Last Saturday we went to Lodz to take part in the 5th Wreck Festival. It was my first visit to an event organised by Wypraw Wrakowych team and I had big expectations from this event, about which I had heard many good opinions.

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We had to wait two years for the jubilee 5th edition of the Wreck Festival. All because of the change in the formula of this event to a two-year one. The organisers themselves admitted that it resulted from the desire to prepare the whole thing as well as possible. In combination with the plans of the Wreck Expeditions and everyday duties, there was simply not enough time to complete everything in peace. As a result, when one edition ended, the next day the organisers had to start organising the next one.

Giving ourselves another year to prepare was not to disappoint the visitors and allow us to prepare a real festival, with interesting guests, lectures and workshops. In short, something worthy of the reputation developed so far.

We got there in the morning and after a smooth registration, we set off to explore the area where the festival had been planned. The place – the building of the Technical University of Lodz, to which everyone has probably already got used, in my opinion, is not the happiest location.

While the auditorium, where the main part of the event in the form of lectures took place, remains faultless, the division of the whole into 3 floors was not the happiest idea. Especially if we mention that only exhibitors were placed on one of them. From the perspective of a visitor, as well as a person who had the opportunity to be an exhibitor, I consider it as a terribly poor move on the part of the organisers.

It was also difficult to pass by indifferently such a large number of interesting lectures and workshops which overlapped each other. As a result, one often had to choose what was interesting and what was very interesting. Maybe when planning the next edition it would be worth thinking about changing the formula of the Wreck Festival to a two-day one? It would certainly help to dilute this concentrate of really interesting activities and avoid the feeling of unsatisfaction.

I will not elaborate on the individual lectures and workshops we decided to attend. Let it suffice as a review that all the ones we saw were interesting and I regret that we had to give up some of them.

Of all of them, I will only mention the lecture by Leigh Bishop, who is known for his charisma, sense of humour and extremely interesting stories. The nail on the head of the programme did not disappoint and confirmed all the flattering opinions I had heard about him.

I also consider the charity auction which crowns the official part of each edition to be a great idea. This year, according to the organisers, a record amount of cash was collected! PLN 8173.63 is almost three times more than the amount collected during the fourth edition. All the money collected will go to the account of Lodz Hospice for Children.

One thing is for sure, next year we will definitely see you.