Weather caused spike in noise complaints from Awakenings music festival near Amsterdam

The municipality of Haarlemmermeer received dozens of noise complaints about the techno festival Awakenings over the weekend. The municipality believes the weather caused the extra nuisance, NH Nieuws reports.

The festival lasted all weekend, ending at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday. Haarlemmermeer couldn’t give an exact number of complaints received yet. But nearby Haarlem received over 50. A local reported on Twitter that they live 8 kilometers away from the festival site but could hear everything. “I can hear the music loud and clear through triple glazing and noise-canceling headphones,” Ariel Weinberger tweeted.

According to the municipality of Haarlemmermeer, noise experts investigated and concluded that the nuisance was caused by temperature inversion. The warm weather during the day rapidly cooled down in the evening, creating a kind of blanket of warm air, which reflected the sounds of the festival. “The sound, therefore, carried much further than normal.”

“We understand very well that this answer doesn’t solve anything. But there is nothing else that can be done about it at the moment,” the municipality said on Sunday. “We find it very annoying. We also take it very seriously.”