In June of every year, just outside of Biddinghuizen, The Netherlands, a 3-day extravaganza of the harder styles takes place, attracting fans from across the world to come together and create a feeling of unity no matter what creed you are, in what is a very niche but tight knit community. This is the Mecca for all fans of the harder styles of dance music. This is Def. Qon. 1.
The first edition of Defqon 1 was hosted in 2003 in the shape of a 12 hour outdoor festival held in Almere, The Netherlands. It stayed here but increased in popularity and size until 2011, where it moved to its current home of the Walibi Evenemententerrein. In 2012, it upscaled to a 3 day festival, with its current incarnation being attended by 60,000 Weekend Warriors (the title given to the die hard fans who attend).
There is a sister festival in Australia, founded in 2009 and has expanded to being a 2 day event with 30,000 attendees. There was also Defqon Chile however this only survived 2 years in 2015 and 2016, attracting 20,000 visitors.
Travel
Getting to and from Defqon 1 was relatively easy even though the location of it is fairly remote, with it being easily accessible via road or public transport links in The Netherlands. If you are not driving from elsewhere in Europe, either train or plane are the best ways of doing the first part of your journey. From here, you can travel by car which will only take you just over an hour from Amsterdam, with ample room at the festival to park, though you need to purchase a pass for this. The other option is to use public transport, which Defqon sell reasonably priced packages to allow you to travel from the airport or Amsterdam Centraal train station all the way to the festival site. The price of these packs start at €28 for the train/shuttle pass. Of course, you have the option of organising your own public transport bookings but these are of a higher price and would mean the need for a taxi to and from Dronten (the nearest train station) which cost me €60!
Accommodation
The festival offers a full range of accommodation options, all with varied prices. You are able to have the most basic option which is just the festival ticket before the options build up in comfort and, of course, price. Easiest way to detail these is bullet pointed list and what they include with rough prices, due to the possibility of price inflation next year:
- Friends Camp – You get your own set area for a large group of friends and this is located near the festival entrance. This gives you room for 20 to 50 friends and family, the weekend ticket, charging capability, picnic tables and all this for the price of €170 each.
- Camping ground – You have several options for the camping ground. Split into 6 areas, it’s advised to get there early or else it can be a 20-30 minute walk to the festival grounds. Starting with bring your own tent, there are options for tents to be provided or with them already set up, going up through a variety of other options to a full yurt fitting 7-9 people. Prices range from €190 to €390 per person.
- Wanting some extreme comfort on top of your yurt? Well, there’s the option for comfort “camping”! This comes with many extras of exclusive bar and seating areas, buffet breakfast and has you sleeping in a room if the outdoors aren’t for you. Options range from safari tent up to a deluxe suite; prices €445 to €795 per person.
- If that’s not enough for you, there’s the option of cottages and apartments. Hosting 4-10 people in a nearby village, you will have free shuttles to and from the festival with added extras such as saunas. Prices start at €310 per person.
- Final option is a hotel in the surrounding area, away from the festival grounds and the campsite again with free shuttles to and from the festival. Prices starting at €170 per person.
Amenities
As a common theme, I found with Dutch and Belgian festivals that the amenities that they offer both on the campsite and festival grounds are clean, functional and superb compared to other nations and festivals I’ve been to. Easily, they cover all the basics that you’re looking for but go to the next level to ensure that you’re comfortable and fresh throughout the weekend.
- Toilets – The dreaded festival toilets. Everyone’s worst nightmare of opening one and finding a scene from a horror film. GOOD NEWS! Defqon’s toilets aren’t your usual port-a-loos. Fully functioning like a normal toilet with suction, these are cleaned on a regular basis and topped up with toilet rolls across the weekend. Baring a failure that occurred, which can happen to any toilet block, these were the cleanest and nicest toilet blocks I’ve experienced at a festival, including many indoor festivals!
