Pinkpop 2026

 

 June 2026. Third time at Pinkpop festival in Landgraaf, Netherlands. Still awesome! 

Off to the festival! 

Got to take a train with a couple changes straight from Gembloux. When in Landgraaf, had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant 'Santa Maria' right next to the station. 

For a change, getting there was quite uneventful, until to the very end, where we discovered we had to walk a bit longer than expected. 

The festival was during a heatwave this year, daily temperatures were 32-36 degrees, at night dropped to around 25 degrees. At night, also intense thunderstorms visited. Mostly they came quite late, but on one evening during 21 Pilots concert, a heavy tropical storm came straight over us. Within a minute everybody was soaked, still jumping, singing and dancing inside the crowd, as rain and winds hit from every direction. Definitely memorable! 

We upped our accommodation as well this year, glamped in a bit nicer tents. They are bigger, had real beds inside, come with lounging chairs, led lights and even plugs to charge phones, and are also closer to bathrooms and the cafeteria. 

Every year I´m continuously impressed how few lines and waiting time there is for anything - for getting in, getting a drink, going to toilet.. and for how clean the washrooms and toilets are. Real effort is put into this! 

The lineup was great as always, for example: Natasha Bedingfield, The Vaccines, Teddy Swims, Kingfishr, The Pretty Reckless, Halsey, Editors, Franz Ferdinand, The Cure, Yungblud and Foo Fighters. Discovered some new names as well, like Voila, Max Mcnown and Di-Rect. 

Trying out different food trucks is always another great perk of festivals. 

Netherlands played (and won) a game at World Cup during the festival. Obviously a screen was put up for that! 

Until next year! 

PS, we were quite sure that our luck with Flixbus had turned, as although a bit late, we made the bus nicely when leaving the festival, but decided to be clever and went off one stop before Brussels - in Leuven. A train from there would have indeed been 25 minutes and saved us a lot of time, as original plan was to go through Brussels. Airport is sort of between Leuven and Brussels. We went to a shop and when exited to go and find the correct platform, saw a bus in a stop saying 'Brussels Airport'. Decided to take that and it was the most horrible decision, as the bus-ride took 1.5 hours. It truly went through every possible village, town and street it could find. So, long story short, we did not save any time.