As an end of my EU festival tour, I was able to attend ASOL, Anomaly Summer of Trance in Birmingham, which was a lovely local trance festival. While it is a fan organized festival from trance lovers to trance lovers in a local park, I didn't expect all that much, but I was pleasantly surprised and it was much more than what I expected: it had 4 stages, including proper psytrance.
The park was cut in 2, half was for campsite, and the other half was for the festival. It ran from 12:00 to 23:00, and while the footprint wasn't huge, we were only a few hundred people and it worked out just fine. On top of that there was virtually no sound bleed between the stages, and two of them were covered, allowing for nice lights and lasers before the sun set (although there was also 3 hours of actual night.
ASOL Compared to Others
So since people say I compare lumi to everything, when I'm not even trying (like Lumi vs EDC Vegas which would be a ridiculous comparison), in this case I think it's actually fun to compare ASOL and Lumi, so there we go (yes, this comparison is only half serious :) ):
Lumi: 4 stages, 4 days, 11h/day, sunset stage usually packed too much to be useful and with terrible sound and soundbleed
Asol: 4 stages, 2 days, 11h/day, all stages had room, little soundbleed
Psytrance?
Lumi: no psytrance, why don't you like trance, are you a terrorist?
Asol: nice little psytrance stage, even if it was for only 20 to 30 people there (thank you for them)
Sunset?
Lumi: yes, and nice ones most nights (as late as 22:15 or so)
Asol: not really, but you don't have to clean sand from your socks and shoes :)
Crowds:
Lumi: overpacked, especially on saturday, too many party people who barely know the music
Asol: just trance lovers, plenty of space
Crowd Size:
Lumi: at least 10x bigger than aosl (maybe 50x bigger on saturday?)
Asol: smaller, more cozy.
Note that for actual ground footprint, ASOL is not that much smaller than Lumi, if at all. It was also flat, no sand, and much more comfortable as a result.
How much night/darkness:
Lumi: 45mn of night (longest day of the year, curfew 23:00), barely any lights, no lasers, no covered/indoor-ish stage (Lumi at its old location, Bernie's had indoor stages, but the new location does not).
Asol: 3.5h of night (curfew also 23:00), 2 stages covered with lights and lasers that were usable half the day
Lockers/In and Outs:
Lumi: lockers that got sold many times last year, causing thefts, and in my case I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure actual staff emptied my locker overnight thinking it was a one day locker (they were wrong) and then kept all my stuff. As of 2024, partial in and outs were allowed.
Asol: no lockers, but for most, campsite was just across the fence. However I believe in and outs were not allowed, so basically you had to bring all your things in. I brought my festival backpack and left it by the stage from time to time, I didn't feel too worried about theft. Actually the bar did have a coat check and could keep your stuff if needed.
Bathrooms:
Lumi: basic porta potties that were in the way of a stage and made it smell bad
Asol: actually the best, cleanest and best maintained porta potties I've seen at any festival. Not in the way of any stage, no smell issues.
So, since I'm now doing more festivals than I have time to do reports after the fact near realtime, posting stories on instagram is important to me since I least I can contribute something on the fly, as opposed to weeks later. As a result, internet connectivity is useful:
Lumi: cell connectivity was good enough, no wifi
Asol: cell connectivity was good enough, no wifi
Lodging distance and price:
Lumi: nearby lodging was 15mn away or so (by bike), and around $200/nght unless you found shared properties, no onsite camping.
Asol: nearby lodging was 15mn away or so (by foot), the mercure was also $200/night or you could camp onsite for very cheap
Drinkable water and food:
Lumi: no drinkable tap water (well there is, they won't let you access it), overpriced bottled water and drinks, a fair amount of food vendors but not great food
Asol: no drinkable tap water, reasonably enough priced bottled water and drinks, they let me in with a camelback full of water so it didn't matter. They were two food trucks, which is not a lot but was sufficient for the crowd and food was ok enough.
