Trufflehound

As @Semprini says, there is a whole fleet of buses that leaves after the festival each night, but they only cover towns and villages in the local Belgian Limburg area. Places like Genk, Tongeren and Sint-Truiden are covered, but they don't go as far as Brussels. This is the list of routes they put on for last year's festival: https://2023.pukkelpop.be/nl/info/transport/met-de-bus/ The late-night trains do cover Brussels, but as @gigi21has already pointed out, they only run after the festival has ended on the Sunday night - they don't run the other days. If you can't find a place to stay in Hasselt, and don't want to fork out for a taxi to Brussels, then Genk, Tongeren or Sint-Truiden might be places to look for cheapish accommodation, then get the relevant night bus there. All three towns have railway stations for getting you to Brussels the next day.

Saturday still looking the strongest day for my tastes. Think we made the right choice on our token day tickets...

It was a coin flip between Saturday or Sunday. In the end I thought the Saturday was a more sociable option for us. We are never quite sure with "Mrs Trufflehound's" work situation whether or not we'd have to get up early on the Monday morning and dash off home. This way we are guaranteed a lie-in! We will still likely come down early, in time to join the Thursday night social in the 'pub on the corner'. I'm keeping our hotel reservation for the whole weekend unchanged for now.

We have tickets for the Saturday. Ho well, saved us some money and we'll still have the 'Puk Light' experience...

Was just logging in and see we are too late...

A bit underwhelming so far for my tastes. There are a few good names in there, but apart from The Smile, no one I'm interested in that I haven't already seen several times (or more) before. Hopefully the filling out of the Club and Lift bills in the coming weeks will add some exciting new names I haven't heard of before, which is what usually makes PKP worthwhile for me. As it is, for the first time in 15 years I won't be buying our tickets on the day they go on sale. I need to be more impressed to justify forking out €279 a pop.

As far as I recall, the only year it sold out quickly was the year when Radiohead headlined

Good, Main Stage wouldn't have suited her

No Pulp, but otherwise that Festileaks list was close: https://www.bestkeptsecret.nl/program

Doesn't have its own thread yet. With the first announcement coming next week, very possibly on Monday, now seems as good a time as any to get things started.

As I bought an Early Bird ticket for BKS24 back in June, I got an email a couple of days ago offering me the chance to pre-book the fixed accommodation (pre-pitched tents, cabins, etc.). That offer ends at noon next Monday 27th, so I would assume the announcement and general sale will start very shortly (if not immediately) after that. Possibly an announcement Monday morning, then sales start at noon...

I'd take Crack Cloud from that bill as well, but I assume that's less likely since they just played this year.

Would love it if you were right about Protomartyr - currently my favourite American band (albeit they've only assumed that role in my life following the unfortunate demise of Low last year). They were excellent when they played in Eindhoven back in August. But what source is giving you that confidence about PKP?

Shuttle buses to/from Hasselt station are free as they always have been. It's in the How to Get There page of the website, under Train: "Hasselt train station: free festival shuttles to the festival ground and camping grounds are available and are also included in your festival ticket. " https://www.pukkelpop.be/en/info/transport/

I doubt you'll be able to park for free near the festival site. They close off most of the side roads in the area and only residents are allowed through. Most of the street parking in Hasselt (within the outer ring, but outside the inner ring) is designated "Blue Zone", which means you can only park (for free) for 2 hours max, except on Sundays or if you have a residents' permit. It's a €25 per day fine if you ignore that. Parking inside the inner ring is pay per hour, so much more expensive. There are park 'n' ride parks on the outskirts of Hasselt that are (I think) free, but then you've got the hassle of an extra bus ride just to get into Hasselt. Cheapest secure parking garage near Hasselt city centre is Blauwe Boulevard, which is about a 10-minute walk from the station. It's huge and (I think) still costs €10 per day. We use it because we stay in a hotel in town, but if the festival parking is "only" €22 for 4 days I'd recommend you take that option if camping. There are shuttle buses between the festival site and Hasselt station from early until late each day, so easy to get into the city. Besides that, it's only a 40-minute walk from the site to the city centre.

