Three days. Five stages. No headliners, only peers. Forty-one acts in a floodlit polder, every name paid the same day-rate, and the closing slot drawn by lot — live on air, every April.
Type size tracks stage capacity, not status. Rows drift both ways; rest a cursor (or a finger) to hold one still.
— the booking policy, the poster policy, and the pay policy. Same sentence, on purpose.
Every festival says the lineup is the star. Then they print three names at 400pt and thirty-eight at 9pt. We stopped. On this poster, letters are sized by stage capacity — bigger field, bigger type — and nothing else. An act moves up the wall by drawing a crowd, not by hiring a bigger agent.
It started in 2024 with 11 acts on a rented cow pasture and a PA borrowed from the Rotterdam harbor authority. Nobody topped the bill then either. Attendance has tripled; the sentence hasn't changed.
Every act on The Clearing earns the same day-rate: €4,200. Thicket pays €2,600, Root Cellar €900. Published here because secrets are how the old math survives.
Saturday 22:45 on The Clearing — the slot other festivals sell to the biggest logo — is drawn from all 41 names, live on Radio Zuidwal, the first Friday of April. In 2026 it went to a duo who had played to 60 people.
Forty minutes, their own engineer welcome, monitors tuned to their rider — not to whoever plays after them. The schedule below is built around this, which is why gates open at 13:00 and not noon.
Set times locked six weeks out. Clashes are engineered to be survivable: no two same-genre acts overlap, and every act plays a full set — no 25-minute festival edits.
The main field, mowed into a fan so the back row stands a meter higher than the front. Floodlit in chartreuse after dark — you can see the glow from the Van Brienenoord bridge. Sunset lands stage-left around 21:50 in June; we schedule for it.
A stage built into a real windbreak of poplars. Guitar music mostly, played loud, heard soft from the hammocks at the tree line.
Sound — 24 kW, wooded natural slap-backA working tomato greenhouse eleven months a year; ours for one. Daylight sets, ambient and acoustic, condensation included.
Sound — 12 kW, tuned for glass reflectionsElectronic stage under a decommissioned high-voltage pylon, lit ultraviolet from below. Runs latest, hits hardest.
Sound — 48 kW, sub arrays buried in the bermAn actual 1930s bulb-storage cellar, brick vault, zero phone signal. The room every act asks to play twice.
Sound — 8 kW, mono, gloriouslyPrices include fees. The number on this page is the number on your card statement.
Pay in three. Any tier splits into three monthly payments at checkout, zero interest, because a festival ticket shouldn't behave like a phone contract.
Resale at face value only. Official exchange opens 1 May. Wristbands are named; scalped tickets die at the gate scanner and we don't feel bad about it.
Under 12 goes free with a ticketed adult — ear defenders free at the info cabin. Rained out entirely? Full refund, automatic, within 7 days. It's a polder; we planned for water.
Rotterdam Zuid station, then the free shuttle every 8 minutes. Last shuttle back leaves 02:40 — after that it's a 55-minute walk along the dike, which some of you will choose anyway.
6,000 free racks at North Gate, guarded all night. This is the Netherlands; the racks fill by 15:00 on Saturday. Come early or come by train.
Forty free taps across the field, marked on every map post in chartreuse. Bring an empty bottle; the €4 water bottle industry is not welcome here.
Wristband tap for everything. Top up at the gate or from your phone. Leftover balance refunds itself within 7 days — no form, no claim window, no quiet keeping of your €6.50.
Raised viewing decks at all five stages, step-free routes on compacted paths, and NGT sign interpreters at The Clearing and Thicket all three days. Access wristbands include a +1.
It is a polder. It will rain at least once, briefly and sideways. Ponchos at cost (€2) at every bar; wellies are the local flex. The site drains fast — it was engineered by people who fight the sea for a living.
Eighteen stands, every one from within 30km of the field — the frietkot from Charlois has held the same corner since 2024. Full vegan line at every stand, meals €6–€12, capped by contract.
Music off at 02:00 Friday and Saturday, 23:30 Sunday. The neighbors are dairy farmers who get up at five, and they lend us their land. We leave it quieter and cleaner than we found it.