Security rules and staff:
Lumi: tie for worst security guys with creamfields, looking for a fight, and not giving a rat's derriere if attendees have a good time
Asol: best vibes, totally cool folks, and really the fence was mostly honor system, we all wanted to pay so that the organizers could pay the bills and hopefully make a small profit (unfortunately I read the profit was meager)
Let's talk about security a bit more. First, I need to start with saying that Holland is otherwise a chill an sensible country. They are not constantly worried about being attacked. UK however is very worried all the time, you get metal detector, body scan and X-ray machine searched almost everywhere, including even just an aquarium in London. Similarly when I was travelling, most venues would not allow me to stash my luggage somewhere when I didn't have a car, and my previous hotel was 2 towns away while my next one was 2h train away, because "bomb risk". So yeah, definitely not something I like about the UK. And yet, this is still what happened:
Lumi: over the top security search, up to last year prevented TSA approved small liquids, still prevents sprays like small hair sprays, and plenty of other things that could maybe be used for an attack that that never happened in Holland that I know of. That's another way to say that Lumi is applying ridiculous and unnecessary levels of security.
Asol: mostly honor system security, they were very nice and friendly and maybe they were just making sure no one would bring an axe or actual weapon. It couldn't have been more welcoming and friendly than that.
Now, this is where I need to state that in both festivals, it was trivial to throw things inside under or over the fence, but Asol didn't bother making your life miserable for no reason when things could be smuggled in anyway, while the fake security lumi team tried to save the world at the gate while it was trivial to bring anything in past the fence, including of course the water they tried so hard to prevent.
I've lost faith on Lumi ever getting a properly festival trained security team that is actually there to maximize attendee enjoyment while keeping things safe where there is really a need, not calling bomb alerts on an LED outfit, potentially stealing from lockers at night (unconfirmed, but it's the most likely explanation for what happened to my stuff there) or letting them be stolen from by reselling lockes many times, and now by literally grabbing attendees' genitals during entrance searches. So Bo, if someone sends you this, please show me wrong, fix this, and I will happily eat my words and credit you for this change. Hell, if I can finally get assurance that it's safe for me to go back to Lumi with a new a more reasonable security team and rules, I will seriously consider it. In the meantime, Asol has shown us all what security can look like when the crowds are the best crowds (and aren't trance people, the best?). Trance lovers don't do barfights and don't need bar bouncers looking for a fight to get a boner, we need the "boner check supervisor" :)
Free massage/sizing of your genital package at the entrance:
Lumi: included in some security lines as of 2024 (there is apparently an equivalent option for women, they are not sexist)
Asol: not included by default, but I'm told you can call the erection supervisor, and he will likely help you out :)
And to summarize my paragraph above:
Lumi: Security seems to get a boner when they got to rough up attendees and drag them out by show of force, including a friend of mine I'm pretty sure, never attacked them for caused physical trouble (and even then a good security team uses their mediation skills to de-escalate)
Asol: Security was there to check everyone's boners :)
The Grounds:
The venue was a short walk from the mercure hotel, which had nice beds if you didn't want to camp in the grass:
nice walk with blackberries
campers onsite were right there
medical staff on hand
food was 2 food trucks with decent enough options
bar prices were reasonable
one stage was a fun stage in a truck and worked well
there was a nice psytrance stage
cool decors
The People
What was fun is both days had a theme, water/ocean the first day, and disco the 2nd day. Lots of people came with costumes and it made the event even more fun:
Day 2 was disco:
got to meet Ben Elliott, and many other TFUK folks
Meeting DJs
Day #1
Day #1 Video Summary:
And a few sets I was able to record:
Ciaran McCauley
Alex Morph:
Alan Watts:
Jordan Suckley:
Day #2
Day #2 was disco outfit day!
Day #2 Video Summary:
And a few sets I was able to record:
Alessandra Ronconne:
Lostly:
David Forbes:
Ben Gold:
John 00 flemming:
Should you go? Would I go Back?
Decors, lasers, and lights were actually more than I expected, well done for a small festival!
This year again, security was more than reasonable, thank you.
22 hours of trance on 3 to 4 stages, that's a lot
Is it worth flying across the world for? Ok, maybe not, but if you are within Europe and short flight/train away, please do.
I loved the vibes and the crowds and would love to go back. This is also where I would tell you, just like Rong Malta, that is really sucks and you shouldn't come with all your badly drunk friends to f it up :) Unfortunately the organizers have for now said that they won't be doing the event again due to the amount of work and slightly negative profits, which is a shame but understandable. I feel lucky and thankful to have been able to attend this special event, and my heartfelt thanks to them for making the event happen these last years, and so happy I was able to attend this year.
