Since I had already done most of the main things in Amsterdam, and I had an extra monday where most museums are closed, so it was a good time to check out the Botanical Garden and the Zoo.
The botanical garden was quite nice and had a fun butterfly nursery:
they had interesting butterflies I had never seen before
this transparent one is also quite interesting
this one was still blood in its wings after being born
Next door was the artis zoo complex, which included 2 museums, Micropia, was quite cool:
Watching the leaf cutter ant display was mesmerizing, you could spend a while staring at it:
The other small museum nextdoor also had interesting displays:
Then, I went to see the actual zoo. I should have done this first because rain was scheduled and I ended up only seeing about half because pouring rain made it no fun, and many animals also went to hide:
The highlight was seeing two boobies doing a mating dance, watch the video:
After being cancelled twice due to covid, Luminosity is back in 2022, and this time a Bernie's Beach Club in Zaandvort. This was my 2nd lumi after 2019.
New Venue: Bernie's Beach Club close to Zandvoort
a convenient change is that the new location is only 10mn bike ride from Zandvoort
mainstage was now smack against beach houses, I'm sure the residents didn't love that :)
overview, with 2 pools that were off limits
So, what about the new location? The last one kind of sucked given the sound limits that prevented DJs from playing anything you could hear until around 17:00 (with the event start moved from 12:00 to 15:00), that was disappointing. So at least this time the event was 12:00 to 23:00, which was better, but for the LED geek night owls like me, that wasn't great as the event was over before twilight was fully over (sunset itself was around 22:20 as the longest day of the year was during Lumi). Also, I felt guy for whoever did the lighting and lasers that only got used about 45mn per day
It was convenient to be closer to Zandvoort, but this was sandwiched between 2 sets of properties and residents which were not thrilled with the music I'm sure. It's unclear how much they'll complain and try to get the event shut down or moved.
One issue with the venue was that it was not friendly to those with disabilities, but realistically few venues by the beach will probably be. They did put some boards on the sand that made things a bit more liveable for wheelchairs, but without a strong friend to push up, it was very steep in several places. That's not an easy problem to solve, either.
Again, despite the challenges, I liked the extended hours (11h/day instead of 6 to 9H in 2019 depending on sound levels), and it seemed more roomy in places.
Let's start with mainstage. It was covered for when it rained (and it did rain), and if you were within that area, sound was good, but at times, it was a bit too small to contain the amount of people who attended on saturday and sunday. It was definitely the best stage with nice lighting and lasers that unfortunately we only got to enjoy about 45mn per day due to the late sunsets:
Coco beach was ok enough, until the toilets started smelling, and then it was no fun anymore :(
The DJs had a lounge to rest and get a bit of time off:
The People
You've likely already heard me say that, vampire me doesn't love day festivals due to the blazing sun, and unfortunately lumi is 95% during daylight hours. This of course meant virtually no night lights, and more generally only a few people had costumes, but thank you to those who did.
I brought my otherwise obsolete version 3 LED outfit because it was might brighter during daylight (but also sucked more batteries)
when it got dark enough, I was able to switch to my regular outfit for a mere 90 minutes before the festival was over
we had pink day when FactorB played to honor the passing of his lovely partner, to cancer
some of the SF crew that came along
At least some people had fun T-shirts :)
And OMG, someone came up to me and said "Dude, were you with me at UCPA in Ibiza 20 years ago"? Well, damn, sure I was, we were in the same exercise + party group that flew there for a week or two in 2003/2004. This one definitely wins the "Eh, I saw you at X" contest ;)
Day #1
Like every day, I arrived bright an early just before noon every day to enjoy all the artists. The first day, I also got to sope the grounds a little bit.
I was very excited for Craig's set, which even though it was the 3rd time I was seeing him in 2 weeks, I sure didn't mind :) As always, he didn't disappoint.
