Pinkpop Festival - 21|22|23 juni 2024

The Sky Deck is named after the State Mine Wilhelmina. This is because the Megaland festival site is located at the foot of the Wilhelmina Stone Mountain. A slag heap is an accumulation of stone waste as a by-product of underground mining.

The oldest state mine

The State Mine Wilhelmina was a Dutch coal mine located in Terwinselen (Kerkrade municipality) from 1906 to 1969. It was the smallest and oldest state mine in the Netherlands.

The mine was enclosed by the concession fields of the private mines Laura and Julia at Eygelshoven (now municipality of Kerkrade), the nearby Oranje-Nassau II at Schaesberg (now municipality of Landgraaf) and the Domaniale Mine at Kerkrade. Like these mines, the Wilhelmina produced mainly gas-poor lean coal of the house fire type and owned its own syntracite plant (for the production of synthetic anthracite). This is in contrast to the other state mines that produced mainly gas-rich grease coal for industrial use and mostly owned a coking plant.

The concession fields

Since the mine was enclosed by the aforementioned concession areas, after several decades it could only be expanded in depth, again in contrast to the other state mines that possessed extensive concession fields. For safety reasons, the mine was connected underground to all of the aforementioned private mines; however, these connections were sealed with heavy airtight doors that could only be opened in case of emergency.
After the closure of the State Mine Wilhelmina in 1969, the former mine site had to be given a new purpose. Under the motto “from black to green,” the area was given a recreational function and the slag heap was planted. In 1980, the Draf- en Renbaan Schaesberg opened at the foot of the slag heap. This is where Pinkpop arrived in 1987. After 17 editions in Geleen and once in Baarlo, Landgraaf became the festival’s new home. In the late 1990s, the area was given a tourist-recreational function and the bankrupt Draf- en Renbaan was taken over and renamed Megaland event site. An indoor ski slope on the south slope of this stone mountain, Snowworld, also arrived. For several years, the longest and highest staircase in the Netherlands has been located on this stone mountain. The Wilhelminaberg is now part of the Park Gravenrode.