For one week each year, Amsterdam is transformed from a peaceful city that’s encumbered with canals and stoners to a vibrant, central hub of all things relating to electronic dance music. This week is jam-packed with everything from inspiring conferences to meetings and even parties which are all about showcasing hundreds of artists that spread throughout the vast spectrum of electronic dance music.
Among the festivities and the fact that finding a decent hotel was like searching for water in the desert, one particular event sparked an interest on my agenda – the Hard Dance Event (HDE). This day-time event serves purpose to connect those in the hard dance industry, offer insights into the current happenings of the scene throughout the informative panels and of course, drink cheap beer.

Having the honour to speak on not one, but three panels this year, alcoholic beverages were pushed to the side as I geared up to represent Alive At Night on the ‘Hard Reports’ panel and also moderate the ‘How To Become A Headliner’ and ‘Brand New Melody’ panels.

Nerves crept up on me leading up to the event, it had been quite a while since I used my public speaking skills and although I had presented the Defqon.1 live-stream and also the radio at Decibel, speaking in front of a live audience was a whole new experience. After arriving to the venue a little too fashionably late, (fuck you Dutch trams) I got my pass and made my way into the conference room where I would be speaking alongside a representative from Hard News, Hardstylemag and DJ Mag. Us four speakers gathered around before the panel began and geared up for the next half an hour before our moderator, Erix Santman, invited us up to the stage to begin.

                                                 *Battle of the blogs!*

The first minute or so was mortifying, although I may have appeared to keep it together, my palms were stupidly sweaty and my heart was beating rapidly; to make matters more nerve-wracking we were all aware that the panel was being broadcasted on Beatport. After a few minutes, we had all settled into the conversation as Erix began asking us about some current stories in the hardstyle scene, each of the roles that we serve as writers and some aspects that make each of our platforms unique. By this stage I felt confident in voicing my opinions and did my very best to be the boss bitch that God intended me to be. The 30 minute panel went extremely quickly, all four of us could have talked for hours more, it was very interesting to hear the others’ insights and was also great to be able to get the whole ‘hardstyle media’ concept showcased to the broader public. If you’d like to watch the panel, you can check it out HERE.

At 2:00PM, one of the friendly staff members came to get me, taking me to my second panel, “How To Become A Headliner,” which I would be moderating. For this panel, the roles were reversed for me as I was the one asking questions to Peter Hillebrands (talent scout for Headliner Entertainment) and Remon Riezebos (general manager of Headliner Entertainment). Preparing quite ‘open’ questions for this panel, I was curious to not only lead a successful panel but also listen intently to what these two professionals had to say about upcoming talent, as it’s something that I’m curious about in today’s scene.

                                                *How To Become A Headliner panel*

It was greatly rewarding to be on the panel with these two guys, they were very specific when speaking about today’s talent and I feel as though those in the audience would’ve learned some valuable lessons. Some topics that we spoke about were main things required to be a headliner, image and marketing, what Headliner can do to help young talents and productions/trends within today’s scene. As the panel was 45 minutes long, I divided the time into 30 minutes of questions with Peter and Remon and the remaining 15 minutes belonged to the audience, who had the opportunity to ask questions.

At the conclusion of the panel, I knocked off for a well-deserved rest that turned into meetings and networking. It was great to catch up with friends, colleagues and also meet some new faces who had watched me on my first two panels. Unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to catch any of the other panels; I would’ve loved to have seen the HDE Debate, the Radical Redemption interview and also the Digital Punk – Unleashed panel.

After a few hours of networking and catching up with colleagues, I prepared myself for the final panel for the day, ‘Brand New Melody’ where I would be moderating alongside melodic producers Atmozfears, Audiotricz and Rebourne. As I was familiar with all three acts and their music, I was quite comfortable asking questions and digging deeper into their views on melodic hardstyle. During the panel I asked Atmozfears about his raw and melodic productions, his killer track “Release” and about some of his favourite talents; it was really interesting to hear him speak about his process behind production, especially the emotional aspects to it. Rebourne discussed his upcoming tracks and thoughts on raw and melodic hardstyle. Audiotricz also contributed a lot of great insight into the panel as they spoke a lot about their production process and inspiration and also cracked a few jokes to lighten the mood and get the audience laughing.

This duo did really great on the panel and although they came to me beforehand stressing about their competence in English, they did a great job with public speaking and gave some great insight into their thoughts about melodic hardstyle.

As some of the answers were a little short, I decided to take it into the audience early with the assumption that this ‘lively’ bunch would have something to ask.

“Does anybody have any questions…?” *hears bat in the background* Nope, we had a bit of a quiet audience, probably because it was edging towards the end of the day and everybody was either hungry or tired.

Eventually people started warming up to asking questions and even Da Tweekaz were in the crowd avidly asking questions which made me think: HDE should have put those guys on the panel! After some advice from the artists, 6:30PM had come around and this final panel came to an end which meant one thing – time for food (I was too busy to eat since breakfast, mind you!)

To round this off, Hard Dance Event was a huge success from all ends! The organisation was on-point, the staff at the event were really helpful and friendly, the panel topics were fresh and interesting and it was a huge honour to have the opportunity to speak there! Thanks HDE for having us, we hope to be a part of this great event again!