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Akamai Helps Q-dance Bring Its Tribe to Defqon.1 at Home -- a Global Virtual Festival Experience

Ina Christova

Written by

Ina Christova

July 08, 2021

Ina Christova

Written by

Ina Christova

Ina Christova is a Corporate Communications Manager at Akamai Technologies.

Every year, Q-dance (part of the ID&T group), a Dutch electronic music experience company, delights its die-hard fans (or their "tribe") at the world's largest hardstyle festival, Defqon.1. Helicopters, simulated earthquakes, special moments like Power Hour, and amazing shows make up the unique experience. 

In order to keep impressing their fans, the company needed to adjust this year to ensure that it could effectively recreate the experience in an online environment.  Akamai helped Q-dance to do just that by providing it with the online tools to make the viewing experience of this four-day spectacle fast and seamless.

Recently, Q-dance leveraged Akamai's massive scale and unparalleled delivery quality to keep its audience connected throughout the online festival experience. Live video streaming allowed the audience to connect in real time, ensuring that all of ID&T's brands could stay visible. Real-time analytics provided insights on how to stream video most effectively for Q-dance's distributed audience going forward. Akamai's reliable solutions made it possible to support thousands of simultaneous streams, which is essential for events that are as engaging and interactive as those created by ID&T.

As part of its effort to really engage with its fans, Q-dance is excited to launch the Q-dance Network app with Akamai's help. It gives access to the company's full historical archive of video content. The app provides its fans with online hangout areas where they can video chat with one another and stay connected with their favorite artists. Q-dance has recorded several different content formats that align with the varying interests of its audience. This includes a cooking show featuring SEFA -- a hardstyle DJ who cooks a meal with other artists while discussing their top tracks and giving the fans some juicy insights into their lives. There is even a recorded talent show! All of this content has been crafted with the help of a focus group of fans and artists to ensure the brand is brought to life in the best way possible.

But life would not be the same for Q-dance fans without Defqon.1. In a normal year, more than 78,000 people would meet in The Netherlands for four days of madness. But this is no normal year, so the company took the festival online. The at-home edition of Defqon.1 featured shows from more than 100 artists and all the usual elements that fans have grown to love, including  "The Gathering," the festival's grand opening, and "Power Hour," the hour of insanity. And, not surprisingly, the event was a raving success, with virtual guests from 115 countries all over the world who tuned in to celebrate the four-day festival.

With a summer of live sporting events and virtual music festivals ahead, Akamai predicts a surge in live streaming that will continue throughout the rest of 2021. During this time, we could realistically see 50 million people concurrently streaming a single live event. That's roughly double the largest number of viewers we've seen during a single event in the past. At Akamai, we know how complex live video streaming can be. We hope to help provide you with the scalability, reliability, and technology you need to ensure that your viewers are never disappointed. 

Find out how you can partner with us to stream your event live here.

Find out more about Q-dance here.



Ina Christova

Written by

Ina Christova

July 08, 2021

Ina Christova

Written by

Ina Christova

Ina Christova is a Corporate Communications Manager at Akamai Technologies.