Q-Dance… Eerlijke monopolist of oneerlijke dictator?
Kans is groot dat je onderstaande berichten weleens gelezen hebt. Zo niet, dan heb je weer even vijf minuten wat te doen en daarna nog even om na te denken of het geld van je DefQon kaartje nog wel zo goed terecht komt.
Het onderstaande bericht circuleert her en der op het internet. Wij dachten dat het nu weleens tijd was om ‘m voor te schotelen aan de massa. Over de bron mogen we niks zeggen, maar laat het duidelijk zijn dat dit niet van onze hand is.
Q-Dance and Q-Bookings
Bookings agencies are there to help and guide DJ’s before, during and after their performance. They are the middle man between the organizations of parties and the DJ’s, so their head won’t burst of all the administrative work and communications. Normally it stays here.. However at Q it goes one step beyond. In the early days of hardstyle (and then we are talking 1999 until 2003, maybe 2004) nothing was wrong with their actions. Since the big money started to come in their policies have changed from supportive into aggressive and even plain monopolistic.
Q-Dance started in the year 1999 when it was still called Qlass Elite. A small organization founded by a group of guys from the northern suburbs of Amsterdam.
They gambled and decided to put a new concept into the Dutch dance industry called Qlimax. It was a mix of UK, Italian, Dutch and German hardhouse with sturdy beats at speeds of between 137 and 145 BPM. It created a brand new audience that found trance too mild and hardcore too powerful. The party was a success and repetition led to gaining popularity. Monthly QlubTempo parties were being arranged in the legendary Hemkade 48 in Zaandam, which had always been a birth ground for hardcore parties also.
Roughly 2 years ago ID&T and Q-Dance basically merged together. Q-Dance has organized Sensation Black for ID&T in the last couple of years as ID&T wants to say goodbye to the harder styles, since they claim this is no longer good for their image.
Q-Dance eventually moved into the office at the Rhôneweg 54 in Amsterdam West where ID&T is located. ID&T’s owner and CEO Duncan Stutterheim has moved to Australia where lives happily and takes care of Q-Dance activities in that country.
Since the moment that the management roles changed Q-Dance became very dominant in their ways of doing business
They largely influence the bookings of B2S Events (Hardbass, Decibel) so this is not a separate entity itself anymore. Is there any competition left? Well yea, only UDC that does Ground Zero and Dance Valley. Basically Q-Dance is reigning over the Dutch market for harder styles.
For the crowd everything seems nice and jolly, but have you ever noticed how it’s possible that the same names are appearing on the big festivals time and time again?
What do you think is the reason for this? Is it because there are no other DJ’s or talents? Hell no, as a matter a fact there are tons of talented DJ’s that are waiting to get that single shot opportunity to show people who they are and what they can do. Then why aren’t they there? … Good question. Clearly this is because some specific people are preferred and pushed forward.
Because of close ties between The Prophet and Q-Dance management, the DJ’s of his Scantraxx arsenal are being pushed forward and are always 2 steps ahead before anybody else. Currently you will see that the majority of Q-Dance events have line-ups where more than 50% of the artists consist of Scantraxx DJ’s.
There are tons of different variations of hardstyle ranging from more techish to hardcore to trance, none of them are acceptable for them as they provide competition. Some foreign hardstyle scenes have been strangled to death because of this commercialization because there are places where the commercial hardstyle doesn’t work and people are more into industrial and techish sounds.
Since the scene is forced into 1 direction by these huge monopolistic entities, the number of records in other substyles of hardstyle that appear have become extremely minimal. Add the low vinyl and CD-sales compared to the downloading problem and you will see that the people that try to be active with different kinds of hardstyle have barely anything to gain.
Q-Dance unmistakably forces the commercial sound the Scantraxx tries to bring forward upon the crowds because other DJ’s don’t get a chance to do something different. If you don’t follow their visions you will simply not get booked.
In order to achieve this target there are some very nasty games going on under the table. For instance, if you are a DJ and you receive an invitation from UDC to perform on Ground Zero Festival, this automatically means you are disqualified for Defqon.
