Supersized Kingsday

Supersized Kingsday is the hard day of Koningsdag, by a lake. The text of 29 April 2016 walks 27 April 2016. The writer had already been there in 2015, so the start year does not sit in one figure. At 12:30 the car enters a pasture, 10 euros, and sinks in the mud twice. It has to be pushed. The shoes are already full of mud, and the party runs until 23:00. A five-minute bus takes people to the grounds. The entrance is called Maxima. The locker costs 7 euros. The drink token costs 2.75 euros. In 2015 the parking sat against the grounds. In 2016 it does not.

The raw stage is outdoors, with two roofs for about 200 people and a floor for about 2000. Degos & Re-done drops Fight your fears, Madness and Stomping. The sound has improved. It rains and people move into the tents. The hardstyle stage is the biggest, a tent the size of the Blue area at Defqon.1. You can stand there in a shirt. Audiotricz puts in From Within, by Headhunterz, and also softer tunes the writer does not like. Those softer ones are not named.

On the hardcore stage, DJ Mad Dog opens at 14:30, for an hour and a half. Rewind and the tool Back to the Oldschool play. Then Angerfist, more decibels, tunes from the albums The Deadfaced Dimension and Raise & Revolt, with no loose track. The floor no longer lets you move without touching someone, and it is cold. Kasparov and Amada take over. Pompen, by D-Fence, plays, and a D-Fence edit made for that Koningsdag. Kasparov drops Magic and Infected by Madness. Amada drops Pillow Fight and Never Fall A Sleep, by Tha Playah. A Sleep stands split.

AniMe, from Italy, drops Bass for your face, Detonate in The Sickest Squad remix, Fucking Jump, Terrordome, and from earlier A-Bomb. Destructive Tendencies, from the United Kingdom, is the best stretch of the day. The bass drills. Sounds Become One plays, and new tunes with no title, from an album not out yet. The zone sits at 130 percent, and the system makes the ears bleed. Partyraiser comes on after on that stage, and the writer leaves: it has stopped raining. On the raw stage, Deetox, no title. B-Front closes the last tunes with Magic and Which wolf to feed. It is not the same feel as at X-Qlusive B-Front. E-Force opens with Men of Steel. He puts in tunes from the album The 9 Circles, by Warface, with no loose track, and Seven. With Frequencerz he drops Gods. Fuck this Nation plays twice, and it stands as a slip. He closes with the hardcore edit of Men of Steel, and in the same stretch the hardstyle version is there too.

The hardcore stage paints Queen Beatrix, no longer on the throne, driving a boat. The hardstyle stage has lasers. There are pancakes, Dutch games and people dressed as the stereotype. They give out ponchos. At the exit there are two gates. In 2015 they used Alexander. In 2016 it is Maxima, and it is a mess. There is a paid bus at 5 euros that almost nobody knows exists, and a single free bus. The walk to the car takes 40 minutes. In the pasture, tractors pull the cars out for an hour.

Eva Thijs tells another Koningsdag, the one in the text signed 2 May 2024, at Aquabest, by the water and the woods of Best, with seven stages. That day leaves no title. The doors open at 12:00 and people run. Dual Damage is on early. At 13:00 the raw stage is orange out to the edge of the woods, and it fills four football pitches. Up above there is a portrait of King Willem-Alexander. Sara, from Hengelo, set the alarm for 5:30 and still misses Dual Damage. In the uptempo tent, during Major Conspiracy, a boy lets off tear gas. Nikki says people come out coughing, eyes red, and that a friend's younger brother has his chain pulled off. Abdul asks where the stage has gone: more than half the crowd is outside the tent. Rejecta moves the raw stage. Paul is at the front, in a circle of 10 or 15. Mish closes that stage. Aversion closes the hardstyle tent with a thin crowd. Around 19:00 the fruit stall has no fruit left. Around 22:00 the road out is shut, the taxis are full and some buses to Eindhoven do not leave. The lake of 2016 does not carry the name Aquabest. The one of 2024 does. Never Fall A Sleep stands with A split off. Men of Steel stands in three: the opening, the hardstyle version and the hardcore edit at the close. Fuck this Nation stands as two plays. The organizer is not named.