Mysteryland is the pioneer of electronic music festivals. One of the oldest electronic music festivals in the world took place last weekend, in Haarlemmermeer, the Netherlands. Play BPM was there to taste the feeling of the 24st edition of MYSTERYLAND! Check out how was it, by the eyes of our Dutch correspondents, Jarne den Drijver & Dennis van Steijn.

Originally from 1993, Mysteryland is the precursor and still one of the biggest music festivals in the Netherlands, organized by ID&T, who we know from the classic Sensation White, Sensation Black, Amsterdam Music Festival and Tomorrowland. The last one started actually as sister project of Mysteryland and took over the vision: “Yesterday is history. Today is a gift. Tomorrow is a Mystery!”

Even though Mysteryland started as a hardcore festival, the vision is nowadays focused on offering a diversity of electronic music. And with success! In 2011 the festival expanded to Chile and in 2014 to the United States. Also, this year the festival hosted 14 stages with techno, trance, hip-hop, house, hardstyle (Q-dance), the main stage and the comeback of old school hardcore Thunderdome.

Since 2015 you can visit Mysteryland as a weekender, with a pre-party only for campers on Friday, and 2 full festival days on Saturday and Sunday. We attended the pre-party on Friday already, which gave us a good impression for the rest of the weekend. Sam Feldt and Tony Junior opened the weekend with good vibes and music from the early 90’s.

On Saturday we woke up with a beautiful sunrise and a fresh cup of coffee. We decided to go early to the festival ground to miss nothing. Headliners W&W, Showtek, Alok, Deadmau5, KSHMR and Yellow claw rocked at the main stage with good vibes and beautiful fireworks. Carl Cox, Jamie Jones and Dubfire where our favorite at the Techno stage and DVBBS, Lucas and Steve at the Spinnin Sessions stage.

Play BPM spoke on Saturday to Chocolate Puma, Tony Junior and Mike Williams about the atmosphere at Mysteryland, we agreed that Mysteryland had improved because of their weekender edition. The festival added a camping to attract more foreigners to come for a weekend of madness to the Netherlands. This year people from over 75 countries attended, which resulted in a more international vibe, it felt like a mini-Tomorrowland.

Also, typical for European music festivals, the beer is fresh from the tap instead of cans, and you will see various commercial activities for example the Galaxy S8 VR cinema by Samsung. One of the outstanding points of Mysteryland is the returning Q-dance stage which gives the festival more energy and power. The hardstyle beats where brought to the crowd on Saturday by famous DJ’s like Wildstylez, Brennan Heart and Gunz 4 Hire.

At Sunday we crossed the entire festival area of Mysteryland to visit the stages we didn´t visit yet. The area is amazing, filled with tons of decorations and even though it has less number of visitors than Tomorrowland, the area is even bigger. The only disadvantage is that it will take you a while to walk from stage to stage. For that reason, we had to miss Above and Beyond who were together with Axwell & Ingrosso and Armin van Buuren the festival headliners of that day. Despite of that, we had a great weekend and Mysteryland is definitely one of the better festivals we have been to. On Sunday we were able to interview Oliver Heldens and Sam Feldt which will be released soon.

Great weekend and looking forward to the next show in the Netherlands, Mysteryland see you next year!

Check the official aftermovie that was released today!