Hate to break it to you, but if you’ve ever taken drugs during a festival, there’s a fairly high chance that you’ve not taken the drug you wanted to.

It’s no big news that many festival-goers like to take drugs during festivals: in fact, besides the evergreen weed consumption, research shows that hard drugs such as MDMA, mushrooms, LSD and opioids are consumed by a significant part of festival-goers (1.3% – 13.0%, TickPick). So, even if you first met your trusted dealer in kindergarten, you’ll never know whether the drug you’re buying from him while the music is blasting from the main stage is actually top-quality Colombian cocaine or bath salts.

The only way to be fully aware of what you’re consuming is by testing your drug. But how can you do so during a loud, crowded festival?

TestKitPlus is a Canadian company which accounts for one of the leaders in the online selling of drug tests, and we think it may be the most recommendable choice when it comes to take drugs during festivals for several reasons we’re about to show you.

As much as the Netherlands is highly tolerant when it comes to drugs, many drug-related activities aren’t properly legal. In order to avoid any trouble, the emphasis on anonymity and online security is one of the main features of TestKitPlus’ service, from the privacy of the online order to the discreet packaging of the products – you obviously wouldn’t want the lovely lady that lives on your floor to notice a huge box labelled “DRUG TESTS” outside your door, right?

Moreover, whether you’re looking for drug identification or drug purity test kits (Narcos’ intro theme song intensifies), TestKitPlus will do the job: with a variety of test kits ranging from LSD and ketamine to MDMA and cocaine, you’ll be able to understand everything you need to know before taking any drug at your festival of choice.

Even though, because of the kind of goods they’re selling, the firm’s online approach is fairly discreet and low profile, their customer service is second to none in terms of reliability and informativity, as proved by the many reviews on their “testimonials” section.

Furthermore, if you don’t know anything about the practicalities of drug testing, the instructions on the actual performing of the tests are included with the test kits. And if you’ve got additional concerns, the FAQ page of the TestKitPlus website will wipe out any further doubt that you may have.

For the purposes of this article, I’ve collected various statements by several festival-goers and drug users regarding their experiences with drugs, festivals and drug tests:

“I’ve never seen a drug test kit before, and I don’t even know how they look like. I didn’t even know they existed until a year ago. I never knew that you should test your drug before taking it, because I always assumed it was sort of… safe”.

Nguyen, 19

“I took some ecstasy at a festival, just as usual, and I also took MDMA. That night I was sleeping with my boyfriend and, in the middle of the night, I had a seizure. That seizure wasn’t caused by MDMA and ecstasy, because I’ve taken tons before, but it was caused by some weird substances that they put in the drugs”.

Ludovica, 18

“I definitely think that we should all test our drugs, because it’s so dangerous and people die not ‘cause of the drugs themselves, but because of the cutting agents in them”.

Humza, 19

Considering our approach towards festivals, we decided to team up with TestKitPlus because of our shared viewpoints regarding recreational drug use, as expressed by their following statement:

“Our mission is to improve safety through harm reduction. The vast majority of drug users in our society are non-addicted, recreational users. Yet, this population remains under-served when it comes to harm reduction. […] We provide educational material and adulterant screening kits, so that people can better inform and protect themselves”.

Having said that, I would highly recommend you to plan your drug test shopping in advance: the shipping to the Netherlands might take up to ten days, and summer festivals such as Pinkpop, DGTL, and Parkpop are on their way!

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Here at Pink Dolphin, we don’t encourage any kind of drug use. The purpose of this article is solely informative; our advice in matter of drug testing merely concerns festival-goers who already take drugs at festivals. If you’re struggling with addiction, we suggest you to reach out to www.jellinek.nl, an online portal intended for those who want to deal with addiction which provides many useful information and services regarding alcohol and drugs. Furthermore, Jellinek also offers an affordable drug test service at their facilities.

Needing the information for a festival can be hard to find, as not all you want to know is on Facebook. It can be useful to do some research when it comes to festivals. Going to a festival is a personal experience and can be quite overwhelming if you don’t know what beast you are up against. Pink Dolphin provides you with the information you need, based on actual experience. The webzine offers a combination of personal experiences, opinion and facts to get the most out of your festival experience.

Our Mission

Pink Dolphin’s mission is to tell you about the wide variety of amazing festivals in the Netherlands. More than 80% of the public trust recommendations from friends and family. We want our readers to perceive Pink Dolphin as a community which can tell you exactly which festivals to attend and why.

Rather than feeding you a pile of dry information, we bring to you the most useful information that can only come from experience, giving you a much more complete idea of festivals and of the experience itself. This way Pink Dolphin helps you to find out with little effort the right festivals for you to go to and which to pass up.

In short, we want our readers to:

• Have an increased ability to distinguish festivals;
• Be prepared for all different aspects of festivals (e.g. food, music genres, entry fees);
• Stimulate them to try their hand on new festivals;
• Feel confident about their choice of festival;
• Have the best possible festival experience.

