Draaimolen

History

Draaimolen began with Milo van Buijtene, a Tilburg local who had spent years crossing Europe to catch his favorite DJs before deciding to build something of his own back home. The first edition landed in 2014 at Waterjump, an artificial beach venue, where van Buijtene and three friends who "all worked side jobs to make ends meet" drew around 3,000 people. It was modest, self-funded, and entirely independent, three qualities that have stayed constant even as almost everything else about the festival has changed.

Draaimolen moved four times over the following decade in search of the right site. In 2015 it relocated to Charlotte Oord, a forested plot where attendance grew to roughly 9,000, before the land was swallowed by commercial development and turned into a Decathlon and industrial units. The festival eventually found its home in 2019 at MOB Complex, a former Cold War-era Dutch military mobilization complex in the woods north of Tilburg, with on-site camping at PP Oisterwijk in North Brabant. The synergy was immediate: dense woodland crisscrossed by paths and clearings, close to ideal for cutting dancefloors directly into the trees. Capacity has since grown to around 13,000, still small by festival standards and deliberately so.

What sets Draaimolen apart is who gets to shape it. Individual stages are handed to artists and labels as curators rather than booked as a single unified bill. Blawan and Pariah have run The Pit, a sunken dancefloor lit by a strobe rig repurposed from football stadium camera equipment, since 2023. Eris Drew and Octo Octa have curated the tree-lined Forest Rave stage, building its sound system in what they call "boombox style" with dozens of subwoofers. In 2025, Bristol label Timedance took over the Aura stage to mark its own tenth anniversary, bringing Moritz von Oswald, Azu Tiwaline and Tikiman together for a live set as part of the celebration. The festival's centerpiece stage, Strobe, was designed in collaboration with the art studio Architecture Social Club, built around light and spatial design as much as sound.

That curator model has produced moments that ripple beyond the festival itself. In 2023, Batu and Donato Dozzy played an unplanned back-to-back set at Draaimolen that circulated widely online after the fact, a chance meeting between Bristol's Timedance scene and Rome's ambient techno lineage that the pair later turned into a full studio collaboration, the 2026 album Exhale. It is the kind of thing Draaimolen has built a reputation for: giving space for things that were not planned to happen.

Running a not-for-profit, sponsor-free festival on land the organization does not own has come with real risk. The MOB Complex site belongs to the province of North Brabant, and Draaimolen has operated there since 2019 as a pilot arrangement rather than a secured lease. Talks between the province and local authorities broke down in January 2025, and the team launched a public petition that same year asking for the site's long-term protection. That uncertainty is the reason next year's dates remain unconfirmed, a rare case of a festival's precarity being tied directly to its refusal to compromise on the values that built it.

FAQ

Where exactly does Draaimolen take place?

Draaimolen is held at MOB Complex, a former military mobilization site in the woods north of Tilburg, with on-site camping based at PP Oisterwijk in North Brabant, Netherlands. The festival has used this location since 2019.

Why doesn't Draaimolen work with sponsors?

The festival operates as a fully independent, not-for-profit organization and does not allow branded logos or corporate sponsorship on site. The team has described this as core to keeping the focus on the art, music and nature rather than commercial messaging.

Who curates Draaimolen's stages?

Individual artists and labels design and run entire stages rather than the festival booking one central lineup. Recent examples include Blawan and Pariah at The Pit, Eris Drew and Octo Octa at Forest Rave, and the Bristol label Timedance at Aura.

Is the 2027 edition of Draaimolen confirmed?

Not officially yet. The festival's future at MOB Complex depends on unresolved land-use decisions by the province of North Brabant, which is why 2027 dates are currently listed as an estimate rather than a confirmed booking.