like several artists, Craig nicely went to take pictures with his fans
Back to other stages:
I then went back to mainstage to see Richard Durang and Paul Oakenfold with Nadine and Robert, both had very enjoyable sets:
Paul was next:
Richard definitely had fun :)
haha, nice shot :)
But plenty of other sets and DJs:
sunset stage was unfortunately the poorest of them all, hard to see the DJ and to hear the sound
Don't be fooled, sunset was very late, half way through the last set of the night
Speaking of the end of the night, went to see John 00 Flemming, who had another great hypnotic set:
PvD came to listen to him
and Oakey came too, allowing me to shoot that double Paul picture :)
Ok, and a bit of Mark Sherry to see mainstage and the poor laser that only had about 30mn to shine:
found a few friends, Aryel and Alessandra Roncone
And just like that, day #1 was over, still twilight to bike home:
Summary Video for Day #1:
Day #2
Day #2 started with Orkidea:
Roger Sha did a lovely live set
It's only been 2 weeks since I saw Will Atkinson
Delighted to see him again, fun set full of energy
And then AA meeting:
Back to mainstage with Gareth Emery, PvD, and Aly & Fila to close the night:
and another 30mn for the lasers to shine
Aly went all in and didn't stop when he was supposed to, good for him, we loved it :)
Summary Video for Day #2:
Day #3
Day 3 was the day of rain, it started as soon as the event opened, which cleared the non covered part of mainstage:
My friend Aryel and the other Romanian trance lovers then went to see exolight whom I first discovered at untold last year, and have quite enjoyed since then :)
Then was time for FactorB, OMG that was emotional, he did such a beautiful job. After recently losing his lovely partner to cancer, he gave her a very touching homage. Everyone who saw it said how beautiful a set it was:
Giuseppe was next, it's time to play again :)
someone managed to have a makeshift totem even though they were forbidden, good job, haha
By then, it was pouring rain, so I used my LED outfit to do a rain dance :)
one good thing with the rain was that it was dim enough to use my real LED outfit
Summary Video for Day #3:
Day #4
The last day of a 3-4 day festival is always interesting, it's a mix of who still has enough energy to dance, and the "party hard, it's the last day" crowd. Given that I was able to get enough sleep, I was doing quite well, so day #4, here we go:
great to see Xijaro and Pitch again, unfortunately the sound quality was quite poor
By then, Mike took over mainstage, Maybe because it was sunday, MIKE decided that trance was for suckers, and blasted something that was more techno and the the crowd sure didn't mind :)
because it was day 4, and it wasn't safe to take my LED outfit home to fix it, it was running on fumes and was partially broken, but whatever :)
Robert Nickson got a spot on Coco stage
We then got more hard beats from JoC:
Markus was next:
And the night, which still wasn't night, finished with Key 4050 and Solarstone:
Last sunset and finally some darkness:
Summary Video for Day #4:
Afterparty
So, there was an afterparty at Panama in Amsterdam, but honestly it was close to 1h away, then for anyone staying in Zandvoort, you had to find a way back when trains were probably not running at night, and most of us were then going to Amsterdam to get out on monday. 3 back and forth trips in the same night didn't seem that appealing for a few more hours of trance when I already had had 44 hours :) I would have gone to an afterparty in Zandvoort if there was one...
And as luck would have it, I found one on my ride home, some guys started a party from the back of a car, and we continued to dance there until the batteries ran out.
the police came to say hi, but drove off after a minute
Room for improvement
Those were the main 4 issues that are very much worth consideration and I hope the luminosity team can address them (later update: I'm told they definitely listened to the feedback, thank you)
Lack of real toilets, paying porta-potties to make up for budget shortfall
Paying toilets is not an uncommon practise in Holland which seems to like charging for things that you take for granted, but that's doesn't mean it's right, and for an international festival, it didn't go well and got people,upset. Given that it was too late to raise ticket prices, a donation box to help with the budget shortfall and the loss of revenue during covid, could have worked well, as well as selling some expensive "I helped lumi" tshirts, or bands, or anything. Anything but that...
Another unfortunate change was that you didn't get a wristband anymore, because in and outs were now forbidden which was unfortunate given the limited food options at the venue. Outside of overpriced bananas, soggy fries, and decent pizza, the rest was really just survival food. So now you only got a wristband to be able to use the toilet for 4 days after you had paid extra.
next year, we will go see this guy :)
Several people said they should have just sold a wristband that did nothing for 10 euros as souvenir and "thanks for your donations", it would have worked better than the "toilet wristband". I agree.
Another challenge was the lack of real bathrooms at the new venue. There were plenty of porta potties, but well, they were smack next to the coco beach stage, and if wind went in the wrong direction, you can imagine what happened :( I don't have a good suggestion here, it's a problem with the venue, and I'm not sure what the solution is, one issue with being at the beach is more wind, so there may not be a good solution for that location.
