PONY PEOPLE: Into The Great Wide Open

To end our summer holiday joyously Anne and I went to the festival Into The Great Wide Open (ITGWO), which is a music festival that is held on the Dutch island of Vlieland. Vlieland is a very small island (only about 1100 inhabitants) and the festival is carefully created to match the island's atmosphere. Everything is organised on a rather small scale and therefore very relaxed. This relaxed vibe already started with getting to the island on the boat, wind in our hair and happy people with wine bottles all around. On the island itself we stayed at a camping, where there was plenty of space to put our tent, so we didn't have to fight to get a good spot (which is usually the case at festivals).

The festival itself turned out to be very cute and exciting. There were beautiful little concerts in the woods, fires on the beach, interviews in backyards, concerts in people's living rooms, acoustic sets in the dark forest and much more intimate experiences. At this festival I felt so close to the artists and their music, much more than at any other festival I've been to. Apart from the music there was some amazing art, and a film programme as well (We went to see Lord of the Flies, but I didn't really like it.)

The festival aims primarely at people in their 30's and their kids, so there was also a lot organised for the kids. This was done in a very cute way (more about that later) and made all the kids so happy. Actually, everything at this festival was done in a very cute way. The overall design of the festival (with wooden signs, wooden chairs, crooked wooden "buildings", slings hanging from the trees, blue caravans, a ferris wheel-restaurant and so much more) was so pretty and made us just feel happy. The work that went into all the details that created that atmosphere was so amazing. We loved it and will definitely be going back next year!

Pictures are clickable!

Me pumping up my airbed (it took aaaaages).

Of course there were birds all around, checking out if anyone dropped anything for them to eat.

This signs says: "The Whisperforest" (a project by Edita Karkoschka) which was a place where there were headphones hanging from a big tree. When you put them on you could hear children reading out their own poetry in very soft voices.

Beautiful bikes that we wanted to rent, but didn't because we wanted to spare the money. But oh, so pretty!

Anne trying to catch the shield of a cuttlefish, which she did!

This cat was living with one of the inhabitants of Vlieland, and as we walked by their house one day we saw the cat sitting in the backyard. As you might have noticed, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the famous Voldemort cat. As we started to take pictures of the cat, he/she started to pose for us. Oh, it was so cute, and of course we fell totally in love. But alas, we never saw it again!

These are some very pretty dead crabs that we found at the beach.

Anne's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pants! (homemade)

This was at a place called Wietze's Pizza's, where everything was organized by kids. Your order was taken by a kid, your pizza was baked by a few kids and then when another kid shouted your name you could come and pick it up. It was so sweet, and the kids were all very serious about it. This kid wrote down our order as if it was the most important thing in the world.

Apart from working at the pizzaplace itself, kids were also making billboards for Wietze's Pizza. After a while the whole festival was covered in colorful painted billboards telling you to go to Wietze's Pizza, with the name of course spelled wrong sometimes and with more and more quite strong statements ("There is no festival without Wietze's Pizza!"). So very cute.

Mojito's! (our alcoholic drink of choice)

The concert of Laura Marling, which I really enjoyed. She has such a nice voice, and her songs are so pretty and folky.

These mailboxes say "From nice to in love" and "Other feelings" and were part of the Artstudio for children (called "De Kolder"). There were several activities here for the children, and this one was aimed at writing love letters, which were then delivered by kids as well.

This is where the kids made the daily newspaper. They did all the research and interviews themselves, and then typed their articles on typewriters. After that all the articles were put together and copied to make newspapers, which were distributed by the kids as well. The content of the papers was so funny and nice, and you could see they really put a lot of work in it!

We kept running into this guy, he was so sweet <3

Wietze's Pizza delivery service!

Lucky Fonz III concert, which was very funny because he was so happy! Laughing and doing goofy dances all the time.

These fishes were part of the Arttrail @ Night, where you could walk around and look at different art projects in the dark. Most of them were really pretty and fascinating!

This was part of a project called The Traditionals Project were artists cover some traditional songs. It was really beautiful, and all acoustic. This guy is from the band Alamo Race Track.

Kim Janssen, who I'd never heard of but who had a really beautiful voice. I later checked him out on Spotify and he has a really pretty album as well (called "The Truth Is I Am Always Responsible").

Lucky Fonz III playing the mouth-organ like a mad man.

These animals were shown at the local information centre. They are part of a project by Alette Wttewaall, called "Cubes". Alette used roadkill for this project, taking their heads off and shaping them into cubes. It was very fascinating and pretty, and we were allowed to touch them, which was very nice.

This was part of the normal exhibition at the information centre. There was also an aquarium and a gnome forest. (Yes, a gnome forest).

This was a part of the museum were they showed things that had washed ashore. This doll was also displayed there, but it had been violated by several visitors, cutting into the ears, eyes and mouth. This made the original finder of the doll put up quite an angry sign, that you can read here. (it is in Dutch though).