the festival as an ideal testing ground
Everything that disappears always remains somewhere. This is also true for Into The Great Wide Open 2024. The fourteenth edition of the annual arts and music festival on Vlieland was a testing ground for many: fresh, young creators and artists, sustainable pilots, and responsible food and drink. A look back at a weekend in which once again many steps were taken in the right direction.
THE MUSIC
In musical terms, there was plenty to discover. On Friday evening, everything that Into The Great Wide Open entails came together in just a few hours.
At the Open Plek, guest of honor Patrick Watson played an intimate show, after which the Belgian duo Aili unleashed an italo-pop rave on talent stage de Kuil. The Portuguese MARO enchanted with bossa nova-esque folk songs, and the London sensation Fat Dog lived up to his live reputation with a set full of gritty proto-punk and electronics. A day later, Achterlicht, Clitteband, and Frontsector launched the punk compilation Uitholling Bovenlangs at the Bolder, which they recorded earlier this year with five other bands on the island. Co-participant Maria Iskariot ignited the powder keg at de Kuil. From the subdued performance of Japanese folk singer Ichiko Aoba at Vuurboetsduin to the exuberant set of kuduro star Pongo on the main stage: Into The Great Wide Open presented a weekend of quirky and distinctive musicians from various styles and regions.
The theme Shifting Perspectives wove itself as a common thread through the art program and invited participants to broaden or change their view of the world.
This happened with stimulating works such as Curve, a reimagining of the meters-long disorienting tunnel by artist Cocky Eek and theater maker Boukje Schweigman, which attracted a long line of interested visitors throughout the weekend. But within that theme, there was also room for more political works such as A Heaven of My Own by Clinton Kabena, which addresses the discrepancy between our desire for sustainable living in the West on one hand and the toll paid for it in other parts of the world on the other. An up-and-coming talent to keep an eye on is Ghanaian Martin Toloku, who recently completed his residency at the Rijksakademie and presented the beautiful site-specific work Yali this weekend.
SUSTAINABILITY
Again, significant steps in the field of sustainability
Into The Great Wide Open aims to become circular and climate-positive. To achieve this, new steps are taken every year to reach this goal. The festival operated 90% on renewable energy in terms of the power supply for all festival locations, saving about 6,000 liters of diesel. Into The Great Wide Open 2024 is the first festival that has been built and dismantled with zero-emission construction equipment.
About half of the total emissions of the festival are caused by travel and transport. Every visitor paid a ten-euro Good Travel surcharge and received this back in the form of consumption credit when they arrived at the festival in a sustainable way (not by fossil car).