No tap water, pretense that recycling was a concern when huge amounts of non recyclable plastic waste was created
Unforutnately for that year, there was 0 access to tap water and you couldn't bring your own water in. The only official source of water were 6.5 euros water, which for 4 days at 1.5l per day, was going to be 12 bottles at 78 euros, for water only
Did everyone spend that much? Of course not, but too many people also danced dehydrated which is just unsafe, especially in combination with some drugs. People have died from dehydration at festivals, restricting access to water just doesn't seem safe., That didn't even count desperate people getting water from the hand wash stations, which was tap water that came in buckets, but probably not in a container that was very safe to drink:
So yeah, this message was a bit triggering.
Again, if this was about money, I want the festival to make money, please raise ticket prices and give us tap water, especially with all the time people wasted buying water one bottle at a time without bottlecaps.
yeah, lots of long lines to get water, often one bottle at a time and without bottle caps
Because of all the extra bottle plastic waste that wasn't necessary, there as a recycling system with tokens to exchange against empty glasses or bottles, or you were fined another 50 cents for each drink for failing to recycle. and I'll apologize for having to state this, but: plastic is mostly not recyclable, never was, probably never will. If you are worried about the environment (and you should be), please allow hydration bags and provide water fountains.
recycling tokens
Ironically, I wrote almost the same thing in my my 2019 Lumi report, and it only got worse this year :( Just charge what you need to charge on the tickets and let people hydrate as they need to. If only one person ends up in the hospital or worse due to dehydration, that is not worth it.
Paying with tokens
Haha, this time it's not a rant. They listened to feedback and got rid of the token system. You could pay with your phone or any RF credit card, and for people without either, they sold you RF cards you could pay with. Thank you and Well done.
Security rules, including taking people's sunscreen
Ok, that one is also a sore point for me. They employ a 3rd party security company that Bo says they have no control over (as in Bo said he was not able to tell them to please allow my LED outfit which is designed to bring smiles and not, as the security people tried to claim in 2019, strangle people with my LED strips)
The list of forbidden items was very long and they had enhanced searches, looking all the way inside people's wallets (!) and even took people's sunscreen. That one alone is bad, especially for people like me who have already had multiple skin cancers and very much care about having top of the line sunscreen. The poor quality and empty sunscreen containers at the medical station they offered, didn't cut it.
here is the free empty poor sunscreen you could use after they had thrown away your premium one at security, thank you
I really hope Lumi can find a way to improve and loosen up the security experience:
Please re-visit the security rules, festival-goers are the customers, not the enemy, please be nice to us, restrict the search to weapons and real risks, give some leeway on the rest, and use security staff on the field to keep the event safe while it's happening, thank you.
Sound quality/Sound Bleed
Another issue with the venue was the layout made it difficult to have 4 stages and there was pretty terrible soundbleed between them. The sunset stage was the worst one, you could barely hear its sound and you sure could hear plenty sound from the classics stage, which was a bummer. Classics also bled onto mainstage if you were behind it on the hill to see mainstage. All in all the sound was challenging, and probably not because the sound engineers sucked, but because that venue was challenging to use for 4 stages.
Again, I don't have a good suggestion here, the previous venue was way worse with the sound restrictions until 17:00 (to the point that could barely hear some DJs playing). Looks like playing by the beach with neighbors is just difficult and they tried the best they could. Thank you.
Should you go? Would I go Back?
LBF, otherwise known as Lumi may not be the most flashy festival, but it's simply the best festival in the world for trance lovers, no discussion there. Where else do you get 4 stages of trance for 4 days? And where else do you get to see so many trance artists who often don't make the cut for mainstage at bigger events? The answer is simply: nowhere. LBF is where it's at!
The venue has challenges, but I think we have to make our peace with them, I'm going to assume that there are few places that can acomodate this and still be at the beach (the Zandvoort racetrack sure would have room, but it's not the beach).
The only other festival with 4 trance stages I know is Dreamstate Socal, but that's only 2 days, Lumi is 4!
Is it worth flying across the world for? If you are a true trance lover, this is the place!
Conclusions
Despite the challenges and a few questionable ways to make up the budget shortfall, we still had a great time, but many said online that they were fairly upset and offended by the water/toilet situation this year, I really hope it gets fixed (2023 update: I'm told it will be)
Suggestions:
raise the ticket price, pure and simple. Don't play those water games that waste everyone's time. Just charge us what you need to make a healthy profit.
