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Q-dance is a Dutch company that organizes events and festivals that focuses on the harder styles of dance music – mainly hardstyle, hardcore, and hard trance. Popular events and festivals organized by Q-dance are Defqon.1 Festival, Qlimax and Dominator. Q-Dance has organized multiple events and festivals in the past such as Qapital, The Qontinent, Impaqt, Q-Base, 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”.[ citation needed ]
Q-dance was founded in 1999 as Qlass Elite by a group of friends in the northern suburbs of Amsterdam (Landsmeer, the Netherlands). The first event created by Qlass Elite was Houseqlassics, an event that played old-school house music. After two editions of Houseqlassics in 2000, a few more events were scheduled for the year: 91-92 and Qlimax. A year later, in 2001, the name of the company was changed into Q-dance and a new concept was introduced: Qlubtempo. [1]
Q-dance was an early adopter of the genre Hardstyle. 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. In 2002 Q-dance moved the Qlimax event to the Thialf stadion in Heerenveen, the Netherlands, and in 2003 to the Gelredome in Arnhem.
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. The events stopped in 2004. [2] [3] In 2003 three new concepts were introduced: Defqon.1 Festival, X-Qlusive and the techno concept Teqnology.
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. 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.
In 2005, Belgium became an important country for Q-dance. It was in this year that Q-dance had a permanent venue at Tomorrowland. In 2006, the first Belgian Qlimax was held in Hasselt, 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 Australia's turn to experience Q-dance. Q-dance organized a tour on three big cities in Australia: Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. 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 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 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 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.
Concept | Location | First year |
---|---|---|
X-Qlusive (On-Hold) | Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam / GelreDome Arnhem | 2002 |
Defqon.1 Festival | Event area Biddinghuizen | 2003 |
Dominator | E3 Strand Eersel | 2005 |
Concept | Location | First year | Last year | Number of editions |
---|---|---|---|---|
'91-'92 | Hemkade 48 Zaandam | 2000 | 2001 | 5 |
Club Q-BASE | Hemkade 48 Zaandam | 2002 | 2002 | 23 |
Hardcore Resurrection | Various locations | 2000 | 2003 | 4 |
Qontact | Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam / Beursgebouw Eindhoven | 2001 | 2004 | 8 |
Teqnology | Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam | 2002 | 2004 | 6 |
Qlubtempo | Hemkade 48 Zaandam / Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam | 2001 | 2007 | 31 |
QrimeTime | Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam | 2004 | 2007 | 4 |
Houseqlassics | Various locations | 1999 | 2010 | 18 |
In Qontrol | RAI Amsterdam | 2004 | 2010 | 7 |
Qountdown | Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam | 2008 | 2011 | 4 |
QORE 3.0 | Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam | 2011 | 2012 | 2 |
IQON | Sydney International Dragway | 2013 | 2013 | 1 |
QULT | WesterUnie Amsterdam | 2012 | 2015 | 15 |
Defqon.1 Festival Chile | Centro de Eventos Munich | 2014 | 2017 | 3 |
Freaqshow | Ziggo Dome Amsterdam | 2012 | 2017 | 6 |
Q-Base | Airport Weeze | 2004 | 2018 | 15 |
Defqon.1 Australia | Sydney International Regatta Centre | 2009 | 2018 | 10 |
WOW WOW | Ziggo Dome Amsterdam | 2018 | 2018 | 1 |
IMPAQT | Weeze Airport Weeze (GE) | 2019 | 2019 | 1 |
EPIQ New Year’s Eve | Ziggo Dome Amsterdam | 2019 | 2019 | 1 |
Dediqated - 20 Years of Q-dance | GelreDome Arnhem | 2020 | 2020 | 1 |
Qapital | Ziggo Dome Amsterdam | 2013 | 2022 | 8 |
The Qontinent | Recreative area Puyenbroeck Wachtebeke (BE) | 2008 | 2024 | 15 |
Qlimax | GelreDome Arnhem | 2000 | 2024 | 27 |
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.
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. The latest edition of Q-BASE took place on the 8th of September 2018.
Dominator | |
---|---|
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Genre | Electronic music, hardcore techno |
Location(s) | E3 Strand Eersel, Netherlands |
Years active | 2005-present |
Founders | Q-dance (and Art of Dance) |
Attendance | 50,000+ |
Website | DominatorFestival.nl |
Held at E3 Strand Eersel since 2005, when there were 20,000 attendees. This event is one of the largest festivals for hardcore techno, with styles such as gabber.
