It is easy to sense the weight of history when walking across the grounds of NATURE ONE. Traces of its past as a former US nuclear base remain clearly visible, especially in the missile bunkers that audiences pass through during the four days of the festival.
A captivating setting for a music festival? Without a doubt. But the tens of thousands of attendees who have been coming every year for more than 30 years are drawn by far more than Cold War relics. For them, the transcendent experience is driven by a powerful combination of music from artists such as Sven Väth, Paul van Dyk, Eric Prydz and Felix Jaehn (all performing at this year’s edition), together with a vibrant stage production that lives and breathes with every performance, note by note.
Ensuring that the production of the festival’s main Open Air Floor stage moves in perfect sync with the music, while enhancing the evocative character of this unique setting, are Marek Papke and his team at GERDON DESIGN. For the past 15 years, they have been responsible for the festival’s stage, lighting and content design.
GERDON DESIGN works closely with I-Motion, the organizer of NATURE ONE, and it is a real pleasure every year. After many years of working together, the processes are well established and, in most cases, only a few adjustments are needed to finalize a new design. What I value most about this festival is this close yet professional collaboration, which allows us to reinvent the Open Air Floor every year and jointly explore new creative ideas and approaches, said Papke, Managing Director of the company.
This year, the design aimed to create a sense of freedom and openness, leading Papke and his collaborators to opt for a stage concept with long, continuous spans in both curved and straight forms. “The foundation consists of three large stage arches that extend across the Open Air Floor almost like a hangar”, explained Papke. “My goal when designing the Open Air Floor is to bring the experience and atmosphere of a club into a large outdoor space. We want the audience to fully immerse themselves and lose their sense of space and time. That’s why we place great importance on the stage structure and the positioning of the lighting both above the dance floor and the crowd”.
To help Papke and his team bring this vision to life, a powerful and highly versatile collection of 206 CHAUVET Professional fixtures was used, consisting of 12 STRIKE V outdoor-rated motorized strobe washes, 130 COLORado PXL Bar 16 battens, and 64 Maverick Storm 2 BeamWash fixtures.
Using these luminaires with great skill, Papke created a kaleidoscope of magical visuals. His design immerses the audience in a tunnel of light that shifts in colour, moving from bold emerald greens to fiery reds and enveloping blues. At times, this tunnel of light cuts through atmospheric fog effects; at others, it is pierced by laser effects.
Given the diversity of artists performing at NATURE ONE, Papke strives to ensure that this multifaceted design is versatile enough to support a wide range of musical styles and stage personalities.
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We focus on highly dynamic lighting, where calmer moments are treated in a minimalist way to enhance the impact of the most intense peaks and main drops, he noted.
Papke also described how the creative process works. “Shortly after each festival ends, I start working on the stage design for the following year. I usually begin by sketching a few basic ideas and then roughly building them in 3D to test their impact from the audience’s perspective. If the core idea works, I look at how it can be realized using the available truss systems”. From there, the design evolves and begins to be equipped with lighting and LED surfaces, and in the end, the magic happens.
