Unfortunately it was yet another summer festival that got rain, but thankfully none when I arrived, none when I left, and very little during the festival days when I was there (thursday evening to sunday morning), but it rained apparently a lot on sunday afternoon to the point that the festival prevented people from driving out per some local order, and honestly that felt very questionable. Thankfully I did get out before that happened.

I can report that I didn't get wet, yes! :)

Festival Grounds

the google GPS location was not quite correct, but it wasn't too much of a drive around

getting in took many hours for those who arrived earlier, but thankfully by arriving later, entrance and security were pretty fast

the box office was quick

security was also pretty quick when I arrived (apparently kind of bad and slow earlier)

This is where I owe huge thanks to Bel étoile for getting me the last 4 person tipi. I had way too much gear to carry (and honestly it was not fun to drag all the way from the parking lot in dirt and uneven ground), I had no room extra camping gear, but once there, the tipis were well located related to the festival.

tipis were spacious enough

ready to party!

real showers without long lines, as well as plenty of toilets

Plenty of food options, and they took real money! (some even took cash, just like Ozora)

yum!

Plenty of shops and nice art at night:

All in all the domes and stages were nice and pretty:

even some games

mikado!

fun talks

there was a lake, but it wasn't safe to bathe in

mainstage

Power-wise, which is a concern for me given how much power my outfit, needs, there were a few plugs running sometimes, where I was able to recharge my battery packs a little, but nothing easy. At least it was better than tomrrowland that had absolutely 0 power for campers.

It did rain a bit during the 2nd day, creating mud. The organizers nicely spread some hay to help:

People and Mdose

water theme, some came disguised as jellyfish

The highlight, however, was the audio walk with Aiz. It was a very cool experience, role playing-like with a full story narated while walking around the festival, and doing silly things that no one understood because they didn't have the headphones with the story:

Aiz has both an impressive setup and really good acting skills

Festival Days

I got to see Okapi again, with his hilarious video game-like music

mainstage was Ozora-like, just smaller

video summary:

Final Thoughts/Conclusion

All in all, Hadra was enjoyable, and definitely a worthwhile alternative to Ozora that is easier to get to and experience. Also it did not seem to suffer from the theft issues at Ozora. The main downside is unless you were in a wheelchair, you could not drive your car next to your campsite like Ozora, or Nature One, you had to suffer a long walk with luggage in poor uneven terrain, which is an issue for me when I'm carrying 80kg of luggage due to computer, photography and my LED gear.

Links

People

I managed to use the opportunity to say hi to a few DJs as well as friends:

A few people came with costumes:

Festival Day1

Farius and then Ruben

Nifra was next, but that was more techno than trance

hardcore/hardstyle was a big thing now, 2 days at this nice indoor stage

mainstage was decent

Laura Van Dam

back to trance with Fadi/Aly and Fila

Cosmic Gate

Time to walk around a bit:

the days were long, not much darkness

Back for PvD

After PvD's set, there was a bit of time to see fireworks at mainstage, which were actually decent:

Festival Day2

the hardstyle stage was a bit rough and difficult for me to enjoy for hours

Went to see another stage that had hippie music (Woodstock) but switched a bit for Laura Van Dam

Spent the rest of the day at the used to be mainstage, now 2nd biggest stage. Music was uninspiring but better than nothing:

There were lots of smaller stages but it was hard to know what they were all playing without walking a lot back and forth:

By then I should have stayed until the end for the fireworks, but the music was uninspiring and I had an early flight out the next day. Turns out the fireworks (and drone) show was actually quite good and would have been nice to see, but it was a long wait, so I watched it from my hotel room:

video summary:

The grounds

10mn walk through the park

arrived right on time at the VIP entrance, which really was the backstage entrance, weird...

this one I found reasonable until I saw how many bathrooms they didn't have, and how people were just pissing everywhere as a result. It's ultimately on them

the south side had some cute decords, but nothing to write home about

if you got glasses, they had a recycling system that felt ok enough

plenty of food options, but they didn't accept legal tender, just play fake plastic breakable money

nice, but very uphill

I did mention a freeway cutting a festival in 2, true story:

There was camping, but they also had a small higher class village attached to the festival, like tomorrowland. Nice village:

They had one ride, and you got to ride once for free with VIP tickets:

campsite was reasonably big

Thoughts/Conclusions

What I did like:

water was not really free, it was 8 euros one time cost, free refills

the fake plastic play money, which can be cut in 2

a big more thorough search in GA, VIP was super chill

I was going to say that tokens were complete bullshit since you were forced to buy them with a credit card anyway, but the entrance did let you pay for them with cash. I will let you decide how many people in Holland do not have credit cards or pay by phone:

Now, things get a bit nebulous, but I heard that because the organisers were retiring, they had an incentive to maximize their profit this year, at the expense of the festival itself, not good :-/
Of course, given new organizers in 2 years (and festival cancelled nest year), it's kind of hard to say how it will be.

In a nutshell, I'm happy to have been able to see this very long running festival, and thankful to my friends who helped organize the hotel. The festival itself was ok, but indeed it was not one of its best years. Music-wise it at least had one day of mostly trance (versus potentially 0 for tomorrowland if you pick the wrong week), but the 2nd day, it didn't have much music that I enjoyed, despite many stages. Maybe I didn't find it, or it wasn't there.
I guess let's see how the future edition is, but given that it's been at the same time than burning man, it's been difficult for me to go in the past, and let's see how it becomes in the future with the new owners.
Is it worth flying across the world, for? I'd say no.
Is it a decent, cheaper, easier alternative to tomorrowland? Sure, why not.

Links