Inspiring sharing Sessions from DUTCH HOUSE OF DANCE

Electric Ocean and Erasmus Huis present the first edition of “Dutch House of Dance” (DHOD), an event for the electronic music scene and electronic music lovers in Indonesia, at Erasmus Huis, Netherlands Embassy, in Jakarta on 8 - 9 October 2016. We decided to come on first day, because it was series of seminars with experts of dance music festivals in Netherlands.

The first topic was “Evolution of Dutch Dance: From Club to Festival” with speaker Theo Geene. He is Director of Production, Creative & Artists at Dreamfields Festival. According to Theo, the House music scene grew in Netherlands by early 90s. It shifted the scene that once ruled by Hip Hop and R&B in the clubs and underground raves. In early 2000s, there were shifting in habits of enjoying music. People started to attend festivals more than they attend clubs. In Netherlands alone, there are almost 200 festivals a year, both in big or smaller scale. That means almost every weekend, at least two festivals are happening in all over Netherlands.
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With the spirit to share the excitement from Netherlands to Indonesia, Theo and his team brought Dreamfields Festival at 2014 in Bali. Theo also shared his experience to adjust working in Indonesia and Netherlands. He highlighted that since festivals is a huge deal back in Netherlands, it’s easy to find suitable suppliers for festival purpose. While in Indonesia, Theo and team need to improvised in order to bring the festival to live because not every supplier in Indonesia are used to big festival. With the hard work, we can be part of Dreamfields Festival in Bali.

The second topic was “Going Green: Sustainability Within the Dance Industry” with Arthur Chin from ALDA. He is the Global Director Commerce & Strategic Partnerships of ALDA. About ALDA itself, currently is the biggest dance event organizers in Netherlands. They are expanding their office to Asia and based in Hong Kong. ALDA Asia is managed by Dennis de Bruin as their CEO.

Arthur started his session with sharing some facts from one of the festival ALDA organized, The Flying Dutch. This was interesting facts: 

Starting from there, Arthur went on with how he got inspired to bring sustainability in dance music industry. He started the green concept by applying it to his own beach club. To make beach club operational more efficient, Arthur started to use renewable energy and it grew to festivals he arranged. He gave example what he did with A Day At The Park Festival.

For the festival, they partnered with Gazelle Bike to promote biking toward this festival and to increase the usage of bikes as alternative transportation to events. They also built the stage with wood that can be recycle. The charging station was built with solar panel so everyone can recharge their phone. All about leaving positive footprint to mother nature with the use of renewable energy.
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The challenge is how to educate everyone, from sponsors, suppliers and public, about the sustainability. Arthur concluded his seminar with a call to participate in it. Be part of the action.

The third topic was “The Pacha Story: Big Brands Going International”. Hans Smit as Festival Manager from Pacha Festival gave the talk. He started with the story how Pacha Festival started. The name Pacha itself is a prestigious club in Ibiza known for good music and atmosphere. After they expanded to 40 countries, on 2012 they held the first Pacha Festival in Amsterdam.

With the success of Pacha Festival in Amsterdam, the brand tried to expand outside of Netherlands. This year they have Pacha Festival Tokyo and it went well. Hans also gave a teaser that Pacha Festival will come to Indonesia in 2017. So be ready to experience Pacha atmosphere in Indonesia next year!

Last session was “From Young Gunz to Top Gunz: How to Spot and Develop Talent” from founder of Young Gunz, Mike Elderenbosch. He founded Top Gunz to scout brilliant talent that ready to become future headliners. Mike called them “The Middle Section”. He described it as an artist that already proved themselves but need more time to develop themselves to become next headliners. Some of the talents from Young Gunz are Firebeatz and Alvita.

Mike shared his experience when he tried to spot new talents for Young Gunz. His team need to analyze the market and check the social presence of the potential talent. Those are the little part of the whole process. Mike also emphasized the treatments for the artist once they already signed, starting from the management team, publishing team, booking agent to branding.

Mike hoped that the talk can give new insight for Indonesia dance music scene. It can maximize the potential of aspiring Indonesian artist.

After the seminar, everybody could watch performances from international DJs. Although was delayed because of the rain, around 1830 WIB the party began. The performers were Putri Una from Indonesia and Dutch DJs Alvita, Gathier, Joey Monroe, Patrix Johnson and Shahrooz. The crowd enjoyed the performances until late night. That was the end of first day.

The second day 9 October 2016 was filled with workshops. Patrix Johnson, Alvita, and Gathier shared their expertise in producing good track and mixing good music on stage. This workshop was attended by young producers. Each and every one of them gave a shot at mixing track, accompanied by DJs.
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We were very happy to attend this event. Not every day we have platform to discuss EDM in more serious tone. We have lots of insights from the panels and we will try to implement those insights with our partners. We sincerely wish next year we can attend this kind of event again. Kudos to Electric Ocean and Erasmus Huis for the initiative!