So after WGT is over all the attendees travel back to their respective homes and try to return to normal life. My friends and I always book our accommodation from Wednesday before the festival to the Wednesday after, giving us a day of recovery before heading back home. Usually we get up late, enjoying the bittersweet feeling of not having to rush somewhere to see bands or meet up with everyone we’ve ever met. We’ll spend our remaining euros on a relaxing meal at one of the many places we’ve not quite made it to due to having so many options on the cards (seriously, Germany is amazing for vegan food, we didn’t expect it at the beginning, now we look forward to a tour of restaraunts and cafes almost as much as we do the drinking and gig going!). At home there’s always the kind of feeling of “how do I go back to my regular life after having a week in this wonderful dreamland?”, the best way is to immediately start planning other festivals.

In addition to doing Treffen every year, we often manage to squeeze at least one other goth festival into the season. The three biggest events that crop up in my friend circles are WGT, Amphi in Köln, and M’era Luna in Hildesheim. Amphi is a big favourite, it takes place in a beautiful city, it has one of its stages on a boat, it features a lot of the more electric sounding bands of the scene, the EBM, the synthpop, the futurepop, etc etc. For my friend and my 30th birthday a couple of years ago we decided to check it out for the first time.

As opposed to always getting Airbnb  apartments in Leipzig, we opted for a hotel for this one, and it was a gorgeous, luxurious room. I very annoyingly cannot remember the name of the hotel (I’ll try and find out and link it here when I do) but it was lovely dark grey and red coloured decor, lovely views from a high floor, decent continental breakfast options included, and all important air-conditioning, it was HOT the year we went. First day there was spent exploring the city, and it’s a very pretty city.

There were only a few bands we wanted to see at this festival, mainly we were going to check out the city and hang out with “cocktail club” our friends from all over the UK and Europe who net at each festival and drank cocktails and talked nonsense together all night long. So the weekend kind of blurred by in a haze of boozy memories.

The other regular German festival we attend is M’era Luna, held in Hildesheim, a small town with a largely disused airfield where the festival takes place. Although there are hotels and apartments in the town, they often fill up fast and cost lots of money, for these reasons and because it’s more fun and adventurous this is the one festival that we camp at. We go with a massive group of mainly British goths by bus from Northern England, down to Dover, then across to Germany via ferry. This whole trip is organised and arranged by a lovely man nicknamed Guv’nor who runs the Facebook group Goths on a Bus: https://www.facebook.com/groups/114862551375/?ref=share

We’ve been to M’era Luna three or four times now, each time we go we end up getting no sleep on the bus, staying awake all night in the cold tent, cursing people being loud and having fun until the early hours, so we curse the whole experience and say “never again!”. Then we won’t book the following year, but when people share their statuses and photos on social media when they’re there we miss it too much and immediately sign up for the next year. It’s addictive. Everything that makes it exhausting and frustrating all helps bond us closer together as a group and gives us fonder memories in the future. Perfect example being a couple of years ago, which happened to be he year we dragged a few WGT and friends along for their first time. The problems started soon after arriving in Germany – rain, torrential, constant rain. As we got closer and closer to the site the rain seemed to get heavier and heavier. As we were almost at the turnoff for the festival grounds the traffic all stopped. Massive traffic jam. We sat for three hours about 500m from our destination, as the rain poured and the playlist we were listening to looped again and again. Then we got to the camp site and it was essentially a bog. Putting tents up in the pouring rain, into muddied ground that was so soft and wet it felt fruitless. All of our clothes got wet, our sleeping bags, pillows, everything. It made for a miserable and very cold first night.

But the next day it was all laughter, everyone had spent the last day so wet and cold and annoyed that it was suddenly hilarious. We felt bonded by the experience. Instead of feeling happy that they had avoided such a situation the people staying in hotels and apartments in the town felt more like they had missed out. Later that first day we queued up to see a band in a large tent, the queue was huge and not going anywhere, so when the torrential rain began again we were trapped. As people started to get frustrated about missing the start of the band, and being trapped so close yet so far, and getting soaked through once again…a group of people nearer the front of the queue started singing, soon the whole crowd of us were singing along with the band at the top of our lungs in the pouring rain. It was so much more memorable than any of the other times I’ve seen that band live, and when we finally got into the tent to watch them properly it was nowhere near as thrilling as being outside and enjoying our own concert.

After two days of bands and three nights of camping we wake up early on the Monday, drag ourselves out of our sleeping bags and into the cold morning air. We have a mere couple of hours to be packed up and back onto the coaches to begin our journey home. Somehow nothing ever seems to fit into the suitcases as tidily as they had when we’d brought them here, and the lack of sleep makes us all weak and clumsy, but we somehow manage. It feels almost like we’d only just got there and then suddenly everything is packed up and we’re heading away again. We drive out via a supermarket so people can stock up on new snacks and buy things to take back home such as souvenirs and various alcohols that are cheaper or easier to get here than back home. I usually buy some fresh baked bread and some kind of “create your own” salad box and create sandwiches full of fresh vegetables that I’ve been craving after a weekend of eating and drinking trash.

The journey back always takes less time somehow, people usually sleep or sit in their own thoughts for the first few hours, after waking so suddenly and enduring such a tiring and rushed morning. We arrive back in Leeds very early on Tuesday morning, usually in time to get the first train home at about 4am. Getting back to our houses at about 6am, it’s always a battle between wanting to shower for the first time for so many days (there are showers at the festivals, but communal shower set ups weird me out) and wanting to fall into a comfy bed and sleep for 12 hours instead. Luckily this is usually the last festival of the summer, and the relief at being back in civilisation after being on buses and in tents for days is nice enough to offset the usual sadness at returning to normal life.