The History
Mysteryland is a festival that originated in Netherlands but was brought to New York in 2014. The Mysteryland USA is held in Bethel Woods which is proximity to where Woodstock used to be held. The festival itself is a 3-day camping (or lodging) music festival. It is a 21 and up festival which makes a great difference in the type of crowd.
The Vibe
From entering the festival to leaving, I was pretty impressed with the staff of Mysteryland. Security was present but not on a head hunt to ruin people’s days. Entering the festival through was security checkpoint was rather painless and the organization of getting camp set up was too.
The crowd was along more mature crowd of any music festival I’ve been to. As I stated above, at this time, it is a 21+ festival which really does make all the difference. From my perspective, I didn’t see much of EDC broness.
My Festival
I went up to New York from Virginia with a squad of about 8 people. I also had other friends from VA who were staying in different accommodation and not camping. Camping was easily set up and we adopted two guys from LA into our camp. Not the camping look cramped to me and people seem to have a lot of space for their camp.
Overall, I enjoyed the layout and stages at Mysteryland more than other festivals I’ve been to. Each stage was dedicated to a different genre of music, which I really enjoyed. Also, Mysterland ahs a Q-Dance stage which is not popular in America. It was interesting to see this type of music being played in the US.
Mysteryland USA itself was super clean and I noticed there weren’t lines for much. Getting in and out of the festival grounds was relatively easy and security didn’t make you strip every time you wanted to enter. The bathrooms were never overly disgusting or had an obnoxious line up use.
The only downfall of Mysteryland was it got really cold at night. Since summer hasn’t started and you’re camping in the mountain ranges of NY, it became really cold at night. I feel like a lot of people were not prepared. As far as camping festivals, that was definitely one of the coldest festivals I’ve attended.
Every night, after the music in the festival shuts down, a group from NY puts on a silent disco after party. I really enjoyed this as the group, BangOn NYC!, had put a lot of effort into their own mini stage.
Favorite Sets: Favorite artists I saw in no particular order (even though this was really hard to do).
- Space Jesus – first time seeing live.
- Kygo – had an awesome sunset set.
- Gramatik B2B Griz – the funky electronic will always be my favorite.
- Bakermat
- Beats Antique – played a style I have never seen them play before. I really enjoyed it.
- Claptone
Afterthoughts
Mysteryland USA was definitely worth the trip. There were very negative things I noticed about this festival. Everything was well put on, the crowd was nice, and the price point was worth every dollar to attend. After leaving ML, I completely understand why so many people vouch for this festival.
* featured image from Mysterland’s Tumblr.