
And finally the real sho started at 22:20:
a lot more vertical lasers:
but I prefered this
One treat like previous shows, is having Annabel join and sing, and this time as per my previous feedback, they got the lighting right so that you could see them on stage, which was another nice improvemnt:
did Gareth manage to play live plus mix live by himself? If so, super impressive
The cyberpunk storyline was a nice addition:
The lasers got even prettier around the end:
The whole show was 90mn, it didn't last that long, but it was beyond excellent. Gareth didn't play as much trance as he did in 2018, but I didn't expect he would, times have changed and 7 years later trance is not loved by as many people anymore. On the plus side, I did like the music selection he picked, so that was all good.
The one question the engineer in me has, is whether the entire show was a playback performance on a pre-recorded track that was perfectly synchronized to the lasers, or whether Gareth found a way to play some, or all of that music live and still stay perfectly synchronized with the lasers (with Annabel also singing live and on key, which is always challenging in a loud concert environment). What do you think?
My answer is honestly I think it may have been live, at least parts of it, but I don't overly care either way, the show was flawless and really enjoyable, which is what matters.
well done indeed
elbow bump is the new fistbump :)
After the show was over, afterparty at August Hall (formerly Ruby Skye).
crew picture
Gareth arrived around 01:00 and played a bit random music, but it was a good way to end the night:
While I have some family in Rotterdam, I knew it was not the most exciting city to visit, so I hadn't been back since my last time in the early 1990's, but thanks to ASOT being in Rotterdam, it was an excuse to go back. It's a faily industrial city, with a few worthwhile museums, and others that are so-so. It does have a few nice views here and there.
The well known highlight is of course the cube houses, that are still being rented and being used by intrepid people:
Another walk through town:
The marine museum was interesting:
There was a museum park with museums of varying quality and you had to pay a non trivial price to enter each of them (higher than some felt worth). The natural history one, was ok though:
Then back for a quick walk through town:
our ride
Then back to the main shopping hall, nice at night:
Back to ASOT after 2 years, my last (and first one) was (ASOT 1000, read report here). After the last event, I wrote that I felt there was a a bit too much non trance, and while it was the first 2 day-ish event, it was weird, 6H + 9H with strange time offsets.
Well, they actually listened to that and made a proper 2x 9h event last year, but I missed it in favor of EDC Mexico that happened the same exact weekend.
So this year, I figured I'd come back to see the new format and 2 full days, just to be very disappointed when I found out that they had reverted back to the weird 6h + 9h schedule, and a lineup that clearly looked weaker compared to last year :( (fewer hours and I think fewer rooms).
Anyway, flights were booked by the time I found out about the limited hours and downgrade compared to last year, so I went to check it out again. The hightlight as always is to meet all the fellow trance lovers:
nice welcome at the train station
Instead of a long report, which I wrote anyway below, haha, I also had a bit of fun this year, and made this new style summary :)
Thoughts for this year
Security was nice and chill. They still looked but knew how to look. Every time I have to state that I'm thankful for this, and need to say a heartfelt thank you.
Cheap, maybe too cheap? (by that I mean, not enough hours, stages that felt a bit lesser, lineup that felt gutted compared to prior years). I would have paid more for a bigger/longer festival
Unfortunately the amount of hours and stages was a clear downgrade compared to last year
Too much techno and non trance for me. Some liked it, other pure trance lovers like me, did not. Not sure who is the biggest crowd of the 2 since you can't please both easily.
Started too late on day 2, maybe it was to give time to see afternoon talks, but those were not announced to ticket holders (maybe only hotel package people), so what's the point? I missed that all because I hadn't heard about it and was stupidly waiting for the day to pass and 21:00 to finally happen.
