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