Rock Werchter

Last week I was for a day in the Rock Werchter festival, one of the biggest music festivals in Europe. It is located in Werchter, a village close to Leuven and the festival-goers could use the trains and the bus that would go from Leuven to the festival site (and back) for free. We arrived shortly after the doors had opened and had the chance of touring around when it was still not so crowded. It was a great summer day and lots of people kept on coming (the organization estimated an attendance of around 85.000 visitors per day). Despite that, I thought everything worked very well for a festival with such a high number of participants (there were never queues to go to the toilets, to order drinks, to drink water, to buy merchandise, to withdraw money), so the organization deserves to be congratulated. At some point we found out that there was a recycling stand that allowed you to exchange 20 plastic bottles or cups for 1 coupon that was worthy a free drink... and as when the concerts were finished and people were moving from one stage to the other there were TONS of bottles and cups lying around, we were able to grab 12 coupons (=12 drinks for free!), which would had otherwise costed us 30 euros. So we ended up spending nothing on drinks the whole day and night! As for food, even though the selection around was also huge (but festival pricey), you could also bring your own sandwiches, so that was something one could also save some money on. This incentive on recycling really worked, as in the end there were no bottles or cups lying around on the grass! We saw plenty of good concerts on that day (the line-up was perfect to allow you to move between the 3 stages and see everything you wanted), stayed until the very end and finished our night waiting with other music-lovers in Leuven's train station for the first morning train to Brussels. In the middle of all this, I was even spotted out by Elle Belgium and ended up being featured in their street style article related to the 3rd day of the festival!