VIP and hotel package people were allowed in 30mn earlier, but it wasn't clear this would be true for the VIP folks (the official FAQ didn't say they would be), and hotel package people actually ended up in a longer line than VIP and some were pissed to have paid so much and then wait 45mn or more to get in. Apparently at least some of the hotel package hotels were not that great either. Honestly I was happy with the VIP weekend package
I found production value was good overall. It was not transmission good, but then again transmission is the best indoor show I have seen in the world, so nothing is as good :) I was just sad for area 5 which while pretty was way too small and I was never able to see Ciaran play as there were too many people for the very small stage. Ironically the super small stage was next to a sea of lockers that was 10 times bigger than the stage itself :(
Unlike other festivals that were very annoying with personalization like parookaville and tomorrowland, ASOT did ask you to personalize but in the end, it didn't matter, you just had to scan a bar code at the entrance. Also, they had a good resale platform setup, so it was easy to buy verified resale tickets. Kudos for this
ASOT had reasonable food options and they took real money, none of that fake money bullshit like Tomorrowland, Untold, Parookaville, Transmission Bangkok, EDC Mexico, and a few others. Thank you for being sensible.
So, what did I think of this ASOT and ASOT in Ahoy vs ASOT 1000 at Jaarbeurs 2 years ago?
actually they were similar and but in a not great way (for me): friday was only 6h or so and saturday was 9h but starting 3h later, ending at 06:00. I'm fine if it ends at 06:00, but I prefer if it's because it was 12h long and started at 18:00, not just 9h
Obviously it was Ahoy Rotterdam instead of Jaarbeurt, Utrecht. While Utrecht is a nicer town to visit, I think Ahoy worked a little bit better for getting around, although I think it also had one stage fewer. I think the stages in Jaarbeurs were overall better.
Ahoy had lockers inside the event, after security, which was convenient (Jaarbeurts was outside security, which was a pain)
The security team at both sites (maybe the same team?) were chill and professional. They seemed to limit their work at the level that was necessary.
That said, many people complained of long lines getting in (some got 45 to 60mn), so that was no ideal. For me, arriving at opening time for VIP (30mn before everyone else), it only took around 15mn to get in, so that was good.
The locker they gave to VIPs (only one locker for 2) was very small and could not fit my small backpack, they had medium ones but you had to know in advance to book one and that you'd get a small one with VIP
I remember walking around at Jaarbeurs that was way too much between stages. It was a bit better at Ahoy, although the mandated long walk around for stage 1 was a pain in the rear and unnecessary for the people who came (pictures at the bottom of the page). Also, mainstage never filled it up (it did at Jaarbeurs), so all the gates and long way around they had was a waste of time in the end (also the benefit of VIPs to be allowed in at any time, didn't matter in the end)
The stage production level was average or above average depending on the stage, but I actually felt that it was a shame they put so much work into those stages for those to not even be used 9H.
That said, I clearly felt that some stages were better at Jaarbeurs, so it was a bit of a downgrade.
Still, with all the time, effort and money to setup those stages, I really wish this had been a 2x 12h event, or at least 2x 9h, which is what it was last year (see bottom of the page for multi tier pricing idea to bring in more money without penalizing people who can't afford more).
So this is where I was disappointed, after so many years, ASOT had finally graduated to a full 2 day festival, and got downgraded again to 1.5 days with weird hours and weird offset between the 2 days
Small detail: Cell phones mostly didn't work at mainstage unless you were lucky enough to get wifi to allow you in, other stages were ok (an issue if you want to regroup with friends). There was public wifi but it wasn't sized properly and collapsed easily. It would have been easy to add wifi in the VIP areas as a bonus for those who paid more.
About the stages:
Mainstage was similar looking to Jaarbeurs, but older videos show more lights before including individually addressable color balls that were very pretty. This mainstage was just average.
Area 2 was reasonably pretty but awkward narrow footprint, didn't love that part
Areas 3 and 4 were actually decent, but I didn't spend more than a few minutes there since not really my music
Area 5 was pretty but way too damn small. I was kind of embarrassed for my favorite DJs that ended up there.
