In three days tens of thousands of people will be partying again during the Liberation Festival in Assen. All partygoers will enter a new festival site this year, because the Baggelhuizerplas looks different this year than in previous editions.
The eleventh edition of the Liberation Festival is set up on a grander scale this time, partly because the festival could not handle the large influx of visitors last year. The site was therefore closed off, but not everyone agreed. For example, some festival-goers broke through the security gates.
And the organization wants to avoid that scenario this year. That is why the site has been further expanded this year, says festival coordinator Bennie Batema. “We have made an extra entrance on the south side of the site. This creates more terrain and we can accommodate about twenty percent more people.”
The stages have also been given a different place on the Baggelhuizerplas. For example, the main stage has been moved to the south side, but the Sena Performers Stage for up-and-coming music talent is still opposite. In addition, there is a new stage on the beach, where visitors can dance until the wee hours. The organization has spread the stage bust more over the terrain to spread the audience more over the terrain.
In order not only to spread the audience more over the site, but also over the day itself, the organization has rearranged the line-up. For example, Waylon kicks off the rush hour on the main stage, hoping to welcome visitors to the festival site relatively early. “We also learned that from last year. Two big names came to perform one after the other, so at that time we were very busy. In order to spread that better, we have set up the line-up differently.”
Assen was probably able to greet more festival goers than in previous years last year because the organization of the liberation festival in Groningen decided for the first time to charge an entrance fee. This angered regular visitors to the festival there, so they sought refuge in freely accessible liberation festivals in the region, including in Assen. This year the liberation festival in Groningen can be visited for free again, but it has nevertheless been decided in Assen to expand the festival site. “It may indeed matter to some visitors, but that is difficult to estimate,” says Batema.
At a festival it is ideally dry and the sun is shining, but the weather forecasts currently show a little rain. “Unfortunately, we have no influence on that,” laughs Batema. “Hopefully it will be dry on the day itself and the sun will still show itself. But if it is too cold, then we have to party harder to get warm.”
Want to see what the terrain looks like? Bennie Batema already gave RTV Drenthe a tour this afternoon: