Ok, so I like electronic dance music, more specifically Trance. When I started in the 1990's, the US was a bit behind in that department.
Still, with San Francisco and San Jose nearby, I've had some opportunities to see some great EDM/Trance DJs. Back in the early 2000's, they sadly played club music in the US that was nowhere close to the hits they had composed and were known for, but over the years, as Trance started becoming more popular, those DJs finally started playing their good tunes in the US too, and maybe from 2004 on, it's only been getting better. Popsicle Halloween 2004 was really the beginning of great music parties in the San Francisco Area, and thankfully things have gotten even better since then
As a matter of fact, after another 10 years (2015 and beyond) the good news is that Trance has grown quite a following in the US, and places like the SF Bay Area, and while Trance has been declared dead a few times in the last 10 years, it's still going strong here.
Trance Family SF is definitely strong in the area, we've been getting more big trance parties every year, including many top DJs that come visit us what feels like every other week now (as of 2018-2019), and through those events, I made many friends in Trance Family SF. Thanks to you all.
Over those years, I got the chance to meet a few of my favourite DJs, including Armin more than once, and my last hobby has been to work on lights for my shirt and pants (version 3) and (version 4)
Right after Ozora, it was time to go to Cluj for another Untold.
Cluj was a bit too close to have reasonable flighs, but didn't find a train (apparently, there was a dual train option I wasn't able to find), so I went for flixbus, couldn't be so bad, could it? Spoiler alert, 7h in flixbus sucks :)
But back to Untold, this report was a bit hard to write, because part of it partially felt like a letdown, and a partial downgrade compared to my first years. At the same time, it was still a lot of fun, it was even more special because I managed to get a room in the Radisson, inside festival grounds, and on top of being a very special hotel, it had its own parties to add to Untold itself. Also, I am ever thankful for the hospitality from Bogdan, Adrian, and all the team that has been running Fortune all these years, that part was loads of fun, thank you Bogdan, Adrian and everyone else!
So I'll look at this year's untold from 2 vantage points, from someone who has never been, and is looking for a festival to go to in Europe, and from someone like me who has now been 4 years in a row and seen some things not improve, or go down.
You can read my previous reports here:
How many festivals have your hotel inside the festival? Untold does :) (and one big plus of untold is how many accomodations are 10-15mn away on foot, much closer than your tent would ever be at tomorrowland, or hell, a shorter walk than walking back to your car at tomorrowland). This is one of the big plusses of Untold I have mentioned before: it's very easy to get in and out of:
very welcome
most welcome I've ever felt :)
view on the festival
special events
yummy food
white party
white party!
How Untold lost losing the magic somwehat for me this 4th year
So, before I write anything, I need to state that if you have not been to Untold, you should. What I'm going to write below is for people who have already gone multiple times. As a first timer, you wouldn't have noticed some of the things I'm going to mention below.
I tend to notice the little things that add or remove magic to a festival, and Untold was doing quite well on the magic side, but this year, I noticed that it just didn't feel they tried as hard.
For starters, the iconic Untold sign was not lit up once during the 4 days that I was able to see"
so sad, why was it never fixed and lit up?
this is how it was before:
And if you're asking "what little things", I mean things like this. Those fireflies were absolutely magical. How much did they cost? A fraction of a percent of the total festival costs, but it added a lot to the "magic feel"
I also didn't notice as many fireworks compared to previous years. Was it cost cutting?
So many things are sponsored, that's not uncommon at festivals, even if undesired for me for the most part, but Untold has been feeling to me like the worst on that front
one thing I liked the least about Untold was all the promo for more smoking, in such big ways :(
ok, redbull, sure :)
Much fewer dancers/performers and the few I found were sponsored by Mcdonalds.
Everything was sponsored, it really took away from the magic :-/
I really liked the costumed performers but it was noticeable that there were a lot fewer this year. Again, cost cutting?
not only, did I see very few, but sponsored by Mcdonalds, really? Talk about killing the magic :-/
The Grounds
I've already shown you around Untold in past reports, so I invite you to go back to them:
VIP didn't get you so much unless you paid a lot more for a table, and those tables were blocking the view
One thing I still enjoyed was the small lake and watercrafts you could rent, even if you had to use the fake and unreliable wristband money to pay for them.
pretty at night
People
Many locals still take Untold seriously for makeup and outfits, that's always nice and something that continues to make Untold special compared to festivals where people show up in jeans and t-shirt. Thank you to everyone adding to the party!
