Got lucky one night, there was dew in the air which worked great for lasers:

Music was however a problem for me, most of it I can't say I liked, which was unfortunate:

This year the caslte was a bit farther away, and thankfully they had busses from Paris that got you there in a bit over 2H. Meeting in Paris:

2H later

thankfully the walk from the bus to tipis was a lot shorter

security check was super fast and mostly 'please don't bring glass bottles'

the glamping tipis were decked out

and thankfully they had a charging station that saved my life

Like last year, you could bring all the food and drinks you wanted, and they had decent options:

I did have a crepe :)

La lutinerie had interesting workshops and shade:

for 'emergency use', they had a 'love room' for couples at night ;)

Some days, because it was too hot anywhere but in the shade, I went to hide :)

I wasn't the only one to hide :)

Later in the afternoon, people got into their costumes (or changed) and went from the campsite to the castle:

it was between warm and hot, plenty of water thankfully

A bit before sunset, I went to change too:

5 Stages, but they were not super fun during the day when it was hot:

that was funny though :)

Some vendors and displays:

Got better at night of course (except for the music that was often close to unbearable at almost all stages for me):

this stage really looked nice, but the music...

The people

This is what saved the festival for me, the people were awesome. Yes, they're my countrymen and all, but they just had great party spirit and put a lot of effort into costumes and lights, which I not only very much appreciate, but deserves extra credit when power sources to charge batteries, were limited:

the french equivalent of insomniac ground control, nice!

Conclusions

What fell short:

What I enjoyed:

Would I go back?
At this point, the reality is 'unlikely'. I don't get to go to a festival and say 'your music sucks', it's for me to enjoy it or find another festival with music that is more fun to me, and given the smaller footprint, and smaller amount of stages of the regular festival compared to the 10 year anniversary, it left me with fewer chances to find music that was enjoyable for me.
If I can get the dates to align, I may go back to Hadra, as I can work with psytrance more easily ;)

enough busses and it was easy enough to stand by on an earlier bus

Links

And short video bits that were taken of me:

It is what I would call a 2.5 day event. Friday and Saturday nights (until 03:00 and 05:00 respectively) are the main events, and sunday has a day afterparty from noon to 18:00 (although apparently people stayed to party a bit later on their own). It was great that most of the event was at night as Europe was going through a heat wave strong enough to shut down Defcon in Holland and impact the opening time of lumi on one day. Euforia was by lovely lake, so I'm sure that helped with temps a bit, but ultimately it was still warm although for friday and saturday it was not a big deal since even if sunset was past 21:30, the sun went behind trees by 19:00 or so, making the temps, bearable.
Ontune, who runs the event, was super nice in answering me beforehand and assuring me that bringing my LED gear would not be an issue at all, he even wrote a note via Email I could have shown security if needed, but turns out security was super nice and didn't mind at all. This redeems poland in my eyes after the terrible experience at ASOT poland the week before and confirms that the main problem is going to a stadium (where ASOT was), whereas festivals, are fine.

I didn't come empty handed :)

For people without VIP unlimited food and drinks, the food options were excellent and plenty of drink options too. Much better than the average festival:

that was the sad part :(

I'm not posting every food vendor, but they were many, a good variety

VIP Area:

I didn't take enough pictures of the yummy meats, but they were yummy

Friday and Saturday Night Parties

people could kayak in and enjoy the music ;)

most people didn't speak much or any English, but still made friends :)

Hi Orkidea :)

I was equipped for Will Atkinson :)

Day 2, Saturday:

the 4th stage opened up, was the trance stage and had wonderful visuals and lasers

a few lucky people could stay right there and watch from their balcony :)

great lasers

finally got to meet driftmoon

spaceman at another stage, but not my music

mainstage was also quite nice, really good setup for the middle of nowhere

Talla 2XLC

And the party went late enough that sunset got there first :)

Sunday Day Party

got to meet and thank ontune

Review and Thoughts

Now, can I really recommend to non Polish people to go? This gets a bit more tricky: I have to be honest that it's really in the middle of nowhere. You can't reasonably go there without a rental car, it's 1.3h from Wroclaw airport, and 4h from warsaw airport. Given that, I would only recommend it for people already in Poland or already going to Poland for a trip (and Poland is a lovely place to visit)