And now let's talk about the music:
ASOT 1000 had a fantastic 20 years of trance 6h set from Armin on day 1, and day 2 had mixed music which sounded more and more techno-like. This year was unfortunately worse (for me at least) as mainstage seemed almost overrun with techno (with a few exceptions like Ruben and Ferry, or the great classics closing set from Superstrings). But the rest at mainstage sounded more like basic EDM, techno, and a set from Armin that went from great trance that made you fly to hard crash landings by mixing hard techno on the next track, and doing that multiple times. I read that some enjoyed that, for my ears and brain, it was honestly much harder to enjoy and disappointing.
It's clear that some people on FB clearly liked the new music, and others did not. I have no idea who is the bigger of the 2 groups and whether my losing team may just be the smallest one, so it's all working as intended, but at the same time I also understand that keeping Trance the same for 20 years+ is not the best idea ever.
I think my request would be to keep at least one stage or 2 with real trance classics and other 2-3 stages including mainstage can play whatever seems to make sense today.
ASOT Day 1
AHOY was a 15mn subway ride from most of Rotterdam and easy 5mn walk:
clear signage. I never got to see how long the regular lines were since I went VIP
strangely, the weekend VIP line was the fastest. The hotel package lines were longer and people there were not thrilled
all the staff was nice, kudos to everyone, it really makes a difference
ah yes, Insomniac merged/took over ASOT, no idea how much input they had this year, but I expect they will have more next year
security search felt reasonable although some people said the lines got slow later
Day 1, started with Ruben de Ronde and Ferry Corsten:
Armin took over for a lot of different B2B sets
pretty full for a friday, so should friday only be 6h and not 9h or 12?
one of many B2Bs
stage production had nice lighting
Stage/Area 2 had more real trance, but it was a weird "wide corridor" layout :-//
no VIP area for area 2, which was unfortunate
thankfully Fadi/Aly and Fila played a wonderful set as always
nice to have ferry afterwards
Susana was back!
nice LED walls in stage 2 to make up for the awkward layout
FactorB killed it again
Meanwhile Armin was busy at mainstage with lots of B2Bs and even a new f2f :) It sucked to miss some of FactorB, but it was interesting to see the face2face with Maddix:
Then back to Area 2 to see the end of FactorB:
And then it was over, very early (01:00), so it was time to go to the after party in a small club by the train station. It was better than nothing, but kind of sad to go to a small local club when we should have stayed at Ahoy for another 5h.
nice to see Roman Messer again
oh yeah, almost forgot I was in Holland
and my TFSF Friend Alastair was also there to play
ASOT Day 2
For reasons that I can't really imagine except legacy and maybe no one asking "why are we still doing this?", ASOT still started at 21:00 on the 2nd day. Why? probably because that's when it used to start at that time as a single day event, but for a 2 day event, it's nonsensical. Everyone has had time to sleep have lunch, go see the talks that were not announced and most people missed, and still make it in time for a 18:00 start. Starting 3 hours later makes little sense, especially for people in hotels where they get kicked out of the room around noon and getting to bed around 07:00 does not leave room for a lot of sleep on the 2nd might
it was very cool to be able to stand behind mainstage
but I went to Area 2 as soon as it opened for Xijaro and Pitch's Anthony
it was a fantastic pure trance set, real joy
yes, it takes a few people to run all this :)
Area 3, which was unused on day 1
later when filled up
Area 4 was also interesting, even if a bit narrow
Area 5 was the most narrow and smallest though
What a shame given the lovely lineup
Ciaran was in there, but was never able to get close enough to see him
Back to Area 2 for Ruben:
then Giuseppe
And it was time for Armin's main set at mainstage:
it was reasonably full but not at capacity
So, for Armin's set, honestly his trying to go back and forth between lovely trance and techno didn't work for me. It took all the flying feelings of trance, and crashed them into a wall when the hard techno got mixed in. This is me though, others have said they enjoyed it, so there you go.
