It all began about 16 years ago with a small dance-parade in Middelburg and now the organization You Dance offers visitors a weekender at a brand-new location including campsite and pre-party. Last year the Festival was placed 2nd on the Festivalchart so we couldn’t miss out on the expansion of the concept this year. We attended on both Saturday & Sunday and you can read our experience below!
Filled with excitement we got out of the shuttle-bus and checked-in at the press-desk at the festival-terrain located at Oude Veerseweg in Middelburg. Clearly the terrain was much bigger than it was last year at a parking-lot. Some areas are indoor (in a tent) but most of them are outdoor. It was great to see that art was also present in the form of graffiti and lego-puppets made of recycled material. Sunglasses and solar-crème were definitely a must-have because it was perfect festival-weather. With 150 acts at 9 areas we obviously couldn’t check everything but we’ll be taking you on a trip so you can relive the festival.
On Saturday it took a while before it got busy and really the atmosphere reached a peak but that’s quite understandable since there was also a Free Festival part in the city-center. The stage-design of the main-stage had many clock-elements which probably was very much related to this years’ theme: ‘A New Beginning’. The church which was pink last year was a bigger one which seemed a good idea since it was the home of DnB on Saturday and the domain of STTRBSTN on Sunday.
EYE4DANCE hosted their Members of Hardstyle stage so that guaranteed a very decent production! The line-up can be called more than decent with big names like Audiofreq, The Prophet, Deepack and E-Force. Experienced artist & surely a legend DJ The Prophet threw down one of the very best sets of the Saturday for sure starting with lovely classics like ‘Music Made Addict’ by D-Block & S-Te-Fan. Audiofreq was as always a pleasure to check out because he’s got so much energy behind the decks.
The Beachboom stage (Deep/Tech-House) area made us think about a Carribean beachbar especially because of the fact there was a bar located right across the stage. Talents Benjamin Scott, Twice Is Wise and Maycelli managed to keep a great summer-vibe which made standing still no option at all. Maycelli is a female House DJ who, despite we had never heard of her before, really managed to impress us with smooth transitions and great enthusiasm behind the decks.
The line-up on the mainstage can be considered impressive looking at the relatively cheap entrance prices. However, the tokens to get drinks and food can’t be called cheap: 4 tokens for 11 euros. Moombahteam were capable of amazing the crowd with a full hour of own productions & edits and finally just before the fireworks would start, the guys from Dubvision delivered a lovely progressive set.
The fireworks + endshow was stunning! It was so much bigger than last year and the sound/lights were on point!
When getting out of the shuttle-bus on Sunday we couldn’t help but feel a little tired in our legs but we were totally ready for day 2!
Sunday was for us all about 90s classics at the Children Of The 90s stage, Freestyle/Tek-beat at the Candy Club and not to forget: the OH1OH hosting at the mainstage. OH1OH is the hosting-concept of 010 bookings so they brought out all their stars, such as: local heroes Pep & Rash, Vato Gonzalez, Lady Bee, La Fuente, Tony Junior and DJ Dyna. As you no doubt can imagine it was busy at the mainstage pretty much the whole day. Especially Pep & Rash, for who City Of Dance is a home-gig, the crowd-reaction was great. Vato Gonzalez and MC Tjen showed great chemistry and Vato dropped some new tunes, cool set!
Psst… We did an interview with Tony Junior! Make sure to follow our channels to check it out soon!
Last year the mainstage was closed by The Darkraver with his buddy Outsiders and as expected The Darkraver knew exactly how to make the crowd go completely crazy. He’s one of the rebels that made our Sunday.
Honestly we had no clue what to expect of the Children of the 90s stage, and especially not whether it would be a popular area. We were completely wrong. The area was packed and Lasgo from Belgium kept us spell-bound for a full hour with live-singing.
At the end of the day Martin Priem, owner & founder of City Of Dance Festival got on stage to thank his wife and the crew, but especially the crowd, for an amazing weekender. Quite a special moment.
Conclusion
City Of Dance Festival has outdone itself! Of course we knew it was going to be bigger than last year but our expectations have been exceeded. Of course for a first weekender perfection is impossible so we got some recommendations for the organization for next year. It would have been great to see an act/DJ all the time at the Children Of The 90s stage instead of sometimes video-clips. The price for tokens was rather high. It would have been better to have more than 1 block of toilets since it could take relatively long to get there in the evening because of the amount of people. However, we also praise the production-team for a really great job, as far as we’ve been able to judge the sound and the lights were great at every single stage. Finally, we won’t be surprised if City Of Dance manages to get a high spot on the Festival Chart this year and recommend everybody from Zeeland & who’s living nearby to pay a visit, it’s worth it!
© Festivalling.com
Reporter: Alexander Bouten
Photographer: Cover picture by Youran Kock