Mysteryland delivers spectacular 25th anniversary edition

Mysteryland Festival is one of the biggest and oldest electronic dance music festivals in the world and this past weekend organizers ID&T celebrated the festival’s 25th anniversary with a ton of surprises and a massive line-up. Mysteryland, which takes place at Haarlemmermeer (near Amsterdam), managed to sell out again both Saturday and Sunday, attracting 130.000 visitors from over 100 countries worldwide. The festival’s campsite opened already on Friday and saw exclusive performances at night for all 17,000 camping guests by Nicky Romero, Sander van Doorn and Fedde Le Grand, amongst others.

With 17 different stages to choose from, Mysteryland’s variety of genres was bigger than ever and Hardwell, one of this years’ main headliners, hosted his own Revealed Recordings stage for the very first time. Hardwell fans know by now that besides big room house, the Dutchman is a big fan of hardstyle and on the festival’s Saturday he suddenly appeared on Q-dance stage alongside Wildstylez for a back to back mystery set. Later on he took to main stage for another high-energy set, before Alesso closed off the stage with some impressive mashups that included tracks by fellow Swedes Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Swedish House Mafia and the late Tim Bergling (Avicii). Many attendees started to tear up when Alesso played ARTY‘s ‘Tim’ vs. ‘Heroes (We Could Be)’ towards the end of his set.

This years edition of Mysteryland also saw Trance Energy host a stage at the Big Top tent. Following the huge success of the ongoing trance revival since Tomorrowland last year, ID&T fully revived the concept by presenting trance fans with a stellar line-up. Ferry Corsten and Paul van Dyk delivered massive euphoric performances, but especially the sets of Cosmic Gate and Markus Schulz were nothing short of phenomenal. Cosmic Gate dropped their latest anthem ‘Yeah!’ and their fabulous remix of Gabriel & Dresden’s ‘Only Road’, while Markus Schulz dropped some of his own goosebump-inducing tracks like ‘Safe from Harm’ ft. Emma Hewitt and ‘Destiny’ ft. Delacey.

Visitors who wanted to take a break from all the dancing could go on a spectacular zip-wire ride at Mysteryland too. From the top of the festival grounds’ iconic pyramid, many daredevils took downhill rides (in pairs) of more than 400 meters, with speeds up to 70 kilometers per hour. It was the longest zip-line of all the festivals in Europe and it definitely added to the excitement of all the festivals’ anniversary festivities.

On Sunday, Mysteryland welcomed back Sam Feldt in style, as the unlucky Dutchman couldn’t perform live for months due to a scooter accident in Amsterdam this spring. ID&T handed out 10,000 sunflowers to the crowd on main stage, honoring Feldt’s return to the festival. Still not fully recovered, Sam Feldt performed while sitting down behind the decks, but nevertheless  he put on a sensational live show (with band) that had the supportive crowd dancing from start to finish. Also on Sunday, Hardwell returned once again at his own Revealed Recordings stage, where he played a spectacular set that included some new IDs, his bangers ‘Spaceman’, Power’, and a remix of Avicii’s ‘Levels’. Towards the end he upped the energy level even more by throwing in some hardstyle tunes and classic mashups, ‘Rise Up’ vs. ‘Flying High’ by Yves Larock vs. Captain Hollywood Project being one of them.

As the final festival day came to a close, the crowd at the mainstage was treated to performances by W&W and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, while eagerly awaiting the grand finale by Swedish heroes Axwell Λ Ingrosso. The extremely popular duo is expected to put their project on hold soon, with so many signals given about a definite Swedish House Mafia return. While the speculations go on, Axwell Λ Ingrosso rocked Mysteryland’s mainstage for its final hour. As the rain came down, they opened their SHM-infused set with ‘Sun Is Shining’, to be followed by ‘Dream Bigger’ vs. ‘One’, ‘More Than You Know’ and ‘Dancing Alone’. Axwell Λ Ingrosso’s hour-long set and the beautifully lit mainstage with its lasers and amazing LED visuals were a treat to all of the attendees’ senses.

Despite the cool weather and heavy rain showers on all of the three festival days, Mysteryland succeeded to provide its visitors with an unforgettable experience for the 25th time in a row. Dazzling fireworks at the endshow completed the 25th anniversary edition of Mysteryland Festival 2018. As for future editions of the festival, the news was announced today that the former Floriadeterrein in Haarlemmermeer has come to an agreement with ID&T for another 10 years of Mysteryland at the very same venue.

Check out a festival recap of Mysteryland 2018 down below.

https://www.facebook.com/Mysteryland/videos/446056515905655/