Qlimax used to be the longest running event of Q-dance for over a decade. In 2000 the first few editions of Qlimax were organized in the Beursgebouw at Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
Since 2003 Qlimax became a yearly returning event at the GelreDome in Arnhem, the Netherlands. The characteristics of a Qlimax event were that the show was organized around a theme, where much attention was given to the show and technology. The predominant music at Qlimax was hardstyle; however, it became tradition to open the show with a jumpstyle, hard trance, or subground act, and end the show with a hardcore act.
On the 25th of July 2024, Q-Dance announded that Qlimax 2024 will be the very last edition. With this announcement, Q-Dance has ended one of the oldest hardstyle events.
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. Since 2003 Q-dance has hosted a venue at Mysteryland in the Netherlands as well as in Chile since 2011. In Belgium, 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, Austria 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 (EDC), USA and BigCityBeats World Club Dome (WCD), Germany.
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from EBM in Frankfurt, Germany, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and quickly spread throughout Europe.
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.
ID&T is a Dutch entertainment and medium enterprise that was founded in the early 1990s. Their event Thunderdome is named the oldest electronic festival in the Netherlands, with later events like Mysteryland, Trance Energy and Sensation. It operates many of the largest electronic dance music events in the world. They were also involved in the editions of Tomorrowland up until 2013.
Dana van Dreven, also known as DJ Lady Dana, is a Dutch hardstyle and previously gabber DJ and producer.
Dov Joseph Elkabas, known professionally as DJ The Prophet, is a Dutch hardcore techno and hardstyle DJ and producer. The Prophet is also the owner of one of the largest hardstyle record labels, Scantraxx.
Qlimax was an annual hardstyle and hard dance event in the Netherlands. It was 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 sophisticated production and setup, as well as sound system for any Q-dance event. On the 25th of July 2024, Q-Dance announced that Qlimax 2024 will be the very last edition.
Willem Rebergen, better known by his stage name Headhunterz, is a Dutch DJ and music producer. Rebergen is also a voice actor. He has done dubbing for several movies and TV series. He started his career in 2005 working on Hardstyle music.
Pontuz Bergman is a Swedish DJ and hardstyle producer. Wasted Penguinz was originally a duo act that consisted of Bergman and Jon Brandt-Cederhäll, who left in 2020.
Koen Bauweraerts, better known by his stage name Coone, is a Belgian hardstyle producer and DJ.
Joram Metekohy, better known by his stage name Wildstylez, is a Dutch hardstyle DJ and record producer. Having previously released hardstyle records under the alias 'Seizure', Joram Metekohy had his first solo release as Wildstylez in 2007 on the Scantraxx sub-label Scantraxx Reloaded. In 2010, he started the record label Digital:Age in collaboration with Noisecontrollers. After he stopped releasing on Digital:Age, and its subsequent collapse, Wildstylez had a string of releases on Q-Dance Records and also released many tracks for free via social media. In 2013, Wildstylez founded his own hardstyle label, Lose Control Music, under the parent label Be Yourself Music. As of 2014, he and Max Enforcer now release their own music through Lose Control Music. Later, in 2018, Wildstylez founded the label Art of Creation with Headhunterz.
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 rawstyle, hardcore, early and classic.
Frenchcore is a subgenre of hardcore techno. The style differs from other forms of hardcore in terms of a faster tempo, usually above 160 –185 BPM, and a loud and distorted offbeat bassline.
Audiotricz are a Dutch electronic music duo from Nunspeet, consisting of Kenneth Kroes and Leon Benschop who perform and produce music together within the hardstyle genre.
Thijs Ploegmakers, known musically as Adaro, is a Dutch DJ and producer. He has produced music in several dance styles, and in 2008 started producing raw hardstyle, for which he is considered to be one of the originators of.
Corey Soljan, better known by his artistic name Code Black, is an Australian hardstyle-DJ and music producer.
Randy "Ran-D" Wieland is a Dutch DJ and music producer.
Mark Carpentier is a Belgian DJ and record producer who performs under the name Mark With a K. He produces performs music within the hard dance music genre. He has performed at some major hard dance events in Europe.
John-Paul Pirrello, known onstage as Outbreak, is an Australian DJ and music producer. Since 2002, he has been active in producing and performing hard dance music, specifically hardstyle since 2002.
Tim van de Stadt, known his stage name Atmozfears, is a Dutch hardstyle artist. Atmozfears was previously a trio, consisting of Tim, Kevin Keiser and Michael Jessen, formed in 2009. By the end of 2012, Jessen had left the group. In February 2012, Atmozfears joined the hardstyle label Scantraxx Records. Atmozfears has played at such festivals as Defqon.1, The Qontinent, Q-Base and Tomorrowland.
Sub Zero Project is a Dutch hardstyle producer duo, consisting of Thomas Velderman and Nigel Coppen, most known for making the Qlimax 2018 anthem "The Game Changer". They are the youngest Qlimax anthem makers in history.