For the incrowd, this festival is coined as the 'Mecca of the harder styles', and for all the right reasons. With more than 60.000 daily visitors hailing from over 50 different countries, it truly is the largest annual gathering in the Dutch dance scene. Being Q-dance its flagship festival, it has the reputation to reach new levels of creativity in music, show and experience, year after year. Defqon's signature show moments "The Endshow", "Power Hour" and "The Gathering" all add up to the uniqueness of the festival.
As Defqon.1 transformed from a full-on one-day festival into a dynamic weekend festival & camping experience over the course of a few years, a new format was needed to guide the crowd throughout the weekend.
With this objective, the DQ1 creative team defined essential moments in the time-line of the festival, and created new shows or experiences for each of them. In this way, ‘The Gathering’, ‘Power Hour’ and ‘The Closing Ceremony’ were conceived. Together with ’The Endshow’, these moments became the pillars of the new Defqon.1 Experience.
Each show had its own purpose, but all of them are focussed on synchronising energy, anticipation and focus in the crowd. You could literally feel the energy changing, in the hour leading up to ‘Power Hour’, as practically all of the 60K visitors made their way to the RED Mainstage in anticipation of things to come. These shows go beyond music and fireworks. As a visitor, you really feel as a part of something bigger. In some sense this is the magic everyone longs for.
This strategy has paid off: the shows have become the highest anticipated moments in the festival, more popular than any act or DJ, and with that Defqon.1 has become a bucket-list festival for every festival fan, thus selling out over 60K tickets in a matter of minutes.
The vibe during the closing ceremony on sunday is unequalled. Closing the Defqon.1 weekend together in style is something that everyone should experience once in their lifetime. A bucketlist thing.
Enjoy sunday eve's majestic closing of 2018 below.
As part of the creative team behind DEFQON.1, mark Rietveld has been involved in various roles between 2008 and 2019. As an ALLROUND FESTIVAL CREATIVE he has mainly been focussing on show creation, scripting and show direction for the RED (mainstage - Endshow, Power Hour & Closing Ceremony) and BLUE & BLACK (arena marquees - The Gathering).
Mark: "Co-creating these shows with Jonas Schmidt, Q-dance's creative director, has been both an honor and a joy. For me, Jones is a prodigy in show creation for Festivals and arena shows. I learned the craft from him and Defqon.1 & Qlimax where the places Where I got the opportunity to bring my crazy ideas to life."
SHOW CREDITS
The FOH Team (amongst others):
Jonas Schmidt - Creative Director - Q-dance
Mark Rietveld - Show Director - Q-dance
Maartje Mulder - Show Caller - Q-dance
Joshua Dutrieux - Music Composer & Producer - JDX
Bart Revier & Jelle Neys - Music Composers & Producers - 3AM Audio
Pascal Parent & Robbert Jan Vernooy - Light Operators - Tenfeet
Jeroen Winnubst - Laser Operator - Sync / LaserImage
Pyrofoor de Amsterdam - Pyro Technicians
Niels van de Wijngaart - Time-code Playout - N-Creations
Emil Jongmans & Niels van Smeerdijk - Sound Engineers - NoizBoys
