This is the most (and probably only) painful post I’ll write in this website. This year’s Defqon.1 was probably one of its most remarkable editions, for all the wrong reasons. What started out as something promising ended up as an absolute disaster, and as a painful lesson in what not to do when it comes to comms and emergencies. But more on that later.
The Gathering
Arriving at Defqon.1 this year was a breeze for me. Despite drawing the short straw with my hotel shuttle (we had to pick up people from another hotel first, which meant driving away from the Walibi for around 15 minutes, on a shuttle that was already ~5 minutes late), we arrived at around 5pm, which was an ok time. The Premium fast lane was clearly marked, which was great to see, as these entrances have been hit or miss in the past few years. However, to my dismay, everyone was piling up in the security. Random people were being scanned and I didn’t quite understand how they were being selected, so after awkwardly standing between the bracelet scan and the security line for a few seconds, I’ve decided to just go through the opening that skipped the queue, which surprisingly worked.
I arrived at the Walibi to an already open venue, which was new for this year and a superb idea – it allowed me to explore all stages before the action, while they were still pretty much empty, and stand in awe of the splendid stages Q-dance had once again prepared for their visitors. Another big plus was that the day visitors’ entrance was open, so I took that shortcut to go straight in to the actual venue (little did I know that I was never going to be able to see the Wasted Lands…).
The biggest surprise was, funnily enough, the first stage I happened to visit – the BLACK, where Q had a treat for die hard Qlimax aficionados… The stage was a non moveable, small scale replica of Qlimax in 2018, the well known “Geisha” stage. while this version certainly lacked the presence of the original 9-piece, 8-ton behemoth, it was quite impressive and filled the BLACK tent rather well.
INDIGO was almost as impressive, with its futuristic look – I’d say it was almost spaceship-like, especially with the portions that went up towards the back of the tent!
Decorations on the BROWN were a bit more cheerful, with colorful flags hanging from the ceiling and a stage backdrop that was essentially a splash of colours.
GOLD was what I checked next and it was shaped like an old house with the face of a bird… complete with the house’s roof, balcony, spiral staircase and… a nice place to hang the painting of the winner of this year’s Artcore contest.
As I went further north-west in the venue, the imposing UV stood out, and I think this was one of the best UV stages ever designed. Very detailed and colorful!
The MAGENTA was also very well done. The decoration in the actual stage area felt slightly simpler than last year, but it stretched across the full height and length of the tent. There was also a very welcome addition – stands on the sides of the tent and a wide open space in front of it, which is useful, as some acts have tended to go beyond capacity on this stage in recent years!
The BLUE had considerable changes for this year, including a new tent that was noticeably wider, occupying what used to be the walking path along side it. While the stage itself was almost on par with last year’s, the rest of the area seemed upgraded, with suspended elements and a new mid-height rail on each side made up of extra lighting. And, once again, Q has managed to have the BLUE without any single support poles being needed! The Premium deck also had a much needed upgrade in length, featuring huge cooling fans, which have been a bit of a hit and miss these past years.
Food courts seemed to be less scattered this year, centred around the BLUE and INDIGO areas. This appeared to be less optimal than last year, but I didn’t have enough festival time to properly put that to the test, unfortunately.
As showtime approached, I went to the BLUE to check out the opening with the anthem show by D-Sturb. Last year, before everything kicked off, we had JDX doing the ambient sounds live, and improvising the anthem’s melody on top of that, but I didn’t see him at front of house this year. As usual, I did see a pumped-up Jonas Schmidt, creative director at Q-dance, happily going back and forth, certainly making sure everything was ready to go, and even jokingly imitating a maestro controlling the crowd when everyone started shouting “Defqon.1! Defqon.1!”.
Once again, Q-dance delivered a brilliant kick-off show, but shortly afterwards I wanted to head over to INDIGO, where Cryex played a superb set. It was a mix of older tracks, unreleased tracks, and a few from his latest album, RESURGENCE, ending with Last Forever. That track made for a strong closing statement, with the artist just sitting on the edge of the stage in awe, watching the crowd go wild. One can only imagine the emotions going through Levi’s mind at that time!
After that, I decided to embrace the newest trend of side-questing a bit, and ended up in the Stampkroeg to watch a set I missed last year – Steenwolk & CRO. Their superb track selection was the highlight here, with a good mix of Trance classics and more underground tracks. Having come from a Trance background I really appreciated this set, and although it is certainly not something for most attendees of this event, it is really interesting to have that sort of variety in a single weekend.
This was followed by a quick snack for dinner while listening to Coone, who smashed it out of the park with an energetic set, filled with old school and Jumpstyle influences.
Ran-D and Adaro’s set was one of the ones I was most looking forward to during The Gathering, and they did very well, although the mixing was a bit too fast for my taste. I do understand they wanted to play a lot of tracks, but I tend to prefer sets with fewer tracks and longer mixing.
At the end of the day, it was time for D-Block & S-te-Fan from whom I was more interested in hearing the 4444 Of A Kind tracks, which I had purposefully avoided until then… and the 4 The Scene track is superb! It feels like a thank you to us all for living and breathing the harder styles. The rest of the show was the expected DBSTF spectacle, which I was fortunate enough to have witnessed a few times already.
