Beyond the outstanding lineup, here’s how to make the most of this year’s edition of the Rotterdam festival.

One of our favourite festivals going, the sold out Left Of The Dial is set take over the city of Rotterdam once again this weekend. Hosting 150+ bands across 3 days in 25 venues – which range from buses to boats to churches, dance studios and nightclubs – we’ve already given our lowdown on some of the bands we can’t wait to catch, so here’s a more general guide to this oddly beautiful festival experience, where there’s plenty of stuff going on besides the music of course

Fried Goods

If there’s one thing that the Netherlands excels at, it’s dipping breaded foodstuffs into boiling oil. It’s hard to really convey the height of snackish indulgences that can be reached with a bite into greasy (maybe cheesy) croquette here. If you’re stopping off for a drink, cooling off from the Piss moshpit perhaps, make sure to order some Bitterballen for your table too. For sure, there’s no headliners at this festival, but if I had to pick, maybe it would be this?

See bands in strange places

Aside from the main festival programme, Left of The Dial offers other gig-going opportunities in all kinds of unique places. A longtime mainstay of the festival is its ‘Bands On A Boat’ experience, where you watch a brace of acts rocking (in both senses of the word) on a literal boat as it steers its way through a (likely rainy) Rotterdam harbour. And there’s also a free bar. This year there are exciting new variations on the formula. There’s ‘Bands on a Bus’ (self-explanatory), and also ‘Bouling with Bands’, finally marrying the untapped combination of live music and indoor boules.

Festival Extras

Again expanding the programme for 2025, there’s plenty of extra-curricular events happening around the festival. The music doesn’t start until later in the afternoon, so for people who are up and about, there’s, say, a synth workshop at Volt Music Store, or a music quiz; there’s a daytime pool party and a pop-up Christmas wonderland (go and find out for yourself what that means, I guess). You can also ‘Dine Like a Star’ and eat the same food that the artists are eating, if that’s something you’re into.

Talk to the Pros

“Specifically for people who are trying to make their way in the music industry”, says the official Left of The Dial website, the festival is also hosting conferences for the first time on opening afternoon. There’s a range of producers, publicists, bookers, managers, labels, distributors, venue managers on the bill, and rather than hosting impersonal talks, the emphasis seems to be here on conversation and discussion in small, rotating groups. A perfect addition to the festival for anyone wanting to work out, at least a little bit, how the hell anything happens in music.

See more bands

This defeats the point of this piece, but really, the line-up for this year’s festival is fucking good. Like really good. The line-up really is a cheat code for anyone looking to discover the best new bands from the UK, Ireland and beyond; to introduce yourself some names which you’ll likely be hearing a lot more of in the coming months. The bookers really know what they’re doing – just look at some of the names that played last year, Mermaid Chunky, The Orchestra (for now), TTSSFU, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Ugly, Ebbb. Just a year on and those guys ain’t doing too shabby!

More info and this year’s full lineup available at https://leftofthedial.nl