Because both festivals are similar and organized in the same season, Q doesn’t allow any DJ that plays on the competitors’ festival to perform on their own. This is a form of blackmailing and falsifying competition in the Dutch dance industry.
Most big hardstyle DJ’s earn between 1500 and 2500 euro for a gig. Nice, a monthly salary for a job that only takes roughly 60 to 90 minutes excluding travel time.
The bigshots like Dana, Zany, Luna, Prophet are in the higher category while smaller names are more in the 1500 category. Shockingly enough there are quite a number of (foreign) DJ’s that are rarely booked since they are not with Q-Bookings but charge the same rate. Q-Dance however is arrogant enough to demand not to pay that. There are quite a number of famous acts, for instance Trance Generators, that only got paid half of their fee by Q-Dance, just because they felt like it. They have the arrogance of saying; “we are the biggest organization in hardstyle and we offer you a position on your party, so if you don’t play for half the money you won’t get famous”. Again, this is a rude example of blackmail. Then there are also the DJ’s in various small stages and talent areas at bigger festivals like Defqon, Q-Base and In Qontrol that do not get paid at all. A company that puts out tickets for events on the market for between 40 and 55 euros, charges 2,50 for drinking tokens and earns gazillions in other activities can surely reward musicians for what they do just as their own Q-bookings DJ’s, right? Q-Dance begs to differ.
Currently they are merging with 3 other big companies create the biggest booking company in the history of the Dutch dance industry: Platinum agency It is yet to be seen how things will go but it’s sincerely doubtful that one sole company should have such a huge influence over the Dutch dance industry.
Opzich als men de line-ups van dit jaar van bijvoorbeeld Dance Valley en Defqon naast elkaar legt zijn er echt wel overeenkomsten, maar toch ontbreekt bijvoorbeeld vaste act Technoboy op Defqon en is wel op Dance Valley en zou Zany te groot zijn om niet te boeken op Defqon.
Er zijn meer dingen die in het geheel van Q-Dance meewegen. Er gaan ook verhalen rond dat soms de wat directere aanpak verkozen wordt. Crypsis stond laatst bijvoorbeeld op een Q-Dance evenement (In Qontrol) als afsluiter. De beste man draaide de pannen van het dak waardoor de mainstage wat leger werd. Wat er volgens verschillende bezoekers gebeurde was het volgende:
“Crypsis was mooi hard aan ‘t beuken, geluid stond vol aan. Na een half uur ging het geluid in eens zachter, maar de helft zo hard, je kon gewoon praten. Of er iets kapot ging, of q het volume omlaag gooide weet ik niet. Maar Crypsis was toen al boos, hij ging de speakers op het podium (die bedoeld zijn voor de artiest) verdraaien naar het publiek. Toen ging het wel weer wat beter. Toen kwam er om kwart voor 7 een kerel (van Q) het podium op die zei dat er mee op moest houden (terwijl ie tot 7u mocht). En toen werd ie gewoon echt kwaad. Pakte ie de Mic van Villain en riep iets in de trend van: “ja ik moet gewoon 10 minuten eerder stoppen, ik wordt hier gewoon genaait door Q-dance. Respect Q-dance Respect!! (sarcastisch)”. Toen smeet ie keihard z’n koptelefoon op de draaitafels. En draaide ie nog 1 plaat, zonder licht en show op ‘t podium. “(Quote van Hardtraxx)
Uit meerdere bronnen (o.a. comments op Hardtraxx en Partyflock) bleek dat het volume halverwege de set van Crypsis ineens drastisch omlaag ging. Er vanuit gaande dat de man zelf genoeg ervaring heeft dat hij niet zelf het volume perongeluk omlaag knalt, is de organisatie hiervoor verantwoordelijk. En zouden ze niet eerder ingrijpen als het hier een technische fout betreft? Hoe moet je je nog bewijzen als opkomende artiest als je op deze manier wordt tegengehouden en de markt niet open is voor andere aanbieders? Dit zijn slechts enkele voorbeelden die al een tijdje op het web te vinden zijn. We stellen ze hier enkel ter discussie. Eerlijk of oneerlijk, spui uw mening.