I always find it cute to have small children come enjoy the festival :)
no idea how this got through security, but it did :)
Lots of fun being with friends again, starting with Bogdan:
Somna's debut at Untold
Untold is a great to way to meet DJs after their set
And of course, I couldn't resist getting a few of my own:
great to see Somna again
as well as Cold Blue
and RAM :)
Richard Durand
Talla 2XLC and FactorB!
And of course, my friends I've made at Untold:
Festival Days
Let's go back and relive the 4 days:
Day 1
Day 1, trance at Fortune with Airwave:
Daxson was back, but more for techno than trance
Little jump to other stages and mainstage:
Day1 Summary:
Day 2
Then back at Fortune Day 2 for some lovely trance with Somna:
lovely to have Somna's debut
From there, went to check out a few other stages, including some DnB:
Back to Fortune for GO:
Day2 Summary:
Day 3
And one more day starting with beautiful trance with Suncather and Exolight:
Unfortunately, Anthony played more of a techno set this time around (and so did other trance DJs I love):
B2B
And more B2B
Day3 Summary:
Day 4
And this takes us to Day #4 :)
Day 4, here we go!
Laura Van Dam went full dark techno
Ruben did an interesting set at the edge of Trance and Techno
That was a lot of techno, so I went to hop to mainstage:
fewer fireworks, but lasers were still there
Back to fortune to finish the night:
It wasn't a good party if you don't get to watch sunrise from it :)
and untold often ends with a 06:00 flight out of Cluj on monday morning with no sleep :)
Day4 Summary:
Parting Thoughts
The fake festival money is still a clear issue (please read this blog on the subject), and this year, it was even worse.
Actually the whole check-in, and it was a required online check-in procedure which was very very broken this year (server timeouts, not be able to proceed, forcing the upload of pictures of personal info with broken gateways) and without all this, you could not register and get a bar code to get in. In more details:
The new external company I was forced to go through to register my wristband with a lot of personal information a festival has no business collecting and I cannot trust them to keep it safe in the future, had some pretty massive computer failures that prevented me from registering a wristband for 2 hours straight, requiring 27 tries, re-entering private information and required pictures, that got lost each and every time until the 27th until it finally worked. OMG, why all this pain? None of this is needed, just please sell a ticket, give a QR code, you go somewhere you scan the code for a wristband, and you're done. Should take less than 1mn, not hours and then big lines of people stuck outside not able to get in because they didn't register correctly (or couldn't). I really really hope they get rid of all this computer fat, it's not needed, other big festivals work great without it.
I'm sorry, but Untold's IT has been between poor and bad in all the years I've been (from losing my ticket, losing my fake money, and more), and this year it was just as bad except worse in that they forced you to buy some video game-like "rhuna" fake money from some 3rd party company, as the only currency that would be allowed within festival grounds. WTAF?
And yes, you guessed it, that fake money was also broken, between 2 people on one group ticket purchased, it got assigned to the wrong person, and the leftovers were never refunded despite promises that they would. I mean sure, if I wasted more hours of my life to this fake money recovery, it might have worked, but I have other things to do with my life, and I'm afraid to say that I think they are "banking" on exactly that to keep lots of leftover money. So sad and so wrong :(
Ok, I actually need to put an update: apparently, contactless credit cards and pay by phone was finally allowed this year, but that was announced nowhere. I had to buy the fake money because it was impossible to get anything without it in the past and they made literally 0 announcement that real money would be finally allowed. If that did happen, even silently, well, that's a good thing. The only step left is to make it clear to everyone and it will take most of my complaints away.
My feeling that they didn't try as hard to make things magic and that untold had kind of become a money making machine, wasn't helped that they put Untold X tickets for sale in the middle of the festival, without even announcing the dates, or confirmed the location for sure. That felt very questionable and showed lack of humility in my book. I do not claim to be right, but impressions do matter, so I hope the Untold team gets this and can take it into account for Untold X.
