40 Fun Facts About Hardstyle

Each stage at the Defqon.1 hardstyle festival is named after a colour; which colour is the main open-air stage?

Red hosts the headliners and the firework-and-laser endshows that close Saturday and Sunday. The Blue stage, by contrast, is the main indoor one.

The hardstyle DJ Ran-D first played his crossover cover of Zombie in 2016; which Irish band recorded the original?

The Cranberries' song became many listeners' first taste of hardstyle after mainstream DJs such as Armin van Buuren and Hardwell picked up Ran-D's version.

The Dutch promoter Q-dance works a Q into most of its event names, and says the letter stands for what?

Quality is the claim, and the Q replaces a C or K in event names such as Qapital, Qountdown and The Qontinent.

Which German rave band took jumpstyle, a close relative of hardstyle, to number one on the UK Albums Chart?

Scooter's album Jumping All Over the World topped the UK chart at the commercial peak of jumpstyle, a style whose leg-kicking dance is known as jumpen.

Defqon.1 ran an Australian edition from 2009 to 2018 at an international regatta centre in which city?

Sydney hosted the festival for a decade before the New South Wales premier vowed to stop it returning after two deaths at the 2018 edition.

Which Dutch hardstyle star, who also dubs films into Dutch as a voice actor, signed to Ultra Music in 2013?

Headhunterz first heard the genre on a spare ticket to a Q-dance night in 2003. After his years with Ultra he returned at the closing ceremony of Defqon.1 in 2017.

Hardstyle's earliest artists came mainly from the Netherlands and which other country, home of the pioneer Technoboy?

Italy supplied much of the early sound through producers such as Technoboy, a Bologna native who mixed a long-running series of hardstyle compilation CDs.

Which darker subgenre of hardstyle, with little or no melody, arose around 2010 as fans tired of tuneful tracks?

Rawstyle takes its harsher elements from mainstream hardcore and from hardstyle's own early years. Big festivals now give it stages of its own.

At which Belgian festival has the hardstyle promoter Q-dance hosted its own stage ever since the first edition in 2005?

Tomorrowland put a hardstyle act on its mainstage for the first time in 2018, thirteen years after that first Q-dance stage.

Which indoor hardstyle night at Arnhem's GelreDome stadium did Q-dance end for good after its 2024 edition?

Qlimax drew close to 30,000 people a year and was known for its mysterious themes. Q-dance blamed rising costs when it announced the finale.

Which duo of brothers from Eindhoven left hardstyle for chart hits with David Guetta, then returned in 2023?

Showtek, the brothers Wouter and Sjoerd Janssen, made the 2014 hit Bad with Guetta and marked their return with the hardstyle album 360 Blue in 2024.

Which fast Dutch hardcore style, an influence on hardstyle, takes its name from Amsterdam slang for a mate?

Gabber reached Amsterdam slang from a Yiddish word for friend. Its 1990s fans were known for tracksuits, shaved heads and Nike Air Max trainers.

Which Amsterdam Arena dance event split into a White night and a harder Black night featuring hardstyle?

Sensation made everyone at the harder night dress from head to toe in black, with a bill that built from gentler acts up to hardcore.

Besides the Netherlands and Australia, which country staged Defqon.1 near its capital in 2015 and 2016?

Chile held its two editions in December at Peñaflor, outside Santiago, after Q-dance had tested the market there with a standalone show in 2013.

Which name was given in 2010 to the fusion of hardstyle kicks with dubstep's wobbling basslines?

Dubstyle keeps the hardstyle kick but drags its low end out over a two-step or breakstep rhythm, so it drops the strict offbeat pattern.

Which Dutch hardcore producer, a regular at Defqon.1 and Dominator, performs behind a white hockey mask?

Angerfist is often called the King of Hardcore, and the mask was inspired by Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th films.

Which word describes the tuneful, highly emotional branch of hardstyle that took off around 2010?

Euphoric hardstyle is built on big emotional melodies, and its boom pushed other producers toward a deliberately darker sound.

Which Belgian hardstyle DJ founded the Dirty Workz label in 2006?

Coone started producing at 15 and broke through under another alias with Eating Donuts, a remix of Blur's Song 2.

Which hardstyle DJ reached Dutch daytime radio in 2012 with the platinum-selling single Year of Summer?

Wildstylez made the track with singer Niels Geusebroek, and in 2023 it became the first hardstyle song voted into Dutch radio's Top 2000.

Which DJ, a 1990s hardcore pioneer born Dov Elkabas, founded the hardstyle label Scantraxx in 2002?

