“At a club, I can program a club every Friday and Sa- turday night if you want, but with festivals, it’s from November till May that you need to do the work for programming a festival,” Maarten pointed out.
The workload behind a festival isn’t just about booking artists—it’s about creating an entire experience from scratch. In a club, as a creative director at Club Closure I’ve did everything from marketing until the setting of the lights, in De Marktkantine it was more helping management with pointing out the bigger picture and in Het Sieraad I’ve helped developing a renting venue becoming towards a full-grown professional club, with a result such as a new D&B KSL Soundsysten. But for a festival, it’s a different endeavor. Especially if you want to give it its own identity.
“You need to build everything from scratch. That includes everything from sound systems to stages, and even the atmosphere and branding.” Nowadays, it’s very hard, in my opinion, to have an actual identity. There is so much to do and so much to hear and see. I believe, in general, the Netherlands has more than 300 festivals. From Hardstyle and EDM to underground House & Techno bands. It’s hard to compare this with Club Night since that is every Friday and Saturday night, and a festival is mostly one moment or a few days in a weekend.”
The work for festivals begins much earlier in the year, with business deals and programming often happening during the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), A week packed with networking, negotiations, and setting the groundwork for the months ahead. Once the deals are made, the pressure ramps up, and the real work starts. While some promoters prefer to focus solely on one large event, Maarten thrives in juggling multiple projects at once, which is a reflection of his versatile approach to his work. That said, the workload can be overwhelming.
“At the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), all the bookers, managers, and industry from all over the world are coming to the city. There, we are discussing the deals and networking in a whole week of October, so you can do business afterwards from November to May onwards. In that sense, I always feel that a festival is more stressful. It needs a lot of preparation from the whole team to do one festival for one day. Built a city from nothing in a park, in the woods, or a venue, etc. Some programmers like to focus on one project, but I like to focus on multiple projects. I always tell my girlfriend that I don’t have time during that period because of the extra workload of festivals. What I’ve learned is to find a bit of balance for yourself”, he confided.
The intensity of the job often leaves little room for downtime, and he’s learned to manage that pace by finding small moments of balance.
“Last year was the first time that I had some days off between Christmas and NYE; normally I was just working, but every agency is always closed from Christ- mas till the 2nd week of January”, he says.
It’s a candid admission that even for someone so deeply passionate about his work, the intensity of the festival scene can take a toll.
Maarten’s insights give a valuable look into the complexities of programming at
His approach to balancing these two very different worlds—a club environment that demands regular
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