HOME OF THE HARDER STYLES

Mysteryland skips 2026: ‘We’re starting from scratch’

Mysteryland, the world’s longest-running dance festival, will not take place in 2026. The organization is going back to the drawing board due to rising costs and shifting visitor expectations. The decision comes after several years in which many festivals have struggled in the wake of the pandemic.

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What this means for the future of Mysteryland remains unclear for now. Managing director Anna Wijntjes refers to a “fundamental reset.” “Starting from scratch. Of course, this also has staffing consequences. Some contracts, unfortunately, won’t be renewed, and a new creative team will be assembled.”

Mysteryland isn’t the first festival to take a break. Events like Fusion in Germany and the UK’s Glastonbury have also occasionally skipped a year, although Glastonbury usually does so to allow the land to recover. In Mysteryland’s case, the break is driven by content and structure. “The flagship isn’t sinking, but docked in the harbor,” Wijntjes explains.

Mysteryland began in 1993 as the Netherlands’ first outdoor dance festival. Since 2003, it has been held at the former Floriade grounds in Haarlemmermeer, where it grew into a full weekend event offering a broad range of electronic music, from EDM and techno to hardstyle and urban, all wrapped in a fairytale-like atmosphere with artistic stages and décor.

In the coming period, the team will explore how Mysteryland can continue to stand out in an evolving festival landscape. What is certain: the event will remain in Hoofddorp.

Q-dance stage absent since 2024
Notably, the Q-dance stage has been absent from the festival since 2024. Where Q-dance once delivered a major hardstyle area year after year, that space was filled differently in the most recent and upcoming editions. It was already a sign that internal programming changes were underway.

Mysteryland has always offered a broad spectrum of dance music, but with Q-dance’s departure, the role of the harder styles within the festival seems to have diminished.

Final edition before the break
The 2025 edition is still set to go ahead, from August 22 to 24. After that, Mysteryland will disappear from the festival calendar for at least a year. What returns in 2027 is still unknown, but according to the organization, this is certainly not the end of the festival.

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