Student Kick-Off on Sint-Pieters square here in Ghent is another big event that is held to, just like the name suggests, kick off the new academic year. This free event got put together by the universities, colleges, the city of Ghent and the students themselves. They got a nice all Belgian line up together and the event was well organised. We had a great time at the concerts and ended up in the Overpoort afterwards to party some more.

Ghent is one of the major cities for higher education in Belgium which means there are a lot of students. It was pretty impressive to see not only the Sint-Pieters square getting filled up pretty quickly, but the whole surrounding neighbourhood got swarmed with students as well. It was surreal. The big downside to such a mass of people is that it results in a massive overload of the cellphone network. Getting back to your friends when you got lost in the crowd without the help of our precious technology is damn hard. It was funny to see how quickly you became creative though. When we did send a text we put in a time of sending so that when it eventually arrived sometimes hours later, you could see if it was still relevant or not. Lifting people up in the air was an other quick fix and of course the old school method of agreeing on a meeting point for when you got separated got used again too. It’s sad really we depend so much on our network connections, but that’s how it goes these days I guess.

School Is Cool was great. They have this one song, New Kids In Town, that got played a lot on the radio this summer. The crowd basically exploded when they started playing it near the end of their set.

Go click around their website if you’d like some more info. I saw the performance of School Is Cool, De Mens, The Van Jets and a bit of the Mish Mash Soundsystem set. I enjoyed them all. Although I don’t think I would go see them again if they charge an entry fee. It’s all a bit to commercial for my taste.

The Van Jets played a nice set. We couldn't get closer unfortunately.

Afterwards we headed of to the Overpoort neighbourhood which is right around the corner. It is the place to be if you like to party. You’ll find one bar next to the other for a couple hundreds of meters and on a busy day they are all so crowded that even the streets get filled up completely. The music is a bit commercial everywhere but it is loud and you no doubt find a good tune to party to somewhere. And if you don’t like it any longer you simply move next door.