Other venue/fixing the sound bleed? This one is tricky, clearly the venue is sandwiched between 2 sets of properties, the dune, and high tide. Not really any room to expand, I think they did the best they could. Still, maybe a different layout would help some of the sound bleed issues, and at least raising the sound and fixing the equalizer setting for the sunset stage?
Bathrooms: maybe they can be moved closer to the entrance, away from the stages. Yes, it's a walk up, but not bathroom smell by the stage next to it would be good, and it allows for more room to expand a bit?
Running tap water, please
Please find a way to keep the event secure without having lots of unreasonable restrictions that make the guests unhappy, or worse, this really matters!
VIP tickets? There were some VIP wristbands, I don't think they were for sale, I'm not even sure if they are a good idea given that Lumi is kind of a "everyone is the same" kind of event, but still worth considering? (2023 update: yes VIP access was put on sale)
this seemed to be the VIP area
For the venue, not everyone loved it. I agree it had challenges, but let's be reasonable: the options are likely limited. I'm sure that Luminosity did their best given lots of challenges. I with them good luck talking to the city council and dealing with some the nearby residents who probably were not happy with the event and 44H of trance, hopefully it worked out ok for most.
And yes, despite the challenges, it was still a fun event. Warm thanks to Bo and all the crew that made it happen and all the DJs who played for us, you rule!
I had been to Amsterdam a few times, but not had time for their Madame Tussaud yet, so this time around, I fixed it :) Obviously some amount of the statues were Dutch personalities that were unknown to me, but still, it was fun to visit, even if the best Madame Tussaud in the world, still remains in London
The fun part was EDM DJs, an important export of Holland :)
For some reason, they had an F1 driving sim, so I gave it a shot. It doesn't drive like a real formula car, but it was still fun to try
Back in Amsterdam, this time for Luminosity Beach Festival in Zandvoort
I had limited time the first day after arriving, so I started by seeing whatever exhibits the new church was showing now, usually journalism pictures (they rotate often).
Next, I took a train north to see some of my cousins who were nice enough to invite me for dinner:
The next morning, I went to Zandvoort to spend the next 4 days for Luminosity Beach Festival.
After it was over, I came back to Amsterdam on monday morning, and since I had a day to burn and most museums were closed on mondays, I went to the Botanical Gardens and Artis Zoo Complex.
After being rained out, I spent the rest of the day at Ripley's Believe It Or Not, which wasn't stellar, but beat the rain outside:
And that was it, it wasn't a very long trip in Amsterdam, but nice to see a few things and family each time.
Just one week after Dreamstate Harbor in LA, we had another Dreamstate event in SF with a great lineup, lucky us, it felt like a never ending Xmas :)
I also got to be uber this time :)
Craig was actually happy to drive himself :)
and a bit later got to pick up Giuseppe
Back to Midway, we had 6 hours of trance, starting with Niko Zografos:
FactorB's set as very emotional, with lots of pictures of his beautiful partner he just lost to cancer:
It had been 3 years since I last saw Brian Cox give a live talk in the Bay Area, and this one was similar in format to the talk he gave in 2019.
Just like last time, his talk was a bit more technical than Neil deGrasse Tyson at San Jose Center for Performing Arts, and this time touched about an interesting point where time slows down as you approach a black hole, but once you go to a critical point, time actually stops, and then equations actually predict that time runs backwards. This is where it gets complex and the equations predict that time and space actually reverse. That was cool indeed.
That said, just like last time, he came with his sidekick Robin Ince, who isn't exactly the funiest comedian I've seen and honestly detracts more than he adds to the evening. Oh well, it was still nice to see his version of the talk. I have a pretty bad partial recording here:
Since I was in San Pedro for Dreamstate Harbor, I had a couple of hours on the 2nd day to visit the aquarium before the festival started at 15:00, which was just enough. We ran out of time the previous day to visit it while going around San Pedro with Thomas
It's not a huge aquarium, it's actually been a teaching aquarium for many years, and sure enough it had lots of explanations on lots of things, which allowed me to pass the 2 hours even if the displays were more on the limited side. It's not a destination aquarium, especially with Long Beach Aquarium nearby, but I enjoyed my time there.
