The 3 best festivals in Belgium
Text: Lotte Verheyden
Illustrations: Anni Hakkarainen
The biggest and the most famous festivals is Tomorrowland, a Belgian electronic dance music festival.
Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland’s 1st edition was held on August 14, 2005 by an organization led by two brothers, Manu and Michiel Beers. A lot has changed since then except for the location which is still the same, on domain De Schorre in a town called Boom. Tomorrowland started on a small scale because in the first edition there was only 10,000 people and lasted only 1 day. Tomorrowland is up to this year for the 16th edition, they are now doing 3 weekends and they expect 600,000 people.
Tomorrowland expanded really quick. There are 15 different stages that are all spectacularly decorated. Actually, the whole park is an extraordinary experience where you are exactly in a dream world. With beautiful, spectacular fire and light shows that bring people together from all over the world , 600,000 visitors from 200 countries. Great food stands, shops and the best of the ‘best’ line-up. Tomorrowland stands for freedom in itself, where you celebrate life and each other, ‘One world, one heart’
Speaking of ‘the best’ line-up, the have big names taking the stage, like David Guetta, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, Swedish House Mafia, Coldplay and a lot of others. The artists and DJ’s have sets that take up between 1-3hr. It’s not only music that is being performed it’s also a big spectacle with lights.
PukkelPop
The second biggest is PukkelPop, a festival with a wide variety of alternative music, spanning styles such as rock, pop, electronic, dance, hip-hop, punk and heavy metal has been a major attraction. Claimed to be Belgium’s second largest festival with about 180,000 visitors each year, it’s based in a town called Kiewit-Hasselt and has been around since 1991. The festival is in mid to late august and the word “Pukkel” is the Dutch word for “pimple”.
It initially started out as a festival for youth by youth, but it has grown out to be so much more for so many people. The connectivity with the people has been the focus of PukkelPop for more than 30 years! PukkelPop selects a musical line-up with an alternative fringe. Over 200 current musical sensations, living legends and visionary alternative artists all come to perform on one of our eight stages. Pukkelpop opens a world of possibilities, from hi-octane rock to low-fi singer-songwriters, bright splashes of pure pop to banging house and hot metal. Petit Bazar and Salon Fou usher in street theatre, entertainment and well-being in all senses of the word.
Rock Werchter
Then we have Rock Werchter. Rock Werchter is an annual music festival held on the first weekend of the summer holiday in Belgium, in the village of Werchter, near Leuven, since 1976 and is a large sized rock music festival. It’s original name was “Torhout-Werchter”, because it was stated at two different sites: one in Werchter and one in Torhout. Sadly enough there were hardly any headliners for both sites.
The organization decided to drop Torhout and continue with Wercher. Which was an excellent decision if you look where Werchter is at right know. It started out as a one-day event but over the years it has grown to be one of the biggest music festivals of Belgium. Four days of concerts from some of the biggest artist of the world.
Speaking of the biggest artists of the world, last year’s big names were; ‘Metallica’, ‘Twenty One Pilots’, ‘Imagine Dragons’,
‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’ and soo many more. “Rock Werchter” is not even just for the big names, it has one mainstage and three or four smallerstages where smaller or even beginner artist can perform their art. It gives the festival visitors the opportunity to see a broad gala of artists bands like ‘Twenty One Pilots’ or excperience different and new music from an artist they have never heard of before. “Rock Werchter” Also doens’t stay in the roch genre and has welcomed big names in the POP-industry, names like ‘P!NK’, ‘Lewis Capaldi’ and ‘Taylor Swift’. The latter was unfortunatly cancelled because of COVID19 and the restrictions.
In 2023 however “Rock Werchter” welcomes ‘Artic Monkeys’, ‘Muse’, ‘Stromea’, ..
Please feel free to come to Belgium and expercience these amazing festivals and rate them to your own liking!