I was waiting for the next show at the Club stage. We were just at the edge of the tent and saw that there was some rain and thunder coming in the distance. Since we were just waiting I started to make some videos, trying to capture some lighting on video. I noticed some unusual things while the storm was approaching, like the flags blowing in different directions and the sky turning a bit green-ish. I remember thinking it was going to be a heavy storm, but like any other storm we're used to in Belgium and The Netherlands. It started raining and people ran inside the tent. It kept getting darker and the rain and wind intensified. That was some heavy storm. But it kept getting stronger and outside we saw the flagpoles getting pushed so far down by the wind. Then another canvas roof collapsed and the big screen at the end of the tent collapsed. Then I couldn't see outside anymore because it was so dark and there was a wall of rain, hail and wind which sometimes blew some inside. That was about the moment I stopped filming, when a bunch of hail hit me again. My brother took over my camera and wanted to film some more, but the camera was soaked by then and didn't work anymore. I was looking at the stability of the Club tent we were in and the pillars were shaking. At that moment I panicked and started crying, I thought this must be the end of the world. Everything was dark outside and we had no idea what was happening. I wanted to get out before the tent would collapse, but my brother who was with me told me we should wait. We were still near the edge of the tent, so in case it would collapse we could run out (but it was very busy and cramped, so in case of massive panic I don't know what would've happened). I was observing everyone's reactions around me. Most people didn't know how to react and were just stunned. Someone was trying to go outside and I grabbed his arm and asked if he thought it was better to go outside. He said it's better to get out before the tent collapses. I again said to my brother I wanted to get out of there, but he said to wait just a little bit longer. Outside it wasn't safe either with a lot of stuff flying around. As soon as it started to calm down the littlest bit I said "I'm going NOW" and we went outside. We immediately stepped into a huge amount of water and tried to walk through it, straight to the emergency exit. On the way we saw the big tv screen on the ground and there was so much water. I didn't see many people, I thought hundreds of people had died in this storm. I was soaking wet and we walked to the emergency exit where the gates were all opened. Security members were already standing there. We just walked/ran out into the street. We already heard sirens from emergency services coming. Everything was flooded and the water came halfway to my legs. We walked to the car. On the way we met someone who also just started walking out. He was also stunned and still processing what had happened. We saw a lot of damage on the way to the car. At the parking lot a big tree was blocking the entrance. We could go around it and went to the car. There I called my mother and told her a huge storm had hit us, she didn't understand the severity of it yet (because storms like this don't happen around here). I said that we were alright and that she should watch the news, because it had to be on there soon. My brother and I grabbed blankets and sat in the car with the radio on. Slowly news started to come in and they changed the music to all sad songs. I just wanted to go home, I didn't care about the tent we set up for the night or the stuff that was in there. Just leave it behind. But because the entrance (which was also the exit) of the parking lot was blocked we couldn't leave. After a while we decided to go back to the festival area and just see if we could get our stuff from the tent maybe. On the way over we ran into my cousin, who was with us in the Club stage but didn't come with us when we went out. He was also alright. By then the phone network was overloaded and he couldn't reach his parents. He went to the car and we went to the camping area. Everything was a mess. Surprisingly our tents were still up. We got our stuff out and talked to some people. Our neighbor at the camping was with the first aid and helped injured people, he also saw dead people and was in shock. We grabbed our stuff, left our tents behind and went back to the car. Again listening to the news. I had been shaking for hours afterwards from the shock. We still couldn't leave and decided to collect our tents. We just shoved everything in garbage bags. Then I made another video at the road between the camping and the festival area. We could see a stage collapsed. Around 11pm we could leave the parking lot because other cars had left opening up space around the tree. I called my mother again to tell here we were on the way home. She had tried to call me several times before but couldn't get through. It was all over the news so she was very happy she heard from me earlier that we were alright.
After posting the videos on youtube people often blamed me that I knew what was going to happen. But how could I have known? These storms didn't happen around here. I knew the weather could get bad, but bad for us meant nothing like what had actually happened. I didn't know more than anyone else, I just looked at the sky and tried to capture some lightning in the far distance.