Here are sets from one stage I recorded. The video quality is not great, but I figured it was still good to have a nice souvenir and be able to re-enjoy the music:
Visting the Eiffel Tower has gotten harder nowadays, sign up online, security lines outside, lines inside for the elevator, no fun... But, if you couple that with a top michelin rated restaurant, then it's much easier ;)
Jules Vernes has its own small elevator to get to the 2nd floor and bypass the lines:
It has 3 rooms showing different views of Paris, luckily I got a table at the nicest one of the 3:
You get great views while dining:
I took the 7 course tasting menu, presentation and food were top notch:
It had been a long time since I had been up the Eiffel tower, not quite 20 years, but close. And with the new airport security gate BS where you can't even walk under the Eiffel Tower without going through security gates, courtesy of terrorist fears (I won't write a long rant on that, but I personally think it's a BS overreaction and instead they should have skilled law enforcement patrolling and looking for suspect people at all such sites):
Anyway, thanks to a reservation at Jules Vernes, it was easy to get in and get a private elevator ride to the 2nd floor, enjoy yummy food, get lots of pictures, and then walk down to the 1st floor and back down without having to take any regular elevator or any lines, so that worked great :)
Going to the 3rd floor was not possible without very advance tickets, but honestly it's a small floor and the view is great from the 2nd floor as is.
Views from the top:
Russian orthodox church
This time around was a bit different due to the olympics as they had many blue seats/viewing platforms for the multiple locations the games happened at:
some hot air balloon in the middle of jardin des tuileries
pont de l'alma was totally closed, even to pedestrians
And on the 1st floor, there are multiple stores, as well as a VR game:
I arrived in Paris just after the Olympics, when most of the mess was over, but many installations were still there, and some were there for upcoming para olympics a few weeks later. It was interesting to see Paris in this different way:
Lafayettes Gourmet is fun to visit, so much yummy food:
A little bit of chocolate:
Checked out some more unusual museums:
musee du parfum is in a pretty old private residence
Nextdoor-ish, flyview Paris had multiple interesting VR movies:
Place vendome:
Jardin des tuileries was a bit weird and still half closed due to olympics. It had this interesting hot air balloon in the middle:
Had dinner with David at La Plume, nice restaurant with view:
Then it was time to see Luminiscence at Eglise St Eustache:
Right after Ozora, it was time to go to Cluj for another Untold.
Cluj was a bit too close to have reasonable flighs, but didn't find a train (apparently, there was a dual train option I wasn't able to find), so I went for flixbus, couldn't be so bad, could it? Spoiler alert, 7h in flixbus sucks :)
But back to Untold, this report was a bit hard to write, because part of it partially felt like a letdown, and a partial downgrade compared to my first years. At the same time, it was still a lot of fun, it was even more special because I managed to get a room in the Radisson, inside festival grounds, and on top of being a very special hotel, it had its own parties to add to Untold itself. Also, I am ever thankful for the hospitality from Bogdan, Adrian, and all the team that has been running Fortune all these years, that part was loads of fun, thank you Bogdan, Adrian and everyone else!
So I'll look at this year's untold from 2 vantage points, from someone who has never been, and is looking for a festival to go to in Europe, and from someone like me who has now been 4 years in a row and seen some things not improve, or go down.
How many festivals have your hotel inside the festival? Untold does :) (and one big plus of untold is how many accomodations are 10-15mn away on foot, much closer than your tent would ever be at tomorrowland, or hell, a shorter walk than walking back to your car at tomorrowland). This is one of the big plusses of Untold I have mentioned before: it's very easy to get in and out of:
very welcome
most welcome I've ever felt :)
view on the festival
special events
yummy food
white party
white party!
How Untold lost losing the magic somwehat for me this 4th year
So, before I write anything, I need to state that if you have not been to Untold, you should. What I'm going to write below is for people who have already gone multiple times. As a first timer, you wouldn't have noticed some of the things I'm going to mention below.
I tend to notice the little things that add or remove magic to a festival, and Untold was doing quite well on the magic side, but this year, I noticed that it just didn't feel they tried as hard.
For starters, the iconic Untold sign was not lit up once during the 4 days that I was able to see"
so sad, why was it never fixed and lit up?
this is how it was before:
And if you're asking "what little things", I mean things like this. Those fireflies were absolutely magical. How much did they cost? A fraction of a percent of the total festival costs, but it added a lot to the "magic feel"
I also didn't notice as many fireworks compared to previous years. Was it cost cutting?
So many things are sponsored, that's not uncommon at festivals, even if undesired for me for the most part, but Untold has been feeling to me like the worst on that front
one thing I liked the least about Untold was all the promo for more smoking, in such big ways :(
ok, redbull, sure :)
Much fewer dancers/performers and the few I found were sponsored by Mcdonalds.