The Prophet moved from hardcore to hardstyle because he disliked the push to make hardcore ever harder. He retired after a farewell tour in 2023.

Which Dutch DJ, born Fabian Bohn, built the label and brand I Am Hardstyle after leaving Scantraxx in 2012?

Brennan Heart began in the duo Brennan & Heart with DJ Thera, and kept the name when the pair split after more than three years.

What do hardstyle producers call the technique of playing a bassline using only the distorted kick drum?

Pitching works because a hardstyle kick rings on long enough to carry a note, so one sound supplies both the thump and the tune.

From which older European genre, popular at 1990s mega-raves, did early hardstyle inherit its offbeat low end?

Hard trance peaked in the late 1990s and then faded as its sound flowed into hardstyle and jumpstyle.

What is the name of the hard, distorted offbeat note that sits between the kicks in early hardstyle tracks?

Reverse bass came from the genre's 1990s forerunners and survives in modern tracks as a build-up before the drop.

Since 2011 Defqon.1 has been held beside the Walibi Holland theme park in which Dutch village?

Biddinghuizen also hosts the Lowlands festival, and the move there let Defqon.1 fans camp on site for the first time.

Which hardstyle act is led by Bas Oskam, a one-time high-school geography teacher who went solo in 2013?

Noisecontrollers began as a duo who met on an online forum, and Arjan Terpstra left in 2013 to explore other styles of dance music.

Which rave dance from the 1990s Dutch hardcore scene, with quick steps landing on the heel, is now done to hardstyle?

Hakken follows the kick drum at up to 190 BPM, and the lower body does most of the work, though arms and torso often join in.

The Q-dance logo, a Q formed by a 120-degree turn, was inspired by which piece of DJ equipment?

A mixer knob turned 120 degrees to the right makes the letter, a fitting badge for a company that works a Q into nearly every event name.

Which Dutch dance-events giant, named after its three founders' initials, bought the promoter Q-dance in 2006?

ID&T stands for Irfan van Ewijk, Duncan Stutterheim and Theo Lelie. After the deal, Q-dance founder Wouter Tavecchio became chief executive of the whole group.

Which Dutch duo, who met through YouTube and signed to Dirty Workz at 16 and 17, are known for 'psy-style' kicks?

Sub Zero Project gained the last word of the name when Thomas Velderman joined Nigel Coppen, who had been making music alone as Sub Zero.

Which hardstyle DJ, a trained chef, made the 2002 track that darts player Ted Hankey used as walk-on music?

DJ Zany spent ten years working in an Eindhoven record shop, and he also owns the Fusion label and started the act Donkey Rollers.

Which Q-dance night in Zaandam is credited as the very first hardstyle event?

Qlubtempo did well enough that Q-dance went on to trademark the word hardstyle in July 2002.

Which annual Belgian event for hardstyle and jumpstyle fans fills the Sportpaleis arena in Antwerp?

Reverze splits the arena into two or three areas, and every edition gets its own theme, poster and anthem.

Which 1992-born hardcore party series, a cousin of hardstyle events, used a wizard logo and sold its own energy drink?

Thunderdome took hardcore to a mass audience through compilation CDs, bomber jackets and a drink called Thundertaste, and marked 30 years in 2022.

Q-dance's hard dance festival Q-BASE ran for 15 years just over the German border on what kind of site?

An old airbase once used by the RAF at Weeze gave the festival military bunkers to dance in, and crowds reached about 40,000 in its final years.

What is the name of the Saturday-afternoon set that is a fixture of the main stage at the Defqon.1 hardstyle festival?

Power Hour shares the main stage's weekend with the Friday-night Spotlight set and a Sunday set given over to veteran acts.

Which fast hardcore style from the 1990s freetekno scene, championed by Dr. Peacock, got a Defqon.1 stage in 2014?

Frenchcore's first act, Micropoint, formed in 1992, and the style stayed underground for years before Dutch crowds took it up in the 2010s.

Hardstyle is usually described as a mix of techno, hardcore and which late-1980s Belgian club sound?

New beat is said to have been invented by accident, when a Belgian DJ played a 45 rpm record at 33 rpm, and it led directly to the first hardcore.

Which 2010s festival style, home to hits like Animals and Epic, counts hardstyle among its influences?

Big room house was built for the giant festival stages of the early-2010s EDM boom, at roughly 126 to 132 BPM, well below hardstyle's tempo.

The hardstyle duo Da Tweekaz, long based in Belgium with the Dirty Workz label, come from which country?

Norway is home for Kenth Kvien and Marcus Nordli, who moved to Belgium in 2012 and also make happy hardcore under the alias Tweekacore.