- Showers – Costing only 1 token to use, each campsite area had its own shower block, with plenty available so that queues weren’t too long. The water was warm, cubicles closed off and the facilities were always clean and functional, excluding ditched shower gel bottles occasionally. Then again, sharing is caring, right? Outside, there’s a full sink with mirrors and taps for your smaller scale cleaning.
- Gym – Never have I ever seen a festival with a full blown gym until I came to Defqon! Open early morning and shutting relatively late, you had the opportunity to get up and train to get that party pump on, grab a protein shake and then hit the festival. Though I was far too fatigued from partying hard to be able to utilise this but it was a thought!
Aside from these areas, it had plenty of areas to sit down, chill out and take in the campsite or festival experience, with specific chill out areas, if the raving was getting too much. Located next to one of the lakes, it included hammocks and swings to take the weight off your feet and enjoy the experience of being in the summer sun with your friends! Don’t panic, I’ll cover food and drinks later on!
Line-Up
This is Defqon 1, the biggest and best hard dance event in the world. The line-up was littered with talent with them struggling to fit everyone in. From act one of The Gathering (the kind of pre party before the main action starts) all the way to the closing of festival with Project One, there were all the big names across all genres of the harder styles of dance music including an afterparty on the Saturday to be able to throw in a few extras for good measure. A full day from midday to 4am of raving? Yes please!
With so many artists on offer and so many genres to cover, there were stages covering a style each, with the main stage covering a bit of everything, equating to 13 stages of harder dance! Absolutely brilliant if you ask me! If you have a look at the festival line-up then you can see the shear scale of the Defqon 1 line up and how special it really is. I was spoilt for choice and needed to be at several stages all at once.
Stages
For some, the design of the stages mean a lot and I have seen so much debate in forums and comment sections about size and design of stages at festivals. Apart from the initial admiration for the effort and detail put into the stage, for me, I don’t really pay attention to them that much as I’m usually dancing around like a mad man. It’s only during the end shows for each day when the lights and fireworks show happens, which definitely didn’t disappoint. The care and choreography of the fireworks and lights during songs was perfect and only added to the moment with the cherry on the cake. Other than that, I liked the stages but like I said, I’m fairly indifferent so I’ll leave you to make your own decisions.
Novelties
One of the things about Defqon is the novelty sets and events that they put on, with some of them being the most famous things about Defqon 1 festival, and some of the most fun that I’ve ever had at a festival. Though there are too many to list, I’ll list some of my favourite things and what they include to give you an example of the fun to be had:
- Power Hour – The biggest and most famous novelty set of Defqon, being a major highlight of anyone’s weekend. Without doubt the most popular set of the weekend too, the main stage was packed from left to right, front to back, it was utterly crazy! What is the Power Hour then? It’s an insane eclectic mix of music from all genres of harder dance music, with dancers, costumes, props, inflatable crowd surfing, free flags and t-shirts, large Power Hour flags, world record rowing attempts and the legendary “Left, Right”. And still, I can think of more! I’d suggested you hit the link and see what I’m on about but never have I been part of 40-50,000 people all jumping one way then the other. Power Hour? THE best part of the weekend; no questions.
- End shows – Though not actually just Defqon, as it’s done by other outdoor hardstyle festivals, Defqon’s endshow was like nothing I’ve seen before. An endshow is a 15 minutes show that contains a special mix of music accompanied by choreographed fireworks and lights. A fitting end to the day of dancing to sit back, relax and take in the show and reflect on the day’s activities. Plus who doesn’t like fireworks?!
- DJs/Producers in the crowd – I know at other festivals you may see the odd DJ or two in the crowd through social media and someone taking a photo with them but with Defqon, the community is one that the headliners are just as much of a fan as you are and many are seen in the crowd, raving along with fans as well rather than being sat backstage or in the VIP areas. Myself? I saw 5 DJs in the space of 2 days and seeing the social media of other DJs, there numerous others dancing and meeting fans, with you not needing to be in the VIP areas to get the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with them.