Everything was sponsored, it really took away from the magic :-/
I really liked the costumed performers but it was noticeable that there were a lot fewer this year. Again, cost cutting?
not only, did I see very few, but sponsored by Mcdonalds, really? Talk about killing the magic :-/
The Grounds
I've already shown you around Untold in past reports, so I invite you to go back to them:
VIP didn't get you so much unless you paid a lot more for a table, and those tables were blocking the view
One thing I still enjoyed was the small lake and watercrafts you could rent, even if you had to use the fake and unreliable wristband money to pay for them.
pretty at night
People
Many locals still take Untold seriously for makeup and outfits, that's always nice and something that continues to make Untold special compared to festivals where people show up in jeans and t-shirt. Thank you to everyone adding to the party!
I always find it cute to have small children come enjoy the festival :)
no idea how this got through security, but it did :)
Lots of fun being with friends again, starting with Bogdan:
Somna's debut at Untold
Untold is a great to way to meet DJs after their set
And of course, I couldn't resist getting a few of my own:
great to see Somna again
as well as Cold Blue
and RAM :)
Richard Durand
Talla 2XLC and FactorB!
And of course, my friends I've made at Untold:
Festival Days
Let's go back and relive the 4 days:
Day 1
Day 1, trance at Fortune with Airwave:
Daxson was back, but more for techno than trance
Little jump to other stages and mainstage:
Day1 Summary:
Day 2
Then back at Fortune Day 2 for some lovely trance with Somna:
lovely to have Somna's debut
From there, went to check out a few other stages, including some DnB:
Back to Fortune for GO:
Day2 Summary:
Day 3
And one more day starting with beautiful trance with Suncather and Exolight:
Unfortunately, Anthony played more of a techno set this time around (and so did other trance DJs I love):
B2B
And more B2B
Day3 Summary:
Day 4
And this takes us to Day #4 :)
Day 4, here we go!
Laura Van Dam went full dark techno
Ruben did an interesting set at the edge of Trance and Techno
That was a lot of techno, so I went to hop to mainstage:
fewer fireworks, but lasers were still there
Back to fortune to finish the night:
It wasn't a good party if you don't get to watch sunrise from it :)
and untold often ends with a 06:00 flight out of Cluj on monday morning with no sleep :)
Actually the whole check-in, and it was a required online check-in procedure which was very very broken this year (server timeouts, not be able to proceed, forcing the upload of pictures of personal info with broken gateways) and without all this, you could not register and get a bar code to get in. In more details:
The new external company I was forced to go through to register my wristband with a lot of personal information a festival has no business collecting and I cannot trust them to keep it safe in the future, had some pretty massive computer failures that prevented me from registering a wristband for 2 hours straight, requiring 27 tries, re-entering private information and required pictures, that got lost each and every time until the 27th until it finally worked. OMG, why all this pain? None of this is needed, just please sell a ticket, give a QR code, you go somewhere you scan the code for a wristband, and you're done. Should take less than 1mn, not hours and then big lines of people stuck outside not able to get in because they didn't register correctly (or couldn't). I really really hope they get rid of all this computer fat, it's not needed, other big festivals work great without it.
I'm sorry, but Untold's IT has been between poor and bad in all the years I've been (from losing my ticket, losing my fake money, and more), and this year it was just as bad except worse in that they forced you to buy some video game-like "rhuna" fake money from some 3rd party company, as the only currency that would be allowed within festival grounds. WTAF?
And yes, you guessed it, that fake money was also broken, between 2 people on one group ticket purchased, it got assigned to the wrong person, and the leftovers were never refunded despite promises that they would. I mean sure, if I wasted more hours of my life to this fake money recovery, it might have worked, but I have other things to do with my life, and I'm afraid to say that I think they are "banking" on exactly that to keep lots of leftover money. So sad and so wrong :(
Ok, I actually need to put an update: apparently, contactless credit cards and pay by phone was finally allowed this year, but that was announced nowhere. I had to buy the fake money because it was impossible to get anything without it in the past and they made literally 0 announcement that real money would be finally allowed. If that did happen, even silently, well, that's a good thing. The only step left is to make it clear to everyone and it will take most of my complaints away.