Anyway, at some point I had to leave for Alessandra's set at Area 5, the smallest stage, but it was Alessandra, can't miss her!
she was excited to see us :)
and we got to say hi :)
Once she was done, there was only one hour left, and I had heard good things about superstrings, so back to mainstage. They played a new style of trance similar to what TDJ plays, high energy with an engaging beat but without falling into techno. All the techno is the new trance people, please look at these guys and TDJ, isn't that where you want to go instead to evolve Trance instead of trying to merge it with Techno, which will never work for people like me (and I'm not the only one)?
Yes to VIP behind mainstage :)
And just like this, it was 06:00, the mere 9h were over (could have been 12H had they started at 18:00 like the day before).
shuttle bus back to main station because metro didn't open until one our later
back to the room by sunrise :)
Should ASOT cater more to World Wide Trance Lovers? If so should it conflict with 2 other festivals that same weekend?
In the many past years, instead of doing a bigger event in Holland that would bring more people from around the world, ASOT went around the world for smaller parties, which was not a terrible idea, and explains the roots of ASOT not really meant to be an event for international travellers outside of Europe and being a mere 9H on a single day (fine for Europeans, not enough for people to travel from other continents). But fast forward to today where trance or ASOT seem to have shrunk so that most of the ASOTs that used to be around the world, are now gone.
Last year, I missed on out on the first real 2 day ASOT ever, the only one! before they went back to 1.5 days :(
And why did I miss it? Because I was at EDC Mexico which was the same weekend and that one was 3 12 hours days with more stages.
Still, my plan was to come back to ASOT this year, but what did ASOT do this year? Not only did it conflict with EDC Mexico where many of my friends went instead (can't blame them, there was much more music there than the 1.5 days of ASOT), and to make things worse, it also conflicted with Trance Unity in Montreal. Triple conflict!!!
Not only did this take attendees away from ASOT, but it also took multiple DJs away, DJs that played at ASOT in the past (although somehow Ferry Corsten and Fadi managed to play at both events, troopers!). Actually Ferry Corsten played at all 3, go Ferry! :)
But seriously people, is this really necessary? EDCMX isn't exactly a trance festival but still has a lot of trance, and Trance Unity, well, is Trance, so did all 3 events need to be the same exact weekend?
That being said, while I missed some amount of friends who were attending one of the other 2 events that weekend, I still got to see some:
Conclusions/Suggestions
ASOT is at crossroads between trance and non trance, as well as a 1 vs 2 day festival, and it felt uneasy in the middle this year. From my perception, Armin was struggling to play several genres at once to please everyone, and at least in his main set, when he would mix what almost felt like hard techno right after a euphoric trance track, that really killed it for me. I do have to repeat that some don't feel the flying from those trance tracks and thought they were just slower tracks to recuperate from the hard techno, and actually liked those transitions. So yeah, once size clearly does not fit all. Still, my advice for Armin would be what he did at ASOT 1000: a dedicated trance set, and more progressive/techno-ish sets. Please don't try to mix them, I don't think it can be done gracefully in a way that works for all.
I'll also repeat my suggestion to look at new styles of trance that aren't techno like what Superstrings and TDJ are doing, or Gardenstate/Aname's legendary remixes of trance tracks with a slowed down dubstep beat.
My thoughts/improvement suggestions for this year's venue:
find a way to raise the ticket price at least somewhat, maybe more ticket tiers to allow people who can't pay more to keep their current price, and people who can and spent quite a bit on the trip anyway, to pay more.
I've been asking for 2 full days instead of 1 or this 1.5 day weird setup, but it does cost more. How about running the event 18:00 to 06:00 both days, selling the same basic price tickets that only let you in at 21:00 or 22:00 (until 06:00) and higher price tickets that let you in 18:00 to 06:00 both nights?
