Every year in the first weekend of September the island hosts a lovely music and art festival called Into The Great Wide Open (ITGWO). The east side of the island turns into one big mix of all kinds of stages (both outdoors and indoors), musical genres and interesting people.
It's also one of the most busy weekends of the year and that is the reason I don't always go. Last year I actually avoided the festival altogether and went on a weekend trip to one of the other islands, but most years I pick one day to visit and ignore the rest.
This year however I was really in the mood for it and I was lucky enough to get a free all in ticket through my job. So for three and a half days I immersed myself in lots of music and even a little art. I must admit I did not see most of the art installations exhibited, because I needed all my energy just to keep up with the performances I wanted to see.
This post is basically a photo impression of that weekend, even though most were taken on the final day. I did not feel like dragging a camera around all the time. I just wanted to enjoy the shows.
Still, I thought it might be nice to give you an impression of ITGWO 2016. Maybe one day you would like to come! ;-)
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| One of the smaller outdoor stages. Yes, right among the trees. |
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| The location of the island really adds to the atmosphere. |
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| In line for piano concert in the church. I was the very last one to get in! |
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| Signage everywhere. "Toilets and First Aid" |
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| Which way to go for some of the stages. |
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| "Modder" means "mud", it's a play on words obviously, and you could paint with mud on the canvas. |
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| A little piece of woods to recharge yourself. Literally it says 'Recharge forest'. |
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| In line for coffee and cakes. |
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| There were tons of stalls where you could get food and drink. Good stuff too. |
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| The big central stage. This is on our sports field. |
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| I loved the look of these lights. |
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| While taking some shelter from the rain, my eyes fell on these paper lanterns. |
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| "Don't climb the trees." |
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| "Exit" |
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| The last day was somewhat rainy as you can see by the capes some people are wearing. |
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| The trees were basically used for everything. |
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| Every day a bunch of kids would make a newspaper. |
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| The central field, away from the stage. |
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| Lots of walking between stages. |
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| Lovely lamp. |
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| Here and there they put up hammocks between the trees. |
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| How lots of people got around. Bikes, bikes, bikes. |
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| Final performance on the central stage. Rag 'n Bone Man. Fabulous! |
ITGWO with it's thousands of visitors also often closes the summer season. School vacations are over so the enormous amounts of tourists have pretty much left. There is always a lingering after season and in general of course there are always visitors here all year round, but that brings a very different type of crowd and a much smaller one, so I'm kind of happy we are entering a less busy time.
I hope you enjoyed this peek into our festival and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!