Our Team

The Pink Dolphin team consists of 5 young students: Meike, Raffaele, Edo, Naomi and Gijs. Each member of the team is studying Media Studies at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. All of them live in Groningen, a young and vibrant city in the Netherlands. As residents of Groningen there is plenty of opportunity for them to attend various types of festivals both in and around the city. Consequently, they are all familiar with the problem of superficial information when it comes to festivals. This led them to the creation of the Pink Dolphin webzine.

My name is Meike de Jongh, 20, and grew up in a small village, which forced me to be resourceful finding festivals. I like the festivals close to the beach, like Woodstock. However, Woodstock has a lot of different kinds of festivals every week, with many different vibes. Therefore, a webzine like Pink Dolphin could help me out a lot to find out to which Woodstock festival to go.

Meike de Jongh, co-founder of Pink Dolphin

I’m Raffaele, 19, from Rome. Music has always been very important to me: I started making music at 12, built my own studio at 14 and dropped my first rap album at 18 with a bunch of friends. I’m very interested in music festivals and what happens “behind the scenes”, and I feel that my passion for music might contribute to the forging of the leading festival magazine in the Netherlands.

Raffaele Sposito, co-founder of Pink Dolphin

I’m Edo, 19, from Berghem. As a long-time preoccupied athlete, I don’t have a lot of experience with festivals. Leisure time is scarce for me and therefore I don’t want to waste time attending festivals being clueless what it is going to be like. With Pink Dolphin I aim to make a reliable source of experience and information based on which me and my friends can pick our festivals.

Edo Zoons, co-founder of Pink Dolphin

My name is Naomi, 18, and grew up in a small village. As a big lover of art, I quickly found myself going to different events and cities, whether it was to visit the cinema, a museum, a concert or a festival. I’m not the best socializer and understand the struggle of finding stories of experience to rely on. I can relate to your struggles and hope we can be the best to help.

Naomi Bosman, co-founder of Pink Dolphin

Hello, I am Gijs (19). Growing up in a small town in the Netherlands forced me to discover new places and meet new people. This experience helped me to settle quite a lot when I moved to the slightly bigger city that is Groningen. I feel that I can share my experiences in order to help others settle in a new unknown situation. Meeting new people and discovering new music has always been of importance to me and I hope to share my passion with others.

Gijs Vijverberg, co-founder of Pink Dolphin

Our Brand

We came up with the name Pink Dolphin because the characteristics of a dolphin include:

1. SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR – We’re social, otherwise we couldn’t give you advice on festivals! As a bonus, we’re also honest. We want to make sure you know where you’re going.  
2. PLAYFUL NATURE – Our webzine is colorful, fresh and entertaining, and we want our readers to enjoy their adventures to the fullest.
3. CURIOSITY – Dolphins are also very curious. They seem to be able to sleep with one eye open, and with half the brain still awake. Like them, we won’t miss any detail regarding your next festival.

We chose the color pink as it means sweet, nice, playful, and charming. It also represents love and friendship, which is exactly what we want to create with our webzine: friendship which will evolve from the festivals students discover together.

Our Goals

Our goals are to inform, not to teach. To invite, not to force and to answer, not to tell. In other words, we aim to create a space where people go to seek advice and leave feeling like they made a well thought out self-made decision. It is no secret to us that everybody is different, so we aim to help as many festival lovers as possible, without treating our readers as one.With more than 23 million people having visited 800+ festivals in the Netherlands in 2017, there are a lot of different experiences and opinions.

This could easily lead to an overdose of opinions and make you follow the crowd, possibly missing out on festivals that speak more to your interest and preferences. Respecting differences and embracing similarities we seek to pool all these different experiences and help you explore what suits YOU. Whether it concerns food, music or art festivals, everyone should feel invited to join Pink Dolphin, not as a magazine for festivals but as the magazine for festivals.

Introduction

The average festival-goer in the Netherlands is between 20 and 30 years old, most of them being students (de Veld, 2011). Whether it concerns music or art festivals, Pink Dolphin is here to help young adults enjoy festivals to the fullest. Festivals can be a great place to discover new things and to meet new people, but this can only be achieved when the festival-goer feels comfortable.

This is where Pink Dolphin comes to play. Pink Dolphin aims to provide its readers with the information they need, setting them up for their best festival experiences. Festivals are a personal matter and with 1340 festivals in the Netherlands alone (consultancy.nl), it can be difficult to make an educated decision what festival to go to. Pink Dolphin aims to educate, inform and help its audience decide on what to see and what not because it is impossible to do it all on your own.

Relevance & Approach

In 2017, the Fyre festival took place. This event was supposed to be the most exciting and exclusive festival of all time, starring celebrities and influencers such as Emily Ratajkowski, Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. Moreover, the advertised lineup included famous artists such as Pusha T, Lil Yachty and Migos. The festival was supposed to take place in the Bahamian island of Great Exuma between April and May 2017. All the people who bought the tickets however got scammed by the founder of the festival, Billy McFarland, whose festival did never actually take place.

For those worried because of the lack of useful information, knowledge on that particular festival or simply festivals in general, we created Pink Dolphin. Our aim is to provide, through a word-of-mouth like approach, a more personal and in-depth view on festivals in the Netherlands.

