An unexpected mass of visitors and a fatal bar code system error led to some worse trouble right at the beginning of Boom. But no doubt: Those who finally managed to enter the festival ground witnessed pure magic going on on the shores of the reservoir in Idanha-a-Nova.

Coming right from the west coast on Sunday early morning I met lighting artist Aerosol by chance in Idanha-a-Nova. He spend the night in the village because he was kept away from entering the festival site the day before. Quite a funny thing if you consider that he is a decoration artist and went there to do the work he was booked for. But after he managed some things at the office in the village, getting in on Sunday was not a problem any more.

At least for us. Many, many other people experienced huge problems with passing the gates or even did not get in at all. Talking to people I know and made aquaintance with during the following days revealed some massive capacity problems at the gates. On the one hand there was an unexpected mass of people: Estimated 20.000 wanted to get in the same time on Monday. This amount of people collided with a fatal error in the new e-ticket system: The bar codes –invented to accelerate the entry process- was not readable for the scanners if the ticket was printed out in different formats. The staff at the gates had to enter the ticket codes manually into the system and of course this took much longer then just scanning them. Quite some people later told that their tickets were not really checked any more, they were just let in after a short view on the prints.

Quite soon also rumors made their round telling that people did not get in any more because they had no presale ticket and the gate was closed. Well, considering the mass of people this would be quite an understandable fact. The curious about it was an explicit announcement on the homepage that everybody would have the chance to get a ticket at the gate which had been posted only few days before the festival. In fact the entry was closed because of exceeded capacity and people –no matter where they came from- were refused to get in. Official information told about 10.000 – 15.000 people not getting in any more…

Back to earth

No doubt: Nature is the very best decoration artist. Isn´t that the actual reason why thousands of people strive to remote festival acres every summer? In this aspect Boom has quite perfect dispositions with its wonderful venue: Situated on the shores of a huge reservoir with many bays, a small peninsula and lots of hills which offer a fantastic view on the almost savanna- like landscape it appears to be a perfect location. The Portuguese climate with its guaranteed summer is another factor. The decoration concept of this years Boom festival reinforced the magic of this wonderful landscape by its nature-relation. In my opinion the promoters pretty much hit the bull´s eye with this concept.

Clay was a major part in the concept of this years Boom festival. Beside the mentioned main stage construction there were clay- built structures on the whole festival ground. The red color of this material contrasted with the clear blue sky in a very beautiful way.

The most important thing at a festival

When I read the name of the new stage at this years Boom festival in the internet I was instantly pretty amazed because it consisted of two things I really love: Groovy Beach. My euphoria was even increased when I read that this new floor would feature a huge bandwidth of electronic music. To say it straight-out: My high expectations were absolutely fulfilled! While quite everybody is talking about style variety on this floor it was really practiced. I had some absolutely amazing and inspiring moments at Groovy Beach floor. For example when people went totally crazy to sea- deep Dubstep tunes and faced the excellent Function One speakers while dancing instead of the DJ. Or hundreds of voices screamed “Acid!” during a wicked Breakbeat / Electro House set in the night. After my very intensive involvement in the scene for one decade now it has become rather seldom that I am really deeply impressed and inspired by DJ sets or liveacts I hear at parties. At Groovy Beach it happened even several times! I loved the huge variety of the floor which reached from oldschool Funk stuff, Dub and Raggae to Drum´n´Bass, Breaks, Tech House and Minimal. What I did not like was the fact that the floor stopped every day at midday because I love to celebrate during the day and quite some people I know do so too. So it would have been great to have a longer time table during the day.

I did not like the music at the Trance floor too much this year. For sure there was some nice Progressive Trance during the daytime and I remember at least one great afternoon I spend there. But in general the sound was far too hard and fast for my taste. I camped on the hill right above the Trance floor and so I got quite some of the music played there. On Sunday the sound continued the whole day without a break and I expected some cool Progressive Sound during the afternoon. But there was none, music went on from dawn to dusk without a remarkable change. On this day I realized a strange contrast: On the one hand we had a fantastically designed party surrounded by a wonderful countryside. There were heaps of beautiful people from all over the world and quite some of them follow alternative lifestyles. Also the many workshops and lectures which were offered during the festival told about meditation, peace and propagated inner peace, balance and relaxation. But the music is the total opposite of this beautiful, natural and relaxed scenery: Hard, hectic and aggressive! I just cant understand this drastic contrast between the gorgeous festival and its beautiful visitors and this music without soul and intelligence.

Situated on top of a small hill on the peninsula the Ambient Forest was situated in one of the most beautiful areas of the festival venue. This year there was a small fountain in the middle of the bamboo structure that offered lots of shady space during the hot days. Again plants were used to create a very relaxed atmosphere. The amazing view over the lake, the surrounding nature and to the Trancefloor was unique, for me this is definitely the most beautiful and sophisticated Chill Out I have seen so far. The music offered quite some variety, reaching from very, very slow and psychedelic opium tunes to even danceable World Music.

Nothing to complain

Also the so called Boom Bug is definitely not a fault of the promoters. When so many people meet in some kind of camp town it’s a recipe for certain hygienic problems. I myself got infected and was concerned by diarrhea and a strange feeling of weakness for 2,5 days and it was really horrible. I assume it was a Noro virus which is transmitted in a fecal- oral way and is highly infective, only very few pathogens are needed to cause the illness. Definitely a really bad experience for many visitors but as said not really a curious thing when such masses of people meet in warm climate.

Yes, it was absolutely great again - Thanks a lot to the promoters and everybody else who contributed!

Roberdo