Dreamstate of of course the happy place for Trance Lovers, Dreamstate Socal in San Bernandino is just totally awesome, but it's only once a year. Insomniac fixed that for us by adding a new Dreamstate also in Socal, but a different location. While I'd love to have had it in the bay area somewhere, Socal wasn't too far and it was another great event.
And so great to meet all my friends and DJs again (thanks Anna for the pictures):
Since I re-made all of Giuseppe's T-shirts, it was fun to take another picture :)
and it was so great to finally be able to enjoy Astrix's set and meet him
Thank you to Killed with Kindness for covering the event and all the pictures again, including this Trancefamily meetup:
Dreamstate Harbor, New Venue, Impressions
The event was at the end of a pier, away from people so we could enjoy plenty of noise. The venue wasn't huge, but just big enough, and looked great at sunset/night:
One downside of the venue is that it still had a midnight curfew apparently, which is surprising given that there wasn't much nearby. As a result the event started early (15:00) which meant plenty of punishing sun that got a fair amount of us sunburned despite sunscreen (one contributing factor was the breeze which made things cooler and caused people not to feel that they were being burned, it also made things kind of cold at night for those who didn't have layers). Hopefully the event can start and finish a bit later in the future to limit the harmful sun.
The good thing is the 2 stages were so close and it was easy to move from psytrance to trance, and speaking about psytrance, what a treat. It's rare to get good psytrance, and we got lots of it. Thank you!
Random notes on the event:
single GA bathroom location, but the venue was small enough that it was fine
food options were fairly limited, but enough not to starve :)
decors were nice, especially at night
free parking (thanks), although it was a somewhat long walk to the venue for some, but no worse than EDC
no sound interference between the stages and yet they were close enough for easy stage hopping
VIP facilities were maybe a bit limited compared to the much higher price, but at least you got the nice bathrooms (which didn't have lines) and it was easier to be closer to the front of the stages (albeit with a side view that wasn't great for pictures)
The lineup was solid with a mix of DJs from around the world, including some locals from california
Less can be more, I do love dreamstate san bernandino with its 4 stages, but that also means I'm missing out on 3 different DJs every hour. Here it was much easier to be able to enjoy most of the music.
Like many I put on sunscreen, but didn't put enough and got sunburned anyway. Ideally the event can be at least 2H later next time (17:00 to 02:00).
Day #1
Got there bright and early, 15:00, and did my best to hide from the sun :)
Craig did such a killer set, loads of fun
GO delivered as always, thank you
psytrance loving me was excited to see Liquid Soul again, and he always looks so happy, can't blame him
After Astrix was unable to attend EDC, great to have him, another killer set
By then, it was time for a great sunset:
And back to the Djs:
JoC did another fire set
Markus Schulz
Nice to finish with Whitenoise for some psytrance
Day #1 video summary:
Day #2
Day #2 video summary:
People
One of the things that makes trance special, is the people, all the smiles and great positive energy. Trance family is truly a family, and for many it is well needed therapy that gives us energy to cope with daily life :)
Many of the DJs were super nice and came to take pictures with their fans, thank you
and a huge thanks to Craig Connelly for this lovely gift
And just lke that, it was over, after 18 hours of trance and psytrance, thank you!
The new Dreamstate Harbor was in San Pedro, so that gave me an excuse to go visit the area With my old friend Thomas who, living nearby, was nice enough to pick me up at the airport and go visit things with me.
Long Beach/San Pedro has lots of shipping ports:
I was a bit jealous of Thomas, he played the game right and got the full self driving beta for his tesla:
We started with the Wayfarer's Chapel, which has a very interesting architecture and a great view:
We then went around Point Vincente and its interpretative center:
Next was white point, and the former Nike Missile launch center:
After that, a few more things nearby like a small marine rehabilitation center:
A beautiful park with view of the ocean and a lovely Korean Friendship Bell:
In the same place, was another unexpected fine, Fort Mac Arthur used to be a mostly concealed fort that could launch shells at any incoming attacking boat during WWII, and could reach all the way to Catalina.177*
impressive range, for shells
big cannons
full generators to run off-grid
and a full phone system to reach all the departments
The same area had some of its buildings used by train modellers, this was not on the itinerary, but we figured why not? :)
another building had smaller n scale
The rest of the early afternoon was spent at Point Fermin Park:
After that, it was time to check in my hotel and go to Dreamstate Harbor. Thanks to Thomas for meeting me and spending the morning with me.
The next day, I did go to check out the small Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, which was fun.
