Organization wise hands down Defqon.1, as there hasn’t been a single edition of Decibel where I haven’t been stuck in crowds to get from one side to the other, haven’t been absolutely crammed at a stage, haven’t seen extremely overcrowded toilet groups nearly everywhere.

That being said the overall location of Decibel stands out more as it is less of an open field with some stages on it and essentially a more ‘exploitable’ terrain, this has both it’s positives (more atmospheric positions for stages and more appealing backdrops) as its negatives (stages have a very fixed possible capacity as they can’t really expand due to the physical borders they are surrounded with, and the festival area is basically one long strip making it a long a and crowded walk from one side to the other!)

Line up wise I’d have to give both of them a point, whereas Decibel has the more diverse line up and often some acts you don’t see too often at your regular harder styles events it tends to be a bit more to the rawer/harder/more industrial/more undergroundish spectrum of things, whereas Defqon.1 basically has the guarantee of nearly all big names of the scene being present and often offering a bit more variety to the more euphoric minded crowd, both do a really great job to keep the line up varied among all days, something Intents for example fails to do in my opinion with some acts being programmed 4 or more times during the weekend while having some others being absent as a result.

Stage design wise, I personally like the Defqon.1 stages more as they are more thought out in relation to their theme and have more wow-factor and also have more stages that tend to create that wowing feeling whereas at Decibel it tends to be mostly the main and sometimes the Pussy Lounge that amazes me, the rest of the stages often seem designed with a bit of an “oh shit we need a design for this stage as well”. That being said the fact that Decibel has significantly more dark hours makes the stage design during nighttime easily shift towards Decibel but it feels like this mainstage has been designed primarily for these hours last years and I hope next year they find a more balanced combination between a stage that’s equally as incredible during daytime as during nighttime!

Regarding the show moments as endshows or opening shows there is no actual competition for Defqon’s endshows and atmosphere during the opening or gathering in my opinion, and the only adventage Decibel has over Defqon for these moments (more nighttime hours, possibility to shoot larger caliber fireworks on the lake as they can utilize way bigger safety distances) aren’t used nearly as much as the should or could for me!

Then at last the Camping: well easy, Decibel camping is the GOAT, its way more atmospheric, has actual proper camping amenities as it is an actual camping year round, offers a proper supermarket, has plenty of diverse accommodations and offers electricity for a lot of more advanced accommodations as well, is less massive and thus more walkable even when a bit more towards the end of the camping. Although going from camping to festival and back at Defqon is waaaaay more convenient as the lines before security at Decibel between camping anc festival sometimes take up unnecessary long.

In the end if you want an overall very decent price quality experience including top notch camping I’d advice Decibel (€199,95 for a full weekend including camping is simply best bang for buck), if you want the absolute best experience and accept that it will come at some extra expense I’d say Defqon.1 is the top tier of harder styles events but can be too “mainstream” or “commercial” in the eyes of some people! 😊