Hosted this year by Delirium and Gitter, it’s the space most rooted in the local territory, close to a home for those who’ve attended the festival for years: here, names like Barker, Function, Efdemin, GiGi FM, Rodhåd, Dasha Rush, The Lady Machine, D-Leria and Rene Wise took turns, alongside local names like DNS, Leniart, Metrapha, Namesti, Pötter and V.Dietz, in a balance between international headliners and voices from the Essen scene. Grand Hall, on the other hand, sits a few minutes walk from the main entrance and is a fully equipped industrial space, designed for a more structured, international experience: under the guidance of FOLD London, it becomes the true nocturnal heart of the festival, with a darker, denser, more hard-hitting atmosphere. Here, among others, played Alarico, DVS1, Freddy K, Colin Benders live, Nastia Reigel, Ogazón, Philippa Pacho and Yanamaste, keeping the day’s energy alive until the first light of dawn. Two different environments in stone, acoustics and atmosphere, yet both delivering that same sensation of being suspended in another time, where the concrete, the steel and the industrial history of the place become part of the sonic experience, not just scenic backdrop.

Only now do I pause on something I haven’t mentioned yet, but which I find just as implicit as it is essential: the location. UNESCO World Heritage Zollverein confirms itself as the beating heart of the festival. A site to many, a mine to others, a non-place to others still. Once you pass through the gates of this place, it’s like entering a dimension light-years from ours, whose inhabitants are there doing what they do best: dancing without stopping. I don’t know if it’s because it only happens once a year, but every time I find myself in this place, I struggle to believe that for three days this will be the designated place to host us. Almost like a waking dream, but one where no one needs to wake you up, because we’re already busy dancing, wrapping ourselves up in it.

Lastly, a note dedicated to all the people who talk and launch into monologues while the DJ is playing, who take too many videos and do so in the way of others, who see the front row as a place to invade at all costs rather than earn little by little and calmly. The dancefloor is a sacred space, in the most literal sense of the word, not a space to seize as one pleases. If you want to be part of it, you also have to make compromises. First among them: thinking of the community and the collective before individuality and selfishness. You’re not alone when you dance, you’re among many. And the main goal is for everything to proceed in the right direction, so that you and everyone else can fully enjoy the set of whoever you’re listening to. But more generally, the dancefloor itself is a living space, where your own heartbeat begins and ends when it meets that of the person next to you, and so on. Your needs become mine. Your problems become mine. Everything belongs to everyone. Nothing belongs to no one. You want to talk? Go ahead, but after watching a performance: that way you’ll have nicer words or harsher ones, depending on the case, to spend on it. You want to film? Go ahead, but with tact, not in a way that blocks the view, as if we were at a live broadcast of a sporting event. You want the front row? No problem: it’s as much mine as it is yours. But if you want to make your way through the crowd, what should guide you is permission and kindness, not force.

So, what could I answer now to the guy from the cigarette? Maybe I still don’t have a definitive answer. I know the pull toward this festival is there, has been there, and will continue to be there. But this time it was different. More conscious, less irrational. Less intense, more spread out. More intimate, less on display. Last year I fell for it; this year I’m in a relationship that’s barely a year old, so it’s what, in couple-speak, is called a “trial period.” We still need to wait before we can say we’re meant for each other. And yet, if it started this way, I don’t see why it should end now, or later on. Stone Techno Festival confirms itself as one of the best festivals on the international circuit. The music, the location, the people, the organizers, the staff: everything moves like one machine. A bigger, longer, more winding path was chosen. And as I said earlier, this edition will act as a catalyst for those to come.

And just like when you leave home saying who knows if and when you’ll return, already knowing your heart has chosen for you the very moment you’re actually leaving, here too my heart has already chosen. Why?

Because I already find myself wondering who will play at the next edition, on which stages, what will be new, and so on. I hope the guy from the cigarette gets to read this article, if only to see that I did, after all, give him an answer, even if a long one.