Rock Werchter with a chauffeur, late return included

A good share of the audience is Belgian and comes for a single day, sometimes for a single concert. No tent, no four-day wristband, just a date marked in the diary. In that case, your own car becomes a burden: a parking space to book, a compulsory route, then the drive home after a long day on your feet. With a chauffeur, you leave home in the late morning and do not give the road another thought until the next day.

For three people, an Economic or Business sedan is enough, and the Green class is 100% electric. A group of six or seven friends will take the Van. The festival is held at the start of the summer holidays, in late June or early July, over four days. Werchter Boutique days, devoted to a single artist on the same site, generally follow the same kiss & ride principle: check the guidelines published for each event.

The final headliner leaves the stage late, and the crowd heads for the shuttles as one. On festival days, they run until the middle of the night, but the queue can be long. Allow for that wait, then the bus journey, before you reach Leuven station. It is therefore better to set the pick-up time with a comfortable margin rather than at the exact time of the last song.

Your chauffeur waits at the kiss & ride at the time you have agreed together, worked out from the concert's scheduled finish. If you would rather not fix a time, booking the chauffeur by the hour, on quotation, allows them to stay on site until you arrive. All that is left is the night drive along the E40 to Brussels, ears still ringing with guitars, while someone else keeps an eye on the road.

Leuven is more than a place to pass through. Arriving in the early afternoon lets you have lunch on the Oude Markt before catching the shuttle, or you can book a hotel in town and attend several festival days in a row without camping. Your chauffeur then drops you at the hotel, you make your own way to the station each day, and the return to Brussels, Antwerp or the airport takes place at the end of your stay, luggage included.

Choosing a hotel near the station makes things even simpler: the shuttle leaves a few minutes' walk away and, at night, your room is not far from the last stop. The chauffeur then steps in at both ends of your stay, when the suitcases are heaviest. Festival-goers arriving from abroad via Brussels Airport or by Eurostar at Brussels-Midi can thus get to Leuven directly, without changing trains.