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Festival Experience: Electric Castle

Festival Experience: Electric Castle

Hello!

Again, it’s been a while since I have posted, but this time I had a personal issue to deal with and I promise I am trying my best to get back on track! 🙂 

With this being said, one of the reasons I did not post was Electric Castle. For those of you that don’t know, Electric Castle is a Romanian music festival, which is held every year, on the Transylvania’s domain, Banffy Castle. It’s a festival which combines electonic, indie, rock music, so having known these pieces of information, from here the name. This year, the festival took place from 18-22th July. 

This year’s festival was on the sixth edition, and all my friends recommended me to go there, so I thought it was time to give it a chance. The duration of the festival was 5 days, starting from Wednesday afternoon and up to Sunday morning. Even if at first I was planning not to go to day Zero of the festival, Damian Marley was performing and of course I had to motivate myself and go.

With this being said, I got ready with my friend and we went to get our bus tickets to Banffy Castle. Little did I know what I have signed up for. 

Electric Castle is considered to be a cursed festival, especially since 2016, because since then it always rained on the period of the festival, and this year was no exception. 

Day Zero left me really disappointed of the festival. 

Since we got to the ticket point, we had to stay in line for 40 minutes in order to buy a ticket… I don’t want to be that person who focuses on the negative aspects, but there were some bad experiences I encountered, even though  I wish I wouldn’t have and you will see what I am talking about. After having waited 40 minutes in line to buy the tickets, then we had to wait around 50 minutes for the bus to come, even though the organizers said there will be buses every 30 minutes. I guess this was the rushing hour. But the story does not end here, since on the road we had an awful traffic, so we spent an additional hour on the road to get to the festival. When we arrived, there, surprise: the queue to the check-in and entrance was unbelievable. Hundreds of people were waiting to get their festival wristband or to check in. We had to wait for almost 2 hours to get to the festival and it rained three times so me staying and waiting in the rain was just ohh so lovely… annnd I missed Damian Marley on stage. Honestly, I was so angry and disappointed that I was thinking to skip the next day, to avoid getting that angry again. 

Despite of the fact that Day 0 left me extremely disappointed about the festival, I still thought it needed another chance and I decided to go. Day 1 surprised me but such in a good way this time, the queues were gone, I did not have to wait in line, I actually had time to explore the area of the festival, and I saw the artists I wanted to, perform. Netsky kept me dancing until 2 am, and Icona Pop had some pretty good songs, I will continue to listen to. 

Unfortunately, on Friday I could not go, but on Saturday, my whole experience was changed. I started to enjoy even more the festival, regardless of what happened during the first day there. The atmosphere was just so nice and everything around the festival reminded me of Coachella for some strange reason (even if I have never been to Coachella, seeing the photos from there, brought me to that vibe). 

On Saturday I really danced my ass off, as they recommended and I got home the next morning. 

On Sunday, we were all kind of sad that was ending, but I guess after all these 5 days, I was exhausted and I was ready to see Jessie J live. I can honestly say that this was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. She was just amazing live, she took a little girl to sing with her on stage. It was just amazing, from my point of view. 

It is really difficult to organize such an event, and I don’t want to be a hater, because the overall experience was a good one and being with my friends there and meeting new people made it to be a really lovely one.  I know that many of the participants were not happy about the line-up they have chosen for this year, but I guess all the activities you could have done during the festival made up for it. Plus, there were other stages, besides the main stage, such as the Hangar, The Beach, Booha Mansion, Dance Garden Stage, Hideout, Eco Stage, and Silent Dance (which btw was so cool). 

Overall, I am still going to repeat the fact that I was so disappointed by the organization. It seemed to me so chaotic and even the communication was done too late about the important things, such as where to go to check-in if you already had the bracelet, announcing London Grammar would not be able to come anymore, and their absence was really felt on Saturday when they were supposed to perform… Nonetheless, they still have a little bit work to do in what regards the queues and organizing, because I could swear that I lost so much time just waiting in line to get to the festival/to get home, to buy food… But it is was a nice experience and I am glad that I went! If you were to Electric Castle, what was your experience? Let me know! 

Also, stay close by because this is a summer full of music festivals I will be going to. 🙂

Thank you so much to the amazing @Fred for these beautiful photos! Make sure to check out his work! 

What I wore:

Black dress: Zara

Shoes: Outlet/Random store (because I needed them-I knew it would rain)

Accessories: Pull and Bear, H&M

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