Sunday marked the end of three amazing days of electronic music, the anniversary edition of the Airbeat-One Dance Festival. For one long weekend the airfield of Neustadt-Glewe was the place to be for EDM fans and a gathering point for the world’s DJ elite. 40,000 fans hailing from 40 nations savoured acts by the likes of Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Armin van Buuren, Tiësto, Afrojack, Steve Aoki, Alesso, W&W, DVBBS, Blasterjaxx, KSHMR, Nervo, Dannic, Don Diablo, Fedde Le Grand, Showtek, Laidback Luke and Martin Solveig.
For the 15th year in a row the airfield of Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg – Western Pomerania provided the venue for the Airbeat-One festival. Over 120 acts from 15 countries played on four large stages at northern Germany’s biggest electronic music festival. The anniversary edition was dedicated thematically and optically to the Asian continent. The 100 x 30-metre main stage, a colossus consisting of 50,000 m² of scaffolding, formed the gigantic centrepiece of the festival site. Anyone stepping onto the main floor in front of Germany’s largest, most extraordinary electronic music festival stage had the impression of being in the centre of Shibuya, Tokyo’s popular party district. Huge neon signs and screens with Asian advertising beamed and flickered across the entire installation, with the DJ stand hovering at its foot. A fantastic light show of lasers, floodlights, massive LED screen, sheets of flame and other pyrotechnic effects whipped the fans into a party mood, regardless of the rain clouds that rolled past occasionally, delivering the odd shower.
Programme highlights included the ‘sunset set’ by Don Diablo on the Thursday and the sets by Alesso and Showtek, which lit up the night sky. The Terminal tent had to be shut for a while during the Gestört aber GeiL set due to overcrowding and the mad atmosphere triggered by the DJs’ show.
On the Friday the main stage was dominated by W&W, Afrojack and Tiësto. Blasterjaxx and Martin Solveig stoked up the 40,000 fans on the Saturday. At midnight the sky over Mecklenburg – Western Pomerania was illuminated by an Airbeat-One fireworks display culminating in the show by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, the current No.1 act in the DJ Mag Top 100 charts. And from then until dawn Armin van Buuren and Steve Aoki thrashed the main floor to boiling point once again.
For the three days of the festival Hardstyle throbbed from the Q-Dance stage, the first time that it had been satisfying the musical tastes of the harder-groove community as part of the Airbeat-One festival. The Second Stage was designed in the Goa area by the world’s best décor team and provided the best Goa experience in the German festival calendar.
With fans touching back down on the Sunday after their ‘trip to Asia’ a subdued atmosphere fell over the festival site, but the downcast mood dissipated again shortly before the end of the festival with the announcement of the dates for 2017. The 16th edition of the Airbeat-One Dance Festival will be held from 13th to 16th July 2017, with the USA as the theme. So until the next Airbeat comes around it only remains to enjoy the photos and videos posted on social media by Airbeat-One. And as another sweetener to bridge the coming twelve months there’s also the Airbeat-One 2016 Compilation CD (Kontor Records)!