Then you can still add VIP tickets and make sure the VIP benefits are real. Too many VIPs and especially hotel package people complained it took 45mn or longer for them to get in. That is definitely not ok, VIPs can pay double but they should get in 5 or 10mn for that price.
The point is not everyone can pay the same, charge each what they can pay, but bring in more money to pay for more hours and let's say at least 4 stages both nights (or hell, I'll setlle for 3 as long as good trance is guaranteed for sure at at least one stage every hour). Honestly 5 or 6 stags is more music than we can see and should only be if there is enough money to run them, but not at the expense of more festival time.
New music is the present/future, fine, but it's ASOT, don't let trance die. ASOT must have at least one dedicated trance stage for both nights. Honestly 2 dedicated trance stages with 2 styles of real trance (new style trance like TDJ / Superstrings is totally fine, hell even psytrance, why not?), but not techno or basic mainroom EDM everywhere please
If there is enough revenue for the above changes, a few improvements in stages would be nice. Area 2 honestly felt like a big corridor, very awkward layout. Area 5 was sad, a nicely lit super small stage shoehorned behind a seat of lockers. I was so disappointed for the DJs there.
When I checked online, the subway system claimed it would start running at 06:00 on sunday, but that was not true. We all needed to take the bus back to town, and ASOT thankfully made busses available, but you had to pay for them through a long a tedious checkout procedure on your phone in the street. This should have been an add on offered when I bought tickets online and sent back again via Email a few days before the event "Do you need to sign up for the return shuttle?"
Please optimize the routes between stages. This is not tomorrowland, are all those tedious one way routes really necessary? They sucked for us.
the black bit was really not needed
this fence was 1000% unnecessary, making everyone walk around added lots of pointless walking and did not improve any flow. They literally made you walk a long away around to the other side of that same fence, and it was so stupid that all the staff went through the shortcut, but we could not
Oh and please make sure this half step at the Area 1 VIP bars does not exist again. It was near invisible in the dark, many people stumbled or fell on it, I did even after taking this picture, and at least one person reported a non minor injury due to it
someone literally stumbled on that same raised step and almost fell in front of me while I was taking this picture
ASOT 1000 had pre-parties the days before, this one did not.
The post party on saturday night/sunday morning at 06:00 was not really helpful. How many people were still awake? If ASOT had started at 18:00 on day 2, then 03:00 for the after party would have been more reaosnable. But really it lacked pre-parties on wed and thu for international travellers who arrived early.
And things I liked:
The VIP area being mainstage was very cool:
Security was nice
Lockers were inside the event after security even if they were too small
VIPs got in 30mn earlier
18:00 start on the first day was nice even if it ended too early and started too late on the 2nd day
Food options were good, and they took real money
Here is my video summary:
Watching other videos, I also found out I was randomly visible in a few of them, fun :)
Should you go, Would I go back?
If you're in Europe, going to ASOT is a no brainer. But if you're coming from far away like me (but I realize I'm very likely a small minority), it's a bit of a hard sell in its 1.5 day format and lineup and means that were somewhat lesser this year (my personal rule is to avoid going across the world for less than 2 days given the time and costs involved). Ideally a festival should at least match the previous year or exceed it, so it was a bit sad when it shrunk this year. I hope Insomniac Europe invests more into ASOT next year, to bring it back to a real long term sustainable 2 day festival worth flying across the world for. And yes, please raise ticket prices to pay for this, or at least offer higher tier ticket options to bring in more money from people who can pay.
And maybe not conflicting with EDCMX would still be a good idea, that said maybe it doesn't matter too much since realistically few people can afford to fly around the world to go to festivals every weekend.
But don't let all this feedback confuse you, although some things can be improved in my opinion, and my feedback is actually in the hopes that some of it does get implemented, and I get to enjoy an even improved ASOT, I did have a great time this time too, it's hard not to :)
A heartfelt thanks to all the crews who put all the work that went into this event for our enjoyment.
