Full Moon Festival

Yesterday I attended my first ever Dutch festival, with my super awesome New Zealand friend. Small-scale 1 day outdoor festivals are common in the Netherlands (far more so than in the UK as far as I am aware), so I was really excited to get to finally experience one for myself, and was surprised by just how different the Dutch festival was to the British. Full Moon Festival was a trance and electronic festival held in a field next to a lake in Spaarnewoude (a half hour bike ride away from Haarlem). Typically this is not my sort of music, however my friend is a techno-expert, and it seemed like a great opportunity for a new experience - and to have fun and dance like a crazy person.

Finishing work around midday, and armed with my ticket and sunglasses I headed to my friends house to discover that his festival game plan was incredibly on-point. He'd planned the route, loaded up on sunscreen, AND prepared us a nutritional, energy packed, filling, pre-rave meal of oats with banana, almond milk, and peanut butter.

expert breakfast

Finally we set out on our bikes, beer in hands, first along main roads and eventually through fields, finally following the sound of the music the last part of the way until we arrived at the festival. Here we found the first difference to British festivals - a specific place to put bikes.

bike selfie

the entrance

Once inside although we were ready to go, but decided to scout the tents before sitting in the shade for a while to check out the schedule, wait for it to cool down a little, and watch costumed performers arrive. The festival was made up of 4 music tents, a food stall area, several bar tents, a small area to swim in the lake, and other practical facilities. The largest main tent, the Dark moon tent, hosted "cutting edge hard energy sounds" (though it seemed a lot to me like techno remixes of popular songs which was cool), the second largest tent was the Blue moon stage with trance music, then there were two smaller tents, the New moon and the Rest moon.

shade

Ready to dance, we spent an hour or so in the largest tent throwing some shapes before there was a DJ my buddy especially wanted to see in the trance tent and so we went to check that out. Dancing to trance music was initially new to me, but my friend was doing such a good job that I followed suit and got into it, and we had a really great time. 

trance

As the sun started to set we took a break for something to scout out something to eat, to chat, and to take a walk into the lake - now warm from the sun all day. The festival hosted many exciting food options, unfortunately the highlights of which (pizza toasty van, "road kill" BBQ, mini donuts factory, and ice cream truck) were not vegan friendly, although I did manage to find a veggie burger (which was delicious) that I bought with my munten (the second difference from my previous festivals, here you bought tokens at the start and then used those for drinks and food etc).

main tent

mmm

teepee!

a little 'Friday 13th'-esque

sunset lake

pink

We then returned to our mental dancing, making the most of it once the sun had set meaning the end was in sight. Towards the end of the night the music was at its best, made only better by the appearance of more performers (people in extravagant costumes, stilt-walkers, burlesque dancers, and one light-up-robot-man), and the sudden plethora of confetti cannons going off. I absolutely looove confetti cannons, and was very excited to dance around under 5 or 6 lots of different shaped and coloured confetti. 

New moon tent

main stage lit up

eat (ice cream), sleep, rave, repeat

full moon

dancers

female vocalist

At 11pm, the biggest difference to any festival (or party, or event that I've ever been to) hit us - the music stopped, the lights came on, and it was time to come home. Luckily we were pretty tired and dehydrated after 9 hours of dancing in 24 degrees (water was so expensive, and sold in bottles without caps! But toilets were also expensive...) so were happy to head home and reflect on the experience. Overall, we agreed we had an amazing time, that the atmosphere and music was made even even better by the cool and friendly people in attendance, and something we'd both totally do again. After a quiet ride home, we perfectly finished off our evening with what is probably my favourite Dutch snack - frites met pindasaus. Tot volgende keer!

night time tent

pinda saus