Q-dance is a Dutch company that organizes events and festivals that focuses on the harder styles of dance music – mainly
Hardstyle
Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre that emerged in the late 1990s, with origins in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Hardstyle mixes influences from techno, new beat and hardcore.
Early hardstyle was typically written at 140 BPM (''beat ...
,
Hardcore
Hardcore, hard core or hard-core may refer to:
Arts and media Film
* ''Hardcore'' (1977 film), a British comedy film
* ''Hardcore'' (1979 film), an American crime drama film starring George C Scott
* ''Hardcore'' (2001 film), a British documen ...
, and
Hard Trance
Hard trance is a subgenre of trance music which originated in Western Europe (Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands) in the early 1990s as the Breakbeat hardcore production community began to diversify into new and different styles of electronic ...
. Popular events and festivals organized by Q-dance are
Defqon.1 Festival
Defqon.1 Weekend Festival is an annual music festival held in the Netherlands. In the past, it was also held in Chile and Australia. Founded in 2003 by festival organizer Q-dance, the festival plays mostly hardstyle and related genres such as h ...
,
Qlimax
Qlimax is an annual hardstyle and hard dance event in the Netherlands. It is a major attraction held by Q-dance, and considered to be one of the leading hardstyle events, attracting nearly 30,000 people annually. It contains some of the most sophi ...
, Qapital,
Impaqt, EPIQ, and
X-Qlusive. The events of Q-dance are easily identified by the letter “Q” on the event names. The logo of Q-dance is inspired by the knobs on DJ mixers, which if turned 120 degrees to the right creates the letter “Q”.
History
Foundation
Q-dance was founded in 1999 as Qlass Elite by a couple of friends in the northern suburbs of
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
(Landsmeer, the Netherlands). Big EDM label Spinnin' Records was the first to spot the label. The first event created by Qlass Elite was Houseqlassics, an event that played old school house music. After two editions of Houseqlassics, in the year 2000 a few more events were scheduled for the year: ''91-92'' and
Qlimax
Qlimax is an annual hardstyle and hard dance event in the Netherlands. It is a major attraction held by Q-dance, and considered to be one of the leading hardstyle events, attracting nearly 30,000 people annually. It contains some of the most sophi ...
. A year later, in 2001, the name of the company was changed into Q-dance and a new concept was introduced: Qlubtempo.
With this concept Q-dance introduced a whole new music genre:
Hardstyle
Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre that emerged in the late 1990s, with origins in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Hardstyle mixes influences from techno, new beat and hardcore.
Early hardstyle was typically written at 140 BPM (''beat ...
. This new genre of dance music grew in a few years as one of the most popular dance genres and is still the main type of music played at Q-dance events. And it's the same Q-dance that coined the term Hardstyle around the world on July 4, 2002. In 2002 Q-dance decided to expand the Qlimax event by moving to a bigger venue, Thialf stadion in Heerenveen, the Netherlands. Qlimax grew fast and soon it was clear that the venue at Heerenveen was too small to hold the event. Qlimax was soon held in a bigger venue in the
GelreDome
The GelreDome () is a football stadium in the city of Arnhem, Netherlands. It is one of the largest and most modern stadiums in the country, built from 1996 to 1998 at a cost equivalent to €75 million, that opened on 25 March 1998. The stadium ...
in Arnhem, the Netherlands. Until this day the Qlimax events take place each November in the GelreDome.
In 2003 on Bloemendaal beach, the Netherlands, Q-dance built a beach club named Q-beach. In the weekends small parties and talent shows were organized at Q-beach. After two summers Q-dance decided to pull the plug on Q-beach. In 2003 three new concepts were introduced: Defqon.1 Festival, X-Qlusive and the techno concept Teqnology.
Q-dance abroad
In 2004 Q-dance decided to cross borders for the first time. In the German Weeze, on the abandoned RAF-airbase, the first edition of
Q-BASE took place. With Q-BASE placed as the international dance event, Q-dance organized an event where visitors from all over Europe came to party. The year 2004 was ended with the first edition of QrimeTime, an event in which visitors were dressed like gangsters and Mafiosi to conclude the year.
![Q-Base](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Q-Base.JPG)
In 2005 Belgium became an important country for Q-dance. It was in this year that Q-dance had a permanent venue at
Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland is one of the many themed lands featured at all of the Magic Kingdom styled Disney theme parks around the world owned or licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Each version of the land is different and features numerous attractions t ...
. In 2006 the first Belgian Qlimax was held in
Hasselt
Hasselt (, , ; la, Hasseletum, Hasselatum) is a Belgian city and municipality, and capital and largest city of the province of Limburg in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is known for its former branding as "the city of taste", as well as its ...
, Belgium. In 2007 the first Belgian X-Qlusive was organized and a year later the very first Belgian only Q-dance festival was organized: The Qontinent. The events in Belgium are organized by the Q-dance office in Antwerp.
In 2008 it was the turn of Australia to experience Q-dance. Q-dance organized a tour on three big cities in Australia:
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
,
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
. Later that year Q-dance organized two editions of X-Qlusive Showtek in Sydney and Melbourne. In that same year QrimeTime was replaced by Qountdown, a newer concept to end (and begin) the year at the
Heineken Music Hall
AFAS Live (formerly known as the Heineken Music Hall) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands, near the Johan Cruyff Arena. The big hall, named "Black Box" has a capacity of 6,000 and is 3000 m2; a smaller hall for after parties (Beat Box) ha ...
in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
In September 2009 the first edition of Defqon.1 Festival took place in Sydney, Australia. The festival was in the first year sold out. Also other countries were able to experience the events of Q-dance, in the form of small club tours, countries like: Poland, Brazil, Sweden, France, Italy, Great Britain and Northern Ireland experienced Q-dance.
