22tracks readies emerging talent music fest for July

Music discovery service 22tracks announced their first-ever music festival, 22Fest, scheduled for July 18. The Amsterdam-based company is holding the outdoor event in the nearby Diemerbos in Diemen, near Amsterdam Southeast. The festival will feature three stages that will mainly concentrate on DJs, but one of the stages is devoted for live indie music as well. The other two will concentrate on house, electronic and beats, disco and hip-hop. Since the idea behind the festival is to challenge people to see something they know little about, the lineup will feature mostly smaller, unknown underground names. 22tracks has been hosting parties in collaboration with other groups, so organizing a festival was a logical step for the company, CEO Gilles de Smit told NL Times. “We are setting the festival up together with Evotions, who were organizing A Day At The Park festival as well," De Smit said. "We've been hosting stages in different parties and brand events and if I listen to the big organizers, the festival is going to be a success.” De Smit is still cautious but believes that it is possible to get the 3,000 to 4,000 person event to full capacity. Nothing is set in stone and there is some room to be flexible. “The area can be scaled up to 5,000 or 6,000 if necessary, but we want to keep the event intimate as well.” A big focus of the festival will be on side programming. The organizers want to offer a nice experience to compliment the music. 22tracks could potentially bring the Royal Concert Hall, the chamber orchestra and De TonTon Club video game arcade hall into the mix. “Some contemporary classic music on the side and maybe a sea container filled with classical games for visitors to play with and good food. We want the food to be good, it needs to be good. Side programming and doing cool stuff around the festival is just as important as the programming itself,” De Smit said. The first artists will be confirmed “somewhere in March” and the popular tracks on the 22tracks platform will play a role in the lineup, De Smit comments the musical contents of the festival. Due to the fact that the festival takes place in the city area, it will start at noon and end at 11 p.m. Early bird pricing starts at €22 per ticket, and rise to €27.50 after the early period.