But realistically it's not a real comparison, lumi is easier to get to, clearly has a lot more trance, more hours, more DJs, but if you're not a fan of how it's being run, don't want to be in the hot sun all day, are not a fan of sound bleed, overcrowding, or the 2nd worst security team I've seen in the world,

Links

So, silly me had spent a week making a new LED outfit that mostly worked in sunlight and even made a custom logo for superstrings whom I was very excited to see:

But that was not meant to be, the stadium had strict no LED rules that I'm sure were on the polish website somewhere but not on the list of rules sent to event goers by ASOT. So they scanned my ticket, security then denied me entry, I was sent on a fool's errand to try and get in somewhere else, but with my GA credentials that was not meant to be. Some person nicely called a supervisor who said they would not be approving entrance with the LEDs, but I could check them in a locker and enter without them. Fair enough, rules are rules.
Then it got complicated, some mean lady at the GA entrance took offence to me coming back to do as directed by her supervisor and ensured that I could not even reach the lockers or enter at all. The few staff that spoke English wanted to help, but the mean green lady in charge told all of them to deny me any access:

So I had to go back to my hotel room, fully change, and come back after 2h lost. But even then I still couldn't get in because my ticket had been scanned already and there were no 'in and outs'. Someone told me I had to buy another ticket to get in, never mind the event was sold out. Ooops. Thankfully I found a nice person on the VIP side who got someone to unscan my ticket so that it would work again. I was finally able to go back to the GA side, dodge the mean lady that didn't see me, and finally get in 2h30 late. By then I had missed 2 sets and half of superstrings, which was quite sad, but at least I was able to get the last 30mn.

While I understand while festivals see stadiums as a convenient location, given the lot of extra rules stadiums have, that aren't festival friendly, I obviously don't feel they are a great place, unless a different of rules are agreed to for the event.
Also, I have to be honest that Poland is not about lit up outfits, or pretty much any outfits at all, so there is that.

Once in, there was a small stage and food and drinks on one side, and a 2nd security! that prevented you from taking any food or drinks from inside the venue to inside the stadium that had its own food and drinks.

Finally superstrings, they played lovely music for the remaining half I was able to hear:

I said no one had any outfits, not true, I found exactly one, but it was still black of course, pretty colors are not allowed in Poland ;)

did find one friend :)

I stayed in the pit a bit longer until was unbearable due to overcrowding:

Then let's talk about other weird logistics issues. They had one way flow control to get in and out of the pit, and they did have free water (even if they took the unopened bottle water that a security guy gave me after he felt bad for me for what happened), but long lines for that. That said, it was much quicker to go in a bathroom and get water from the sinks there:

Giuseppe was next:

Then John Summit:

After that, made the 'mistake' of needing more water and bathroom stop. Almost all the stadium doors were exit only and everyone was forced to use to rear doors that barely moved and took a very long time to go through. That was not good:

the other people who got screwed like me

I had to use crafty tricks to get back to my bleacher chair that had been sectioned off in 4 different ways (you couldn't get back there, staff was blocking that entire area), and once I made it there, didn't move for the next 4h or so, until the end. No more water or bathroom.

you will note the total lack of any festival lights

Armin played a bit of everything, some tracks I liked better than others, and Sasha joined to sing on stage, that was lovely. Last was Armin f2f John Summit, which was an interesting mix, you don't see that every day. Sorry that the pictures aren't great, but getting back to a decent spot in the pit was mostly impossible:

the production value was pretty good

Thoughts

All in all, I think it's great that ASOT brings the party around the world to save the effort for everyone to travel to a single location, but indeed you end up with very different events, very different vibes, pricing that can be double for what you get. So you and I cannot expect a mostly consistent experience across the different editions of ASOT around the wrold., and that was one my mistakes. Realistically few people are going to travel to multiple ASOTs, so very few will ever experience those differences and I guess it actually makes sense to adjust to each local market.
I think at the end of the day, it does very much matter for people to have a local-ishy event to save on travel costs and attend when they otherwise wouldn't be able to. So, each event is still a win for people who live locally, and this was clearly shown by the fact that it sold out even as a single day 9h event over Asot rotterdam that is 2 days + pre/post-parties that was not sold out. Does this make sense? I can't quite explain it.
Clearly, I was the odd one out for that event. Even if you agree with the feedback I gave on improvements, I have to be honest that I'm the one that didn't fit in, fair enough.

I'd say the main things I would wish for are:

Links