My feeling that they didn't try as hard to make things magic and that untold had kind of become a money making machine, wasn't helped that they put Untold X tickets for sale in the middle of the festival, without even announcing the dates, or confirmed the location for sure. That felt very questionable and showed lack of humility in my book. I do not claim to be right, but impressions do matter, so I hope the Untold team gets this and can take it into account for Untold X.
I mean telling people to buy tickets for the next year, in the middle of a set, with unannounced dates and technically the location in the park was not even confirmed:
As I promised earlier, you can review Untold 2024 two ways: against the trance paradise it was 3 and 4 years ago, or against similar festivals on the market, today, and the short story is:
Untold this time around, was less of a trance paradise than the first 2 I went to. Yet, it still had trance, that ended up being mixed with a fair amount of techno, effectively like ASOT Rotterdam, which was supposed to be a pure trance event, and isn't anymore. Many say, it's progress, it's not the progress I'd like to see myself but I also think I may be in a minority, so it is what it is
If you like the mix of Trance and Techno, and where ASOT has been going in the last few years, then you'll be in heaven
If you haven't been to Untold before, you won't miss the little things I missed, and hell, maybe they will be back for Untold X
Generally, yes, I am still giving Untold a thumbs up, you should go see it and enjoy it if you haven't yet. I definitely would recommend Untold over Tomorrowland in happy feelings, limited about of lines and BS, so much easier to get in and out than tomorrowland, and despite the pretty terrible online checkin experience I had this year, it's still easier and definitely cheaper than tomorrowland. Sure tomorrowland has more stages that you won't be able to see anyway, so who cares?
If Untold were paying me as a festival advisor consultant (they're not, haha, but maybe this should be my new job, haha?), this is what I would tell them:
Bring back more performers with cool costumes as well as the dancing acrobats, they were awesome!
A small curse for bigger recurring festivals is that they have to be a little bit bigger (not in numbers or revenue, but in whoa factor), every year, or at least as impressive. This is something EDC and Tomorrowland do, Untold needs to do the same.
Drop sponsorship on such costumes (no Mcdonals on the outfits)
Is it possible to tone down the "please everyone smoke" sponsorships, we all know it kills, should Untold really help show it as so glorious when it's clearly not? Hopefully enough money can be made from alcohol and kaufland?
Bring back cool little magic thinks like the lit fireflies
Please, the Untold Sign, don't leave it unlit again, so many people take pictures with it.
If the fake money has to stay, please accept contactless credit cards everywhere and pay by phone. And seriously the video game rhuna money this year was even worse. Money is not a game, and festivals aren't video games => well, I was told after writing this that contactless credit cards were apparently finally supported this year. I never saw any notice of it, and had no idea they were. If true, please make it clear for next editions, thank you.
I'd love to ask for more trance back at Fortune and a live trance vocalist every year, if it's possible :) I know techno is the new trance, but Untold already has a techno stage, and it's Galaxy. Does techno really need to take over fortune too?
I'm not an accountant, I realize I have no idea how much money is going in and out and what things cost. I also realize that more tickets is better for the festival, but this year was the first that mainstage was just full. It was so full that you could not get in via any entrance, even VIP, and you simply couldn't see some DJs if you weren't already there saving a seat. That seems like a problem, if I had missed a favorite set I really wanted to see after having VIP wristbands and not even being able to reach the inside of the arena, that is very bad (yes, it only happened once that I saw, but it's once too many).
Things that are great, not to change:
security has always been cool with lots of security inside the event in case something goes bad. I like that model
4 day-nights of 16H of partying is insane, few festivals top this
good food options if I only could pay for them with real money
while fortune stage, my favorite, is not the biggest, but well run and enjoyable. Much better than the poor barely trance stage at Tomorrowland (I'll also hereby state that I've always had more fun at Untold than Tomorrowland for many reasons explained in both blogs)
most people would be worried about a festival open to all families all the way down to kids, but I found each time, it was great
Romania and Romanians are very welcoming, and overall things are cheap (except accommodations during Untold, haha)
So there you go, how is Untold X going to be (the 10th edition)? Will it add back the few things that were missing or went down this year and make things even better, or is it going to become more tomorrowland-like, a money making machine before all? (note, I'm not trying to be harsh, I want Untold to show me my concerns were wrong, that the magic is still there, an that edition X will be the best one ever!)
Also, if you're a trance lover, how will the trance lineup be for Untold X? I recommend holding off until it is released so that you can decide whether to go. In past years, I'd have gone on faith alone, but for the next one, I'd recommend waiting to see what's announced before you buy.