We seek to answer all of your festival-related questions, such as:

• How do I get there in a cheap way?
• How long does it take to get there?
• What’s the food going to be like?
• How does it feel to be there?
  

The answers to these kind of questions are not something you will find in any other festival magazine, let alone a message on Facebook. We take a clear, informal approach to provide you with a realistic view on a festival rather than the raw information provided by other publications.

Methodology

The collected data comes from research and web blogs that provide us the information on our target audience. We have also looked into the social media pages of competitors to get a feel of their content and followers.

Audience & Demographics

In 2018, there were about 122.000 international students in the Netherlands, aged 18 to 25, from 162 different countries, according to data collected by Nuffic, the Dutch organization for international cooperation in higher education. Along with their dutch peers, the main focus of these students is their studies, while entertainment, meeting new people, and having a social life are equally important.

Going to festivals is a great way to enlarge your social circles and to give your student life a whole different perspective. Therefore, our target audience is a young audience, consisting of students in the Netherlands, who are willing to take a dive into unexplored waters, as our name implies.

Main Competitors

As far as festival magazines and websites go, there are not many experience based sources. A lot of websites, like Ginfestival and Festivalfans, simply list festivals with all their practical information. Some, like Music Festival Wizard, even allow users to buy tickets. There is also a variety of Dutch magazines, like Festileaks, Festivalinfo and Festicket, with audiences ranging from 20 thousand to 120 thousand, which mention both practical information and news updates.

However, a magazine focusing on Dutch festivals for both Dutch and international students to get a grip of what they’re getting themselves into, does not yet exist. Pink Dolphin is not primarily focused on music, but aims to cover the many festivals the Netherlands offer us, such as Hello Festival, Healthy Fest and the Dutch Film Festival.

Conclusion

Pink Dolphin provides young university students with a fresh view on the Dutch festival life. It provides useful information you actually need and hopes to create a platform where students experience the festival world.

We aim for our readers to:

• Have an increased ability to distinguish festivals;
• Stimulate them to try their hand on new festivals;
• Have the best possible festival experience.

Pink Dolphin is your go-to webzine to discover the Dutch festival scene. We aim to offer a combination of personal experiences, opinion and facts about going to Dutch festivals. Pink Dolphin explores the waters so you can dive right in.

References

• de Veld, S. (2011). Festivalbezoek: waarom? Retrieved from https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/10272/Veld,%20de%20K.S..pdf
• https://www.studyinternational.com/news/netherlands-attracts-record-number-international-students/
• https://www.studyinholland.nl/why-holland/key-figures
• https://www.festicket.com/nl/about/
• https://www.consultancy.nl/nieuws/14191/aantal-festivals-in-nederland-groeit-hard-muziekfestivals-meest-in-trek
• Bluestone, G. (Producer), & Smith, C. (Director). (2019). Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened [Motion picture]. United States: Netflix.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Pink Dolphin promotes launch of webzine

Major artists such as Kraantje Pappie and Armin van Buuren among others are set to perform on March 6th.

February 28, 2019 – Groningen, Netherlands – Pink Dolphin Webzine invites all students and young adults to its first music festival at De Grote Markt, Groningen March 6^th to promote the launch of its festival-themed webzine. Pink Dolphin aims to help young and festival-green adults to get the most out of their festival experience by providing in-depth and experience-based information tailored towards them, helping them find their perfect festival.

“We at Pink Dolphin are excited to finally share our vision with the rest of the world when it comes to festivals,” says co-founder of Pink Dolphin, Meike de Jongh. “We are convinced that there is a need for guidance when it comes to Dutch festivals because of the amount and variety of festivals out there.”

In fact, according to EM-cultuur, there are over 300 festivals in the Netherlands during the summer alone.

“It is easy to simply follow the crowd, but we want our readers to find the best festivals for them, ultimately making their visits the best possible experiences.”

Meike de Jongh, co-founder of Pink Dolphin

The music festival will be free of charge and take place from 16:00 to 06:00. Pink Dolphin teamed up with multiple restaurants, bars and food chains in order to provide attendees with the best drinks and snacks for an affordable price. Food and beverages are paid for in tokens which can be purchased online or during the festival near the entrance. Keep a close watch on the Pink Dolphin social media channels for token sales. Any updates on the current parking and traffic situation are uploaded here, as well as any facilities for disabled visitors.

The event will start off with an introduction of the Pink Dolphin team, followed by a mystery performance that will get the night started. At midnight, under the light of fireworks, there will be the big reveal of the first issue of the Pink Dolphin webzine. Top Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren will carry on the party for most of the night along with multiple performances by various other Dutch artists, including Kraantje Pappie.

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Pink Dolphin webzine is based in Groningen, the Netherlands, created by RUG students, to revolve around the world of Dutch festivals. The Pink Dolphin team wants to provide its readers with the information they need in order to enjoy festivals to their fullest potential. Its mission is to familiarise the audience with the array of festivals in the Netherlands and the experience that comes along with it.

Contacts

Pink Dolphin Media
+313415884588
Oude Kijk in’t Jatstraat 26, 9711 KN, Groningen
pinkdolphin.home.blog
Gijs Vijverberg
gijsvijverberg@pinkdolphinmedia.com