I'd describe that as a 'sideways' step! Both made to a mediocre standard (i.e. competent, but a bit boring) by the same brewer (Alken-Maes), and with the same ultimate owners (Carlsberg and Heineken jointly)

I'm sure our mutual friends will also be up for that. Think the taproom is open from 15.00, so easy to combine with Vanveldeke (aka the pub on the corner). See you in a few days!

Just a heads up for any craft beer lovers who are staying on the Pukkelpop campsites (or anywhere else for that matter), and who want something a bit different from the standard cans of Jupiler and Maes pils. From Thursday to Sunday, the Hop Hemel microbrewery in Hasselt is filling takeaway cans to order ("crowlers") from the 12 taps in its taproom. Don't know what's on tap at the moment (I'll find out on Wednesday evening), but I'm confident it will be more exciting than industrial pilsner... (granted, it will cost you a little bit more as well...) The taproom is dead easy to find. It's 200m from the station in Hasselt, on the same street as you head towards the town centre. https://hophemel.be/taproom

I heard they were only big in Japan

They seem to have stopped bothering to send out alert emails - at least I'm not getting them any more, so yesterday's announcement completely passed me by. Mind you, apart from the excellent addition of Crack Cloud, it was an announcement worth ignoring anyway (in my opinion of course)...

I've listened to all of them now. Only Dirk. has made it onto my "possibles" list...

Fri 3/10 Saturday 7/10 Sunday 3/10 I'm finding it all a bit 'meh' and disappointing. Hopefully things will improve. Osees, Amyl & the Sniffers and Julie are the only three 'must-sees' on my list so far, and they're all on Saturday. I'm still missing the strong undercard of names that I'd not previously heard of that PKP always somehow manages to conjure up every year. I've had a listen to everyone announced to date, and only about 2 or 3 of the 'unknowns' (to me) are making my ears perk up. Compare that to the 2023 Best Kept Secret line-up and I've already got 20+ new (to me) names I want to see. On a related financial note, with those two festivals and with two of us going, we've spent over 1,000 euros already this year just on the tickets, never mind all the other expenses. We're not super wealthy and that's just not sustainable. We may have to seriously consider dropping one or the other in 2024 - and looking at the line-ups for this year, Pukkelpop may have to be first in line for the chop...

Welcome! 1. More of an opening party. Only half the site (the dance half) is open, and only from 8pm. There are a few bands and DJs, (almost) all Belgian acts. They don't sell Thursday tickets - entrance is with a Friday or a combi ticket. 2. Last few years they have dropped a large number of names right at the start, so doing it in dribs and drabs like this is a new thing - we'll have to see how it pans out. 3. You can only pay with tokens (vouchers) for food and drink, so worth getting some in advance. No contactless. Almost all drinks (except fizzy wines I think) are 1 token each - food varies depending on whether you're looking for a bag of chips/fries or a bowl of mussels or something in between. 4. I'll let someone else answer this. I haven't camped since 2008, when it was fairly cramped and basic. By all accounts it's much better now. 5. The road outside the festival is closed to normal traffic from Thursday to Monday, so the nearest car parks are north and south of there (you'll be coming from the north). The nearest on both sides are about a 10-minute walk from the entrance I think. As for the border, I'm guessing you're not from Benelux? There haven't been any border controls between Benelux countries since 1970 - more than 20 years before even Schengen was a thing. Coming from Eindhoven you'll cross the border at about 50kmh, so it'll take around 0.1 seconds depending on how big your car is...!

See you there (edition #19 for us)!

Good to see BCNR finally making good on their booking for the 2020 cancelled festival. Personally I'm quite happy that the headliners are shit compared to last year as I'd far rather be in the tents than by the Main Stage, but maybe that's just me. Elsewhere, not great but not too bad. Nice that The Comet is Coming, Crack Cloud, Psychedelic "Prn" Crumpets and Personal Trainer are on the bill, plus there are plenty of unknown (to me) names to discover... I'm pretty confident there'll be a solid undercard hidden in there - there always is.