I'll try to tell things chronologically.
So, thursday, around 4PM, I get off the train in Kiewit. I'm there because I have a ticket for the Pukkelpop festival for friday, and I'm able to stay with a friend of my mum's, who lives a few kilometers from the site. She's going to pick me up a kilometer or so away from the station, since the festival camping and entrance is basically right next to the station.
So I walk past the entrance, not a lot of people there since the festival already started 5 hours ago. Next to the entrance and close to the main road I was on is my favourite stage of the festival, the Chateau. There was a band playing there, and the bass was really loud and deep. I smiled, looking forward to spending most of friday in that tent, and I was especially looking foward to Planningtorock, knowing that the bass would probably destroy my ears.
I briefly thought of the great gigs I've seen in that tent over the past 7 years. Fat Truckers, Jamie Lidell (in 2005 - nothing but ultra weird glitchy electro), The Rapture, Riton, Los Campesinos!, Health, The Bug, and one of my best live experiences ever, Liars in 2007. Oh yes, I was very ready to add another band to that list on friday.
So I found my mum's friend after a few minutes, we both complained about how hot it was, and went to her house. I was half-planning on going back to the entrance, because you can see the main stage and obviously hear the music from a couple of stages. I couldn't get a ticket for thursday (or for the weekend) since they sold out so early, but on this day I definitely wanted to see Skunk Anansie amongst others.
But I noticed that some very dark clouds were coming in our direction, that was going to be rain for sure. So I stayed inside, went on the pc, and noticed they were doing a live stream of the Skunk Anansie gig. Yay! So I watched it. Towards the end of the gig, it started raining, but nothing that bad. But it started getting heavier, and soon the frontstage was all wet. It was a really heavy thunderstorm, and I was happy I was inside. Kept watching the livestream, until Skin, completely wet, said "we can't go on!" and ran off the stage. It's then that I saw that there were branches and other stuff flying through the air, hadn't seen anything like this at festival, it looked like a hurricane.
After 15 minutes or so, I start reading things on twitter and newssites saying "tent collapsed at Pukkelpop - several injured". First thing I thought was "oh crap, please don't let it be the chateau!" I watched the news at 7, and yes, chateau collapsed, reports of severe damage to other tents, at least 1 dead, several heavy injured. Crap.
Kept following the news, of course some false rumours were spread (aparently there were 6 people reported dead at some point - stupid newssites taking over this rumour as fact). Videos started to appear, there were extra tv broadcasts, and so on. It all became a bit of a blur, and I'm not sure I actually felt anything at that time. But I was still thinking about the next day. If they don't cancel the festival, will I go? Even if it's not the "full" festival? I decided to go bed around midnight.
I had a very uncomfortable night - kept waking up, every time with another Pukkelpop-related dream in my head. It was nothing bad, mostly about what was going to happen on friday. At around 8PM, I took my phone to check some updates. Festival was cancelled. Good.
I think it was only after I woke up properly that I started to realise what happened, and the impact of the events. Dead people, injured people, traumatised people, at a music festival. At "my" music festival. At one of the biggest and best festivals in Belgium, even Europe. A place where people were supposed to have fun. A place where -I- have been having fun for 7 years now.
I decided to go home at that point, I couldn't stay so close to the place of the disaster. It was physically hurting me. So in the afternoon, my mum's friend drove me to the station. Yes, past the festival site again. I felt like I had to do this, to see it for myself. I saw the chateau tent - broken. Several other stages and constructions - broken. The look on people's faces who were coming from the camping, sitting on the side of the road - broken. Crushed.
On the train, I looked for a quiet spot. I got emotional several times, thinking about what happened, and worrying about what was supposed to happen now. What will happen to my favourite festival? Will it still go on in 2012? At the same spot? Somewhere else? Will it still be the same organisation? What will be the financial consequences - both for the organisers, and me, as a ticket buyer?
When I got home, I gave my mum a big hug. She didn't realise at first I was very upset with the whole thing. I still needed to watch the news, and read the stories of the "survivors". I read some nice and true things, but got very upset at people blaming the organisation, and all the "couldn't this be prevented?" questions. If you were actually in that storm (or in my case, near it) you realise this was an extreme, brutal, exceptional storm. I've been at the Pukkelpop site during several storms, but what I've seen on the videos, and experienced myself, it just doesn't compare. So no, this couldn't have been foreseen. And if you have to evacuate 60.000 people because there might be a heavy storm coming... you know that won't be possible.
But on the positive side, the organisation received a lot of support from the locals, bands, and other festival organisers. The people in the neighbourhood of the festival were great as well, twitter was full of people offering festivalgoers a place to sleep, give them food, etc. There was really a great sense of community. From what I hear most of the people who live around Pukkelpop want it to go on next year as well. This was the 26th edition, so it has really become a symbol for Hasselt, Kiewit and even the province of Limburg. And not just that, apart from Wercher it's the biggest festival and attracts a lot of foreigners as well.
Today is about the first day where Pukkelpop hasn't constantly been on my mind actually. I think it's why I decided to finish this post today, I'm not sure I could've done it before. I also saw some footage of Lowlands, the "sister" festival of Pukkelpop that has a lot of the same bands. At first it felt all wrong, but life goes on. Related to that, Foo Fighters (who were supposed to perform at Pukkelpop that thursday) said a few words at the Frequency festival in Austria (see it here). Basically: "every day you wake up is a good day".
And I'm going to end with that. I had more to say, but it's time to move on. Be grateful for what we had, and be grateful for what we have.
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