Apparently the whole world knows what happened by now.
There was something in the air that morning; something I believed was the feeling of excitement about going to Pukkelpop.
Let’s skip the happy moments I had at my first ever big festival, and go to around 4 pm. My dad and I parted ways, and he gave me my raincoat ‘just in case’. Laughing, I looked up to the sky and said “As if any rain will still fall today.” How wrong I was.
Around 6 pm I left the ‘Shelter’ tent after a very fun performance by the Black Pacific. I noticed it was raining outside. Annoyed by the change in weather, I put on my raincoat.
The moment I stepped outside the tent, it was as if I had stepped into utter Apocalypse. The sky had turned black, rain and hailstones were gushing down at the few people walking outside and while I was running towards the bigger Marquee tent, I saw a tree falling down somewhere behind me, seemingly very close to the tent I just came out. I didn’t care, oddly enough all I was thinking at that moment was “I need to get to the Marquee to see Panic at the Disco!!” Once there, the rain kept coming in through the sides of the tent, along with winds at cutting speed. “Everyone standing at the sides, GET OUT!!” someone screamed. I ran into the darkness, looking for some place to remain dry, though that seemed needless, as I was already soaking. Having found a safe spot, I looked around and saw the same expression of shock and disbelief on the faces of the people surrounding me. “Where the fuck did this come from?” When I caught a huge hailstone and stared at it, not believing what I was seeing, a man was still laughing at me, “Got hit by bigger than that, girl” Everywhere I watched, people were taking shelter underneath food cabins or trees. Hiding underneath a tree seemed the most stupid thing to do at that point, since that tree could come down or get struck by lightning every second. Not for a million Euros would I ever stand underneath such a tree. I preferred getting soppy wet underneath the tiny roofs of the food cabins. Around me, boys were standing in their bare chests and girls in their thin t-shirts, surprised by the sudden rain and hail. I grabbed a girl, smaller than me, and dragged her underneath a roof, leaving no spot for me anymore so I had to stand in the full rain and hail. She gave me a look as if I’d just assaulted her, but I couldn’t care less, I was wearing a raincoat and I just couldn’t stand the sight of that girl with her bare arms getting hit by those hailstones. Giving one girl shelter from those hailstones was the least I could do.
Surreal as it looks now, I was still desperate not to miss Panic at the Disco in the Marquee tent, so I decided to take the risk of getting struck by lightning while running through an open field. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I bet my gym teacher would be proud of me since I’m sure I broke my personal record. I can’t describe what it looked like by then, when I was running I could barely see where I was going, and the whole time I was thinking “This is a hurricane. It’s fucking rapture. We’ll die”. This may seem exaggerating as I couldn’t yet see what the rest of the festival site looked like from where I was, thus not realizing just what was happening, but at that moment I was honestly really scared.
When I got in the Marquee, the first thing I did was text my dad to tell I was okay, wet but safe in the Marquee. The message still seemed to come through. The next message I sent, telling my best friend trees were falling down and the Marquee was shaking, didn’t. I think that was the point where I first realized something was off, something bigger than I thought was going on. I moved towards the middle of the tent. A boy, still completely dry, watched me as I took out my line-up, which was completely destroyed by the water, as was the 20 euro’s I got in my pocket. He smiled at me. “Got a little wet?” – “Yeah, but only a little” I joked. I remember worrying about my paper with the line-up being destroyed. How would I know where to go to? Soon after that, a man came up on stage, telling us that for now, none of the bands would be performing while they were checking the damage. “Damage?” I thought, in my ignorance, “Sure this was rain and hail like I had never seen before, but what damage could a 15-minute storm have caused?” The news of bands not playing was received with a loud booing, but then the man onstage said, with a little shaking in his voice: “People, be serious. Look behind you. Shit is getting life-threatening here”
As everyone turned around, you could almost hear the shock. The sound of gasping was everywhere. That minute, we all realized there wasn’t any band performing there that night anymore at all. Walking slowly towards the exit of the Marquee tent, I could not believe my eyes. I couldn’t grasp the true meaning of what I was seeing. Outside, the sky was a filthy grey, even though it had already cleared up a little. The site had turned into a swamp and one of the huge poles with signs on it to show directions was stood askew, several signs had fallen off. The gateway between two sides of the field had been crushed by a giant tree, with the entrance looking hardly any better. The iron structures that had once formed the entrance had come down and the 10 foot tall letters that had proudly read PUKKELPOP now lay scattered upon the floor. But worst of all was what I saw when looking straight before me. Where once had stood the Château tent, now lay a pathetic, messy pile of poles, ironwork and canvas. The whole tent had just collapsed. It was a terrible, sickening sight.
I started laughing. It was the laugh of a man who just saw the roof of the home he grew up in disappear. A laugh of shock, disbelief and grief, not comprehending the impact of what had happened. Everywhere I looked I saw people crying and desperately trying to call up their friends and family. The phone network was over capacity, no one could reach anyone. There wasn’t any mass hysteria at that point, but it would be outrageous to claim no one was panicking. Everyone looked devastated, shocked by how such a beautiful summer day turned into such a tragedy. The thunder and lightning still rattling and cracking through the sky gave the whole thing a haunting post-apocalyptic feel. Ear-deafening silence was torturing all the attendants. Before, the festival was one colourful mix of music and laughter from all the different kinds of people attending Belgium’s biggest alternative festival. Now, the colours had been drowned in black and grey and all you could hear was silence and shock, disturbed every few minutes by the sound of sirens from the ambulances.
