Once a year I-Motion, also responsible for Syndicate, turns the OlgaPark in Germany into a special electronic music festival. 48.000 people traveling from all over the country. Ruhr in Love took place on 27th of June and offered more than 400 artists and 40 floors/stages and you could have discovered nearly every variety of electronic music, ranging from Techno, House, Deep House, Hardstyle/Tek, Hardcore, Goa, Trance, Gabber / Terror, Frenchcore, Club and even some sort of Hip Hop.
Facilities, area, line up and stages
The festival ground was huge. A park with a wide green grass field, permeated with an artificial canal and enough space for all the 40 stages, a Bungee Jumping area, food and drink booths, a relaxing area and more. The sun was shining and the park was crowded like never before, so besides music, you had a lot of opportunities to spend your day with your best friends and maybe discover some sounds and sets you’ve never heard before. Set your mind free for new music and let yourself go!
The special aspect about Ruhr in Love is, that smaller event organizer have the chance to represent themselves. Regarding that, the stages were not that big or supported with the best equipment, the craziest sound system or the famous artists in the scene. I have to admit, I just noticed a few artists in the Line-Up, which I know, but I want to underline that it should not hold you back from buying a ticket for only 27€!
I want to give you a quick overview. There are some interesting stages I want to mention. The main- and mixery Stage. It was placed in the middle, surrounded by canals and providing some bigger names on stage. This year Oliver Heldens was one of the headliners. The hardstyle stage was hosted by Federation-X and quite small, placed next to the hardcore stage hosted by A.L.E.X. Events and Hardtours. Tensor & Re-Direction or Re-Style are more known artists in the scene and brought us some heavy beats.
Furthermore, there was a the Megarave floor, sponsored by Peacock, Partyraiser records and Rotterdam Terror Corps! Besides an Oldschool stage with some gabber/techno and hardcore sounds, these were pretty much the hard dance music stages. It is indeed not a hardstyle/hardcore festival, which you have to keep in mind when you want to visit Ruhr in Love next year.
Besides all these harder stages, House and Techno were the most played styles and you had a huge range of different stages and I am sure everyone found his/her favorite.
You could have bought some kind of tokens, but you also had the chance to pay with money. The prices were average and drinks ranging from Water, Mixery, Beer and Cocktails. The food was diverse, but also pretty normal for a festival – Fries, Burgers, some Turkish Food, Fruits, Ice Cream, Crepes, Asian food, Pizza, Sandwiches and most importantly BRATWURST!
But, how did we spend our day?
After we entered the festival ground, we just wanted to get an overview about Ruhr in Love this year. So we walked around the festival ground, followed by a quick stop at the main stage. AKA AKA feat. Thalstroem Berlin were playing some deep house and the people seemed to love it. It was so crowded that you had no chance to dance, which was the main reason we left the main stage and searched for a less crowded stage.
We moved to the Hardstyle stage and even there we couldn’t find a real headliner. The music was good and we enjoyed the one hour we spend over there. A good, euphoric mix, with some classics in between and a harder ending with Hardbass Junky in the Digital Punk remix.
After we got ourselves some fresh beers, we walked around to find a nice place. We stopped at one of the techno areas, but I really need to say, that’s not my music, since it sounds so similar the whole time. I did not recognize any climax or something like a main part. 25 minutes just the same beat, I guess 🙂
We moved on and found a small stage with some popular dancing to house, mixed with some harder tracks like FTS! I really went crazy on this track, but also noticing my friends were like ‘What the hell is he doing?!’ Although the stage was pretty small, the shining sun and the good music made us dance for some hours.
After this we got stuck at the Hexenhouse, which was a bigger stage. The vibe was incredibly good and the slowly but common house tracks were pumping through the speakers. In the end we finished off the day at the Hardstyle stage again to some really old classics!
It was so cool because some of us actually listened and danced to hardstyle for the first time and enjoyed it. The night settled in, we got ourselves some food until we walked to the exit! A really cool day was about to end, we definitely had a lot of fun!
If you’re open to different styles of music and don’t care about big names, huge stages and a pumping sound system and most importantly, you’re coming from Germany, then you should visit Ruhr in Love next year! It is different to other events, but not worse!
Although I was kind of sick of the drunk German people, going on my nerves – and yes, sadly there are a lot people who don’t know their limit. A German only party crowd is so much different to a Dutch one. But, take a few of your friends, even those who never been to such a festival and have a great time! All in all the 27€ worth it, also if you want to discover new music and new experiences.