I mean telling people to buy tickets for the next year, in the middle of a set, with unannounced dates and technically the location in the park was not even confirmed:
As I promised earlier, you can review Untold 2024 two ways: against the trance paradise it was 3 and 4 years ago, or against similar festivals on the market, today, and the short story is:
Untold this time around, was less of a trance paradise than the first 2 I went to. Yet, it still had trance, that ended up being mixed with a fair amount of techno, effectively like ASOT Rotterdam, which was supposed to be a pure trance event, and isn't anymore. Many say, it's progress, it's not the progress I'd like to see myself but I also think I may be in a minority, so it is what it is
If you like the mix of Trance and Techno, and where ASOT has been going in the last few years, then you'll be in heaven
If you haven't been to Untold before, you won't miss the little things I missed, and hell, maybe they will be back for Untold X
Generally, yes, I am still giving Untold a thumbs up, you should go see it and enjoy it if you haven't yet. I definitely would recommend Untold over Tomorrowland in happy feelings, limited about of lines and BS, so much easier to get in and out than tomorrowland, and despite the pretty terrible online checkin experience I had this year, it's still easier and definitely cheaper than tomorrowland. Sure tomorrowland has more stages that you won't be able to see anyway, so who cares?
If Untold were paying me as a festival advisor consultant (they're not, haha, but maybe this should be my new job, haha?), this is what I would tell them:
Bring back more performers with cool costumes as well as the dancing acrobats, they were awesome!
A small curse for bigger recurring festivals is that they have to be a little bit bigger (not in numbers or revenue, but in whoa factor), every year, or at least as impressive. This is something EDC and Tomorrowland do, Untold needs to do the same.
Drop sponsorship on such costumes (no Mcdonals on the outfits)
Is it possible to tone down the "please everyone smoke" sponsorships, we all know it kills, should Untold really help show it as so glorious when it's clearly not? Hopefully enough money can be made from alcohol and kaufland?
Bring back cool little magic thinks like the lit fireflies
Please, the Untold Sign, don't leave it unlit again, so many people take pictures with it.
If the fake money has to stay, please accept contactless credit cards everywhere and pay by phone. And seriously the video game rhuna money this year was even worse. Money is not a game, and festivals aren't video games => well, I was told after writing this that contactless credit cards were apparently finally supported this year. I never saw any notice of it, and had no idea they were. If true, please make it clear for next editions, thank you.
I'd love to ask for more trance back at Fortune and a live trance vocalist every year, if it's possible :) I know techno is the new trance, but Untold already has a techno stage, and it's Galaxy. Does techno really need to take over fortune too?
I'm not an accountant, I realize I have no idea how much money is going in and out and what things cost. I also realize that more tickets is better for the festival, but this year was the first that mainstage was just full. It was so full that you could not get in via any entrance, even VIP, and you simply couldn't see some DJs if you weren't already there saving a seat. That seems like a problem, if I had missed a favorite set I really wanted to see after having VIP wristbands and not even being able to reach the inside of the arena, that is very bad (yes, it only happened once that I saw, but it's once too many).
Things that are great, not to change:
security has always been cool with lots of security inside the event in case something goes bad. I like that model
4 day-nights of 16H of partying is insane, few festivals top this
good food options if I only could pay for them with real money
while fortune stage, my favorite, is not the biggest, but well run and enjoyable. Much better than the poor barely trance stage at Tomorrowland (I'll also hereby state that I've always had more fun at Untold than Tomorrowland for many reasons explained in both blogs)
most people would be worried about a festival open to all families all the way down to kids, but I found each time, it was great
Romania and Romanians are very welcoming, and overall things are cheap (except accommodations during Untold, haha)
So there you go, how is Untold X going to be (the 10th edition)? Will it add back the few things that were missing or went down this year and make things even better, or is it going to become more tomorrowland-like, a money making machine before all? (note, I'm not trying to be harsh, I want Untold to show me my concerns were wrong, that the magic is still there, an that edition X will be the best one ever!)
Also, if you're a trance lover, how will the trance lineup be for Untold X? I recommend holding off until it is released so that you can decide whether to go. In past years, I'd have gone on faith alone, but for the next one, I'd recommend waiting to see what's announced before you buy.
If you'd like to follow future posts, you can subscribe to this blog with an RSS reader (atom.xml), or you can follow me on IG: https://www.instagram.com/ledtranceguy/ and you can also DM me for feedback if needed.