These were just 3 highlights to my Defqon weekend that I haven’t seen at any other festival but it doesn’t even touch the ice berg of things on offer at Defqon. There was the recycling costume contest to go on the main stage, the Sunday Funday fancy dress, the numerous beach balls for the crowd to throw around, the inflatables with people on them, the list just goes on and on! It definitely adds another layer to the festival experience!
Food + Drinks
One thing that Defqon does boast is a wide variety of food stalls catering for all tastes, with it not only covering main meals but the opportunity to grab dessert dishes as well. From burger stands to fries, from fruit salad to ice cream, from smoothies to protein shakes, Defqon had everything catering for all tastes. This included catering for the time of day with their being separate menus for breakfast and dinner. Alongside these, there was a generic food stand that covered anything in between. On offer too were plenty of areas for you to sit and enjoy your food without having to sit on the floor, often giving shade from the sun.
Currency System
For some reason, all the festivals that I have been to in Belgium and The Netherlands, often covered by the same companies that organise them, all favour to use a token/currency system. In my opinion, I find this very frustrating to use compared to cash, which is the favoured method at other festivals I’ve attended in other nations. I don’t understand why using cash and card is such an issue. The main reasons for my frustrations are:
- Queuing for tokens – Instead of having only one queue at the bar/food stand, you must seek out a token dispenser, queue there then return to the bar.
- Mixture of cash/tokens – Rather than stick to one system of making purchases, the food and drink stands are token based but the merchandise and accessories stalls are cash based. Why not have one or the other?
- Sporadic token dispensers – Though they are highlighted on the maps, the dispensers are often few and far between meaning that the queues are long, tying in with my first point, and often mean the round trip can be 15-20 minutes to get your tokens and return to the stand you’re wanting to use them at.
- Ease of overspend – Especially if coming from outside of the euro currency, when you’re having to convert from your currency to euros to tokens, it is very easy to misjudge how much you have spent. This is emphasised when you tie in the points that will be raised about food and drink prices in the next section.
Pricing
“How much does this all cost then?” I hear you asking. Everyone wants to know how much an event costs so they can judge if it’s worth the money and affordable for them so this section is one of the key parts to this review. To be perfectly honest with, the pricing of this festival was initially sweet but left a bad aftertaste and I’ll explain why.
The initial costs of the festival were very reasonable for the size of it and what you were getting from the whole experience. The price for the festival tickets, camping, a tent, air mattress and sleeping bag was good in my eyes, with all this coming in at roughly €270. After everything else you’ve read plus the fact that the tents are good quality and patterned with that particular Defqon 1, the air beds are doubles and sleeping bags are good quality, I think it’s very good value for money!
On the flip side though, once at the festival, I found the prices to be very expensive and though you can lower those costs slightly if you’re taking your own food and drinks to the campsite, this isn’t necessarily possible when you are coming from abroad due to weight restrictions on baggage. For example, it cost the equivalent of €11.40 for a burger or €2.85 for a bottle of water. These were basic prices and rose if you wanted anything above the basics. Even though at a festival, it still seemed very pricey overall and even more so when compared to other festivals. When these prices tie in with the currency system that they use, it can get very pricey and hard to track expenditure, resulting in me going way over the budget I’d initially planned for.
Summary
All in all, my time at Defqon 1 was immense! The genre may not be to everyone’s taste but if you are a fan of the harder styles of dance music, I would definitely recommend you go. It was an experience like no other compared to other events I’ve been to in the same genres and even compared to other festivals covering other genres. It was so much fun, with so many things I’ve not seen at festivals being done and making the weekend it is. It’s because of this that many deem it to be one of the best festivals in the world! The only downsides for me were the prices of the food and drinks as well as the currency system of the festival but in the grand scheme of things, these are small compared to the very large good points.
Overall rating? 9/10 EASY!