In 2010 Q-dance celebrated its 10th year of existence in the
Amsterdam ArenA
The Johan Cruyff Arena ( nl, Johan Cruijff Arena ; officially stylised as Johan Cruijff ArenA) is the main stadium of the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam and the home stadium of football club AFC Ajax since its opening. Built from 1993 to 1996 ...
, the Netherlands. In its decade anniversary Q-dance recycled materials from past events to relive the Q-dance experience. The Ferris wheel of Defqon.1 2008, the “Flower of Life” of Qlimax 2008 and “The Mask” of Qlimax 2006, among others, were used as decoration. In 2011 Defqon.1 Festival moved from Almere strand to the festival terrain of
Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands. With that transition Defqon.1 became an extended festival, where visitors could stay for multiple days in the camping next to the festival terrain. For the weekend visitors there was a pre-party and afterparty. In 2012 Defqon.1 was extended even further. In 2013 Q-dance expanded their concept to South America and the USA. Organizing the first standalone events in the form of The Sound of Q-dance at Santiago, Chile, at Los Angeles, U.S. and Shenzhen, China. Also on November 2 by informations of HardNewsNL will be a new Hardcore event called Nirvana of Noise.
Concepts
Current concepts
Former concepts
Defqon.1 Festival
Defqon.1 Festival is a multiday festival on the festival terrain of Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands. The first edition of Defqon.1 took place on the Almere Beach in 2003. In a few years time, Defqon.1 grew to be one of the most popular hard dance festivals in the Netherlands. In 2011 the Defqon.1 festival moved to the festival terrain of Biddinghuizen, where visitors could stay camping for the first time. Defqon.1 is organized once per year in the Netherlands. Since 2009 there is as well an Australian version of Defqon.1, which is also a yearly festival held on the Sydney International Regatta Centre.
Q-BASE
Q-BASE was introduced in 2004 as “The international dance festival”. On a former RAF-airbase in Weeze, Germany, thousands of partygoers from all over Europe come together to experience Q-BASE. Apart from the location, Q-BASE uniqueness is that it is a day and night festival. The festival lasts for 14 hours long. At Q-BASE not only hardstyle and hardcore is played, there is also room for new and less common music categories. The final edition of Q-BASE took place on the 8th of September 2018. Q-dance replaced Q-BASE with a new concept called IMPAQT.
Dominator
Held at E3 Strand Eersel since 2005, when there were 20,000 attendees. This event is one of the largest festivals for
hardcore techno
Hardcore (also known as hardcore techno or hardcore house) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos and a distorte ...
, with styles such as
gabber
Gabber (; ) is a style of electronic dance music and a subgenre of hardcore techno, as well as the surrounding subculture. The music is more commonly referred to as Hardcore, which is characterised by fast beats, distorted & heavier kickdrums, ...
.
DominatorFestival.nl
/ref>
File:Dominator 2014 crowd.jpg, 2014
File:Dominator 2014 Darkraver.jpg, 2014
File:Dominator 2014 night.jpg, 2014
Qlimax
Qlimax is the longest running event of Q-dance. In 2000 the first few editions of Qlimax were organized in the Beursgebouw at Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Since 2003 Qlimax is a yearly returning event at the GelreDome in Arnhem, the Netherlands. The characteristics of a Qlimax event are that the show is organized around a theme, where much attention is given to the show and technology. The predominant music at Qlimax is hardstyle; however, it has become tradition to open the show with a jumpstyle
Jumpstyle is an electronic dance style and music genre popular in Western Europe, originally in Belgium.
Jumpstyling is often referred to as "Jumpen": a combination of the English word 'Jump' and the Dutch and German suffix '-en' (meaning "to j ...
, hard trance
Hard trance is a subgenre of trance music which originated in Western Europe (Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands) in the early 1990s as the Breakbeat hardcore production community began to diversify into new and different styles of electronic ...
, or subground act, and end the show with a hardcore act.
Q-dance hostings
In addition to concepts created by Q-dance, Q-dance is often presented at big events and multi-day festivals in the Netherlands and abroad. Q-dance has a permanent venue on national and international events of Mysteryland
Mysteryland is the leading electronic dance music festival in the Netherlands, organized by the Netherlands-based promoter ID&T. Being the first of its kind in the country when it was established, its organizers have billed the event as the ol ...
. Since 2003 Q-dance has hosted a venue at Mysteryland in the Netherlands as well as in Chile since 2011. In Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, Q-dance hosts a permanent venue at Tomorrowland since its first edition in 2005. In 2015 the company started a cooperation for a stage with Electric Love Festival
Electric Love is an electronic dance music festival held annually since 2013. It takes place at the second weekend in July at the Salzburgring in Plainfeld, Austria. Headliners have included Armin van Buuren, Hardwell, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, ...
, Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and Tomorrowland Brasil
Q-dance has hosted a stage at Planet Love, Ireland; Global Gathering, Poland; the Monday Bar Cruise from Sweden to Latvia, Electric Daisy Carnival
Electric Daisy Carnival, commonly known as EDC, is an electronic dance music festival organized by promoter and distributor Insomniac. The annual flagship event, EDC Las Vegas, is held in May at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and is currently t ...
(EDC), USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and BigCityBeats World Club Dome (WCD), Germany.
References
External links
*
Q-dance.com
{{Electronic music festival
Dance festivals in the Netherlands
Electronic music event management companies