Leaving the last Gathering set early is key to witness the Tribute at the UV. This year, in my opinion, the track was particularly well chosen. As showtime approaches, elements of the chosen track are played through the speakers in very short sequences, sometimes only a fraction of a second long, and I instantly recognised elements of Angel’s break as I waited for the show. After that, and as usual, Q-dance treated us to a proper homage to this iconic track.
After all was said and done, they put Briefly on the speakers, something I don’t think they had done after the Tribute before, which made me wonder whether they already knew we wouldn’t get to hear it on the RED stage…
After the show ended, leaving the UV towards the lockers was an almost impossible mission. It seems that the Tribute shows draw more and more people every year, which is good, but I’ve never had as much difficulty moving through crowds at Defqon.1 as I did at that moment. Despite that, and in general, this Thursday didn’t seem too crowded. I wonder if there were indeed less people, or if the fact that Thursday seemed increasingly busier for 2 or 3 years in a row tampered with my expectations.
From here onwards, we all know the story, and many of us have lived this nightmare in person. 1 hour later the news of the cancellation would be pushed through to everyone via email and the Defqon.1 app.
What’s next?
What’s upcoming seems fairly trivial, but in reality it isn’t. Although Q-dance did not initially handle the situation on site on Friday appropriately at first, their staff was eventually briefed, and, from what I’ve seen online, handled delicate situations properly. They were also very quick to get back to attendees with a fairly thorough FAQ early in the week after the event.
In short, atendees can chose to keep their tickets for next year, or request a refund. Everything else (accommodations, lockers, and so on) will be automatically refunded, with plans to provide priority access to accommodation to attendees that decide to keep their tickets for next year.
I don’t think it’s necessary to say I will be keeping mine, nor explain why. But I do wonder whether I’ll actually be able to benefit from it.
The fact of the matter is, this isn’t an unprecedented situation on our scene. A weather-related cancellation did happen before, to an event and an organization you might not even remember anymore. They had quality lineups, massive support from artists, sold out events, but all of that wasn’t enough to keep them afloat. Lose Your Mind was hit with rain and thunderstorms in their 2015 edition of CRAFT Festival. This resulted in them giving free entrance to everyone for the following year, as well as selling extra tickets after expanding the festival’s capacity. The 2016 edition followed, however the 2017 one did not. The weather issues were a bigger blow than the organisation could take, and they eventually went bankrupt.
I’ve seen comments online saying there is absolutely no reason to be concerned about Q-dance’s finances because they are (very remotely) part of the wider KKR investment fund, through Superstruct. This is completely wrong – as has been widely known for years, Q-dance has operated fairly independently from the structures it belonged to (as has ID&T as a whole). But they have someone to whom they must show results (who subsequently has someone else to show results to). That is why ID&T subsidiares Vunzige Deuntjes and Apenkooi got cut – the numbers no longer made sense for the upper management. And those numbers have to be big. Always.
Let this sink in: Q-dance’s future is completely open, and, from what we can gather from publicly available sources, has never been more at risk than it is today. I am not saying that Q will close shop. But I am saying that what was once an established subsidiary of one of the biggest dance music brands is now (almost) completely dependent on a single basket of eggs (Defqon.1’s revenue), and more and more at the mercy of corporate’s wishes. Saying its near to mid term future is rosy would be an overstatement and a big stretch.
What if we do lose Q-dance?
The Landsmeer crew was pivotal in pushing Hardstyle for more than 25 years. It is no secret that some of the founding members and employees are still involved with the company to this day. These people live and breathe the harder styles, and inevitably, if Q-dance were to cease existing, some of these people would become unemployed, while others would be scattered across other companies, where they would no longer cooperate in the same way. A huge amount of institutional knowledge would be lost in the void.
The true Weekend Warriors
One thing I’d love to highlight in this article is that a few people have shown their true colors after the cancellation announcement. Smashing festival infrastructure and stealing isn’t the way to go. The person that said it best was Outsiders, on an Instagram post that has sadly been reported and deleted (seems the truth got some people butthurt!) – people that have done this are not welcome to Defqon.1 or any other festivals. They are not part of us, they are not part of our scene. They should be banned for life and never show up at Hard Dance events ever again. FIFO!
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Acknowledgements & Closing remarks
I would like once more to thank the crew who accompany me on these journeys. You have all made this very bittersweet weekend more tolerable, and you were of big help in finding ways to arrange accommodation and an earlier flight home. You all know who you are.
I would also like to have a special word for those that were coming in to the Holy Grounds for the first time ever this year. I am so very sorry that your dream weekend was ruined. I feel for you, and I hope to see you all next year.
I’d also like to write a word of appreciation to Q-dance, especially their creative team, who were not able to showcase the world and experience they had built for this year. I am so very sorry that you had to endure this cancellation and the burden of the financial strain that comes with it.
I’d also like to thank all of Q-dance’s partners that were involved in the setup – from the crew doing the build up on the Holy Grounds, to the media partners (especially the wonderful photo/videographers, a few of whom were working there for the first time), catering, artist handling, merch booth staff, and all others involved in making Defqon.1 a reality. All heroes in my book, and hope to one day be able to be among your ranks.
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Deep down in each and everyone’s orange hearts, the hope of entering the Holy Grounds next year will never fade. It is with this hope I will try to face the next 12 months…
I usually end these articles with a goodbye. However, for this year, I will end with a to be continued…
