Have you ever been to a music festival that hasn’t run out of loo roll? Well, I have. It only took 28 years of living and 14 years of festival-going, but I finally found it. All I had to do was go down the rabbit hole.
Have you heard of it? Probably not. No one in the UK has, as far as I can tell. Even some Dutch people were puzzled when we mentioned it in Amsterdam. Ironically, many of the people we talked to wondered why we hadn’t chosen Best Kept Secret, one of the Netherlands’ most respected festivals. I guess our secret was simply better kept.
Down the Rabbit Hole is a three-day music festival that takes place every year in the Groene Heuvels holiday park (not nearly as naff as it sounds) in the area of Ewijk, Gelderland, just an hour and a half out of Amsterdam. Groene Heuvels is a closer sibling to the Shire than it is to Butlins – dotted with little hobbit hole grass and brick constructions, flanked by a swimmable lake with a sandy beach (complete with a party pontoon that we dubbed “Pleasure Island”) to the east and a small, well-kept woodland to the west.
The first edition took place in 2014 and was a hit from the beginning, earning itself two nominations at the European Festival Awards. Lineups are reliably good, with previous headliners including Gorillaz, LCD Soundsystem, Queens of the Stone Age and Fred Again. This year boasted Little Simz, The XX and Florence and the Machine, with support from the likes of CMAT, David Byrne and Empire of the Sun. In other words: it’s like a slightly scaled-back Primavera, minus the concrete and anti-British sentiment.
This is a major upside to Down the Rabbit Hole. Unknown and as-of-yet uncolonised by the UK, it is civilised in ways that Brit-dominated festivals could never be. This is all thanks to the trust placed in its mannerly, welcoming and almost exclusively Dutch attendees. On arrival, we noticed large groups of people gathered around festival-provided barrel barbecues in the campsite, cooking up sausages, kebabs and bell peppers (in England, someone would invariably try and cook a camping chair). Festivalgoers frolicked in the lake, overseen by lifeguards that never needed to get involved. And at night, people gathered around roaring firepits, their expanded pupils enjoying the sight of licking flames. Everyone was well behaved and still managing to have plenty of fun.
I know what you’re thinking. Or, rather, I know what I’d be thinking. “Sure, there’s loo roll and fire pits, but the cost of all these amenities must be docked from the vibes. A festival can only be good if we’re suitably filthy and slightly uncomfortable at all times!” This, I’ve realised, is a type of Learned British Incompetence. The Dutch have taught me that festivals can be both fun *and* clean. The usual nighttime activities still take place, but nobody makes it anyone else’s problem. One of the Dutch friends we met on the dancefloor even gave us a carrot to snack on (granted, we were dressed like rabbits) to make sure our stomachs were lined before going to sleep. Now that’s what I call hospitality.
The music was excellent, and made even better by the whimsical nature of Dutch crowds. Empire of the Sun’s Friday set saw hundreds flock down the hill by the mainstage to join people they’d never met in a sight that resembled that 2009 viral video of the guy starting a solo dance party at Sasquatch Festival. During David Byrne, dance routines materialised out of nowhere – line dancing turned into a variation on Rock the Boat, which turned into great rotating rings of handholding, then back to line dancing again. This kind of behaviour was so prominent I wondered if it was something taught in schools, only to discover (via Reddit) that it surprised the Dutch as much as it did me. It was an entirely new phenomenon this year: someone simply started it, and everyone else went along.
Another musical highlight was Ijsland, the rap duo made up of well-known Dutch rappers Abel van Gijlswijk and Yousef Gnaoui. The pair first united for Ijsland’s self-titled album in 2024, followed by a sophomore effort in 2026 that’s become the Netherlands’ answer to Watch the Throne. Seeing them at DTRH was like watching Kneecap perform in Belfast: utter devotion from a practically feral crowd who knew every single lyric and didn’t hold anything back. Videos posted on the festival’s Instagram show the impressive, swirling moshpits from above, like cells merging into one great beast.
But the best of the weekend - for the English speakers, at least - was undoubtedly CMAT, who arrived on stage with exactly the kind of energy you’d expect from CMAT. “Down the Rabbit Holeeeee,” she purred, “do you want to go down my rabbit hole?” She launched into The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station (“This is making no sense to the average listener” was particularly funny in this pleasingly confused Dutch crowd), followed by I Don’t Really Care For You and When a Good Man Cries. During the latter, she shouted out Olivia Rodrigo, who gave the song a boost in popularity thanks to her recent Radio 1 Live Lounge cover. Crowds gleefully adopted the Dunboyne two-step for I Wanna Be a Cowboy Baby, and a good percentage were misty-eyed by the time Stay For Something closed out the show. The entire festival felt like a sunset set at Glastonbury (high, high praise), but this moment was particularly joyous.
There is perhaps only one downside to Down the Rabbit Hole, and that is the nature of its programming. Two nights saw the main dance acts scheduled to perform before the headliner, not after, which required a sort of clunky, unnatural gear change. Yousuke Yukimatsu preceded The XX, while Overmono played before Florence and the Machine, the sonic equivalent of blue balls, or toothpaste and orange juice. Flipping this around is quite literally the only suggestion I could make to this near-perfect festival.
And for my fellow Britons, I cannot recommend it enough. So much that I don’t want to recommend it all. If you do choose to go Down the Rabbit Hole, please do so with love and care. It really is one of the good ones.
Where to stay
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Down the Rabbit Hole is primarily a camping festival, but given its proximity to Amsterdam (a shuttle bus and a 1.5 hour train), it is possible to do the commute if you really want a proper bed. If this is your choice – or, even better, if you decide to spend some time in Amsterdam before or after the revelry – I can confidently recommend The Hoxton, undoubtedly one of the hippest and cosiest hotels in the city. It’s located in Herengracht, which is a cool 15-minute walk from Amsterdam Centraal, and smack bang in the middle of all the trendy bars and restaurants you could possibly want.
It is comprised of five canal houses (grachtenhuizen) that used to be home to the city’s Mayor. Crucially, it also possesses the comfiest hotel bed I have ever slept in (so good that I checked for a label on the linens with a view of purchasing them). We stayed in a beautiful split-level attic room and slept nestled until the original beams, a proper canal house experience. And there was extra pleasure derived from the Blank toiletries ahead of the festival, knowing it would be hand sanitiser central from there on out.
Rooms start from €203 (£173), thehoxton.com
How to get there
When it comes to European camping festivals, I cannot recommend the Eurostar enough. The train runs from London St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal in as little as four hours and 19 minutes. As well as the ease of departure (aka not having to arrive at an airport two hours beforehand), the real beauty is in its luggage allowance, which grants passengers two pieces of luggage plus hand luggage, meaning that you can carry your tent, rucksack and even camping chair – all for no extra cost.
Security is quick and pain-free, and you arrive smack bang in the centre of Amsterdam, ready to enjoy the city or travel on to Nijmegen, where you can grab the festival shuttle bus (running roughly ever 20 minutes).
Tickets to Down the Rabbit Hole cost €329 (£280), downtherabbithole.nl
Eurostar trains to Amsterdam start at £39 one way, eurostar.com