All I could do was wait. I thought my dad had received the message that I was in the Marquee. He didn’t, but luckily he found me there, unharmed, after just 30 scared minutes. Strangely enough, I hadn’t been worrying about him. Not once did it come to my mind that perhaps he could have been hit by a tree, or been in that tent. Perhaps it was the naïve positivity of a child still believing nothing bad can happen to the ones they love. Or perhaps I was just too overwhelmed by fear and what had happened to be worrying about him. All I knew was that I was glad he found me. “We’re leaving, now!” he said. I still couldn’t believe what had happened. This couldn’t be true...it couldn’t be over…perhaps the tent had been empty and no one got hurt? Still naïve, but slowly, the impact of the events started hitting me. That tent couldn’t have been empty; thousands must have been taking shelter from the rain inside. It was impossible no one got seriously injured. Or even worse, though that was something we didn’t dare to think about. “So it’s really over? Pukkelpop’s cancelled?” I asked my dad. This question may seem absurd considering the situation and considering I knew people must have died there, but I just couldn’t comprehend my first big festival experience really ended this way. I learned that there is a difference between knowing what happened and understanding what happened. It must be a nightmare. “We have to get to the car” A wave of fear raged through me as I realized we had parked our car underneath some trees. What if?
All the attendants spilled out onto the streets. On the way to our car we saw streets completely drowned in muddy water, an old woman came running towards us, branches of a tree next to her house had fallen off and taken her house’s electricity wires with them. These now lay in a puddle of mud and water, making it an extremely dangerous place. All the way through, we tried to contact my mother and grandmother, telling them not to worry, that we were alright and heading home, but our phones still wouldn’t work...When we got to the car and finally were able to reach our family, we were extremely happy nothing bad had happened. Since we were one of the first to leave the scene, we got out relatively quick, on our way home.
Inside the car, we put on the radio and the news started coming through. Countless injured...municipal disaster-plan put into action..1 death...press conference held by Chokri, Pukkelpop’s organizer, and the major of Hasselt…speaking of 2 deaths…more seriously injured…other tents collapsed as well…3 deaths…
I came home shocked by what I had been a witness to and immediately put on the news. Everyone was talking about it. This was without doubt the most tragic day in Belgian festival history. Images of youngsters, not very different from me, desperately trying to find their friends, trying to contact their parents, telling them they were alright. Reporters had lost their camera crew and started filming with their cell phones. It honestly looked like the end of the world.
My cell phone, mysteriously still working after all the water it had seen, brought to me messages of worried friends. “Are you okay? Heard what happened. Please let me know.” “Shari? Everything alright? Answer!” This came as a shock to me, knowing how many people actually cared for me, had been scared for me. It may seem more than normal they were worrying about me, but that evening I still hadn’t fully realized how big the impact of this disaster was, that even I had been in danger, though I had been lucky enough to have found a shelter in what turned out to be one of the safest tents on the whole field. It even still seemed absurd people in America would hear about this.
It wasn’t until Friday when I started to understand. 5 people dead, 140 injured. I heard what tents had collapsed, what tents had got hit by trees. I saw the press conference held that day at 10 am. Whereas merely 18 hours before, I had called Chokri a filthy capitalist after spending 7,5 euro’s on a miniature Kebab, I now felt sorry as hell for him. The man looked as if he had lived over a 100 years in misery. Last year, a shadow fell over Pukkelpop as one of the crew members died of a heart attack and Charles Haddon, the singer of Où Est Le Swimming Pool? committed suicide on one of the festival’s parking lots. But this…this was something way worse than he could ever have imagined, something no one could have predicted. One Dutch interviewer shamelessly blamed Chokri for not having warned anyone about the storm. When Chokri helplessly explained that no one could have known what was coming, the Dutchman kept going and said “You knew there was a possibility a storm was coming!!” Indeed, a possibility. Everyone knew, but what happened there was no storm. Not on ordinary one, at least. There isn’t anyone on this Earth who could have predicted what would exactly happen. Does he expect Chokri to stop the weather or what?
I also heard of more tents having collapsed, one of them the ‘Shelter’ tent, the tent I just came out when the storm started. Apparently, the support bar fell apart and the whole thing broke down in half. Now, the people who lost their lives there are getting faces and names on the news, making everything much more real. A young couple..a student going to Pukkelpop for the very first time..
Turning on my computer that Friday, I discovered messages from people all the way in other parts from Europe and even America worrying about me after they heard what happened. I can’t explain how much this means to me.
Only now I’m realizing what happened. The future of Pukkelpop is still uncertain. Last year it celebrated its 25th birthday, possibly it won’t ever celebrate its 30th. Such a shame, for it was without doubt one of the best and biggest festivals in Belgium, second after Rock Werchter, but having kept that peculiar feel and alternativity that RW has lost over the years.
One thing is certain though: Pukkelpop will never be the same after this.
There had been something in the air that morning.
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