Paaspop wants to grow to 120,000 visitors. The festival director expresses that ambition on the third day of the festival in Schijndel. This year they conclude with 105,000 festival -goers, spread over three days. For Paaspop director Peter Sanders there were a few exciting moments this year, especially in the largest festival tent in the world.
With a broad smile and pride, Peter Sanders walks over ‘his’ Paaspopterrein on Sunday afternoon. “I am a happy man. It’s a crazy edition.”
Bad weather?
The sun does play an important thing in this. At Paaspop it can go in all directions: snow, rain, storm and summer temperatures. This year it can be called 18 degrees and sun in the summer. But for the last hours of the Schijndel festival, rain and thunder is expected.
“Paaspop is built on bad weather. In all tents together 50,000 people can and there is heating,” says Sanders reassuring. “We have a consultation every hour in which the weather is discussed, but it is not yet alarming.”
Maximum growth
A total of 105,000 visitors, spread over three days, came to Paaspop this year. Sander knows how to tell. That number has been stable for three years, the maximum capacity seems to be achieved. “That is the maximum that the site can handle now,” says Sanders.
But with a larger mainstage, better parking facilities and traffic flows, among other things, small growth is still possible. “We are in consultation with the municipality to grow something in a new zoning plan. Then we want to go to 40,000 visitors a day. But that is really the Max.”
Exciting moments
With the new mainstage this year, Paaspop has a world first: it is the largest festival tent in the world. “It’s really insane. The image is also much better.” This is partly due to the height, the tent is 25 meters high. And because there are no more posts in the tent. And the sound? “That was exciting for a while, but it sounds really good. Kensington sounded good, UB40 sounded good. It was a little uncertain, but we hung extra speakers.”
But that was not the only exciting moment for Sanders. He still books the artists for two stages. “I will regularly see if the tent is enough. Then it is always exciting to see if the act is successful and whether it is busy.”
Make better
If you ask most visitors for whom they come, you will hear ‘for fun’. The artists are not that important on Paaspop. “It is a compliment that visitors not only come for the acts, but for the total story,” says the festival director. “We are a cross-over music festival. These are all worlds in themselves.”
In the meantime, Sanders’ gaze is slowly going to the 2026 edition. “We are starting again next week. I always look and what we can make and what we can make better. But this morning I told my girlfriend that I will not get anything made up.”
Yet not everything revolves around Easter doll. “We attract more than 750,000 visitors a year with, among others, Solar, Wish Outdoor and Extrema Outdoor Belgium. But Paaspop is the mother of festivals for us. I started there and from there we started organizing more. This is also the biggest for us.”