RESISTANCE
Resistance was the guiding principle at Into The Great Wide Open 2025. This was exemplified by Lieke Marsman, who addressed the packed Nicolaaskerk: “Resistance begins by saying no.” At Bruintje, the brown pub in the village, Maartje Wortel and Joost Oomen were among those who came to discuss listening and engaging in conversation. Further along, The System premiered about effecting change, in the presence of one of its main characters, Extinction Rebellion’s Pippi van Ommen. Director Lidija Zelovic was present at the screening of her video portrait Home Game about the duality of the search for a ‘home.’ And that resistance is for all ages was proven by the kids who marched in a protest across the grounds.

Musical Activism
There was also resistance in the music. The Mary Wallopers closed the main stage on Friday with Irish folk-punk with a message after they were silenced elsewhere last week for their pro-Palestinian statement. Openly happy about their arrival was returning crowd favorite Antony Szmierek, who himself joined the audience after his show to dance to the Irish band. Sef continued straight to everyone’s heart. Jerry Afriyie joined in that set, issuing an invitation to all those open hearts. The essence: Netherlands, get better. A slight variation and simultaneously a call to action from his foundation Nederland Wordt Beter, which will dissolve itself on December 5th after 15 years, now that it has achieved its goals. An invitation to everyone: neemhetstokjeover.nl. The post-punk of shame also offered every opportunity to take to the barricades, just like the rumba-inspired punk of the Congolese Kin’Gongolo Kiniata and the uplifting hip-hop of Deki Alem. 

Elsewhere in the music program, there was a sense of stillness. Flemish Abel Ghekiere encapsulated memories in experimental folk and jazz, kora player Lubiana enchanted with her blues and gospel, and Oceanic & Greetje Bijma - who met on Vlieland - did the same at the Ice Rink. Also memorable was the passage of Everything Is Recorded, a project that merges echoes from the rich past of founder Richard Russell with top-notch musical futurism.

On Friday morning, the ambient album De Inrichting was presented with a listening session in the Vliehors Expres. The album was created in June during a residency on Vlieland by the specially formed collective Belle, initiated by Ambient Curation and Into The Great Wide Open.

The Worthless Mall
In the Worthless Mall, the children’s program at the festival, everything revolved around the relative value of things. What once seemed like waste became a treasure. Children were challenged to look differently at objects, money, and what is important. Ten years after the first Worthless Mall at Into The Great Wide Open, it has grown into a vibrant mini-world, where over 100,000 objects - from worn forks to self-made perfumes - have found a second life.

Art that Flows and Reflects
With the theme Currents, the art program came to life. Sander Hagelaar presented his work Lucien, where light and water move together in an seemingly endless network of pipes. Gemma Luz Bosch brought calm amid the hustle and bustle with the piece long low slow bathing, where visitors slowly swayed up and down like the ebb and flow. A bit further away, artist duo Anne Fehres and Luke Conroy brought you back down to earth with the visually overwhelming and socially critical work It's All Right, where visitors lying in a beach chair wandered further towards discomfort, with a view of a swirling sun that became more dystopian by the minute. 

A selection from Palestinian artist Maisara Baroud's series I’m Still Alive was on display, with which he has been letting friends, family - and now thousands of strangers - know on social media that he is still alive through a drawing since October 7, 2023. The ever-growing collection of more than 700 drawings visualizes displacement, fear, and hope. That is also resistance. 

Food as the Language of the Future
Future thinking on your plate: the chefs of the changing Kitchen Caravan cook their time ahead. For the opening dinner, fisherman Hendrik Kramer served the catch from his electrically powered boat, the first in the world. This was followed by dishes featuring produce from the twenty-year-old food forest Oogstwold in East Groningen; Zeeland seaweed, miso made from rye bread scraps, and garum from Dutch buckwheat. All according to the motto: the more local, the better. And there is no such thing as leftovers. Artist Claudy Jongstra returned with a program at beach pavilion OOST, in collaboration with chef Benny Blisto (BAK). After a paintLAB workshop and the premiere of her new work Schitterend Wad, a sensory dinner followed, with no cutlery and entirely with hands, enjoying what the North Sea and Wadden Sea provided at that moment.

Building Towards the Future
At Into The Great Wide Open, the festival and construction sector literally built towards the future together. This year on Vlieland, the Building Site of the Future arose in various places. A testing ground for emission-free, circular, and bio-based construction, where the festival experimented with sustainable innovations along with partners such as BAM, TBI, and Stichting Doen, such as bamboo as a building material, or using geotextiles as an alternative to hundreds of meters of plastic ground cloth.

Fossil-Free Important Person
At Into The Great Wide Open, fossil-free travel is becoming the norm. Since almost half of the festival's emissions come from travel to the event, the festival fully committed this year to sustainable alternatives: from train and festival bus to electric taxi and car sharing. With the Good Travel program and the new FIP designation (Fossil-Free Important Person), fossil-free travelers were rewarded. Through the mandatory Good Travel surcharge, all visitors also contributed to a Transition Fund that cleans up residual emissions and invests in emission-free energy and transport.

As Tom Petty sang in the song from which the festival takes its name: the future is wide open. On to the next one: August 27 - 30, 2026.