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Q-dance is the leading harder styles event organization in the world, based in Amsterdam. They create and host events such as Defqon.1 and Qlimax.
The biggest festival in their portfolio is Defqon.1 with 500 artists playing on 13 stages and 250.000 attendees in four days.
At Defqon.1 2024 the most “dediqated” members were offered a digital extension of their Defqon.1 identity with The Path - an exclusive mobile loyalty program available in the Q-dance app.
With The Path they could:
“We have a very distinguished relationship with our visitors. People identify with our brand to the point where they proudly wear our merchandise. You see people with Defqon.1 tattoos, throwing Defqon.1 parties, joining Defqon.1 Facebook groups, and participating in Defqon.1 subreddits.
Everything we do is about the tribe—the community. Our theme for this year was the Power of the Tribe.
I felt that the loyalty program would be an ideal solution to give back to those who have been to the festival multiple times and build our legacy with us.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
Q-dance is known for designing excellent festival experiences. During the Defqon.1 festival they follow the 0 screens policy so that the Warriors (festival-goers who can handle the four days hardstyle dancing) can fully immerse in the atmosphere of the event.
The mobile app is designed to be your festival companion with relevant content to help you navigate the festival and personalize your experience.
“We want to create a balance where the app is there for you when you need it but it should not be the focal point of your experience.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
The team needed to understand the audience better. The key was to identify the most valuable customers: most loyal festival-goers, fans who could become brand ambassadors and co-create the festival. Build the legacy together.
Offer relevant content to provide online support and enhancement for the festival experience in an organic and seamlessly integrated way.
Design touchpoints the whole year round to engage the Warriors in between the festivals.
“We see a lot of opportunities: we presented our program to brand prospects and brand partners (e.g. Red Bull, Bar-le-Duc) and they responded very positively to our personalized offering and the possibility to co-create quests with partners.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
The Path - an exclusive mobile loyalty program available in the Q-dance app serving as a digital extension of members’ Defqon.1 identity.
“The loyalty program helped us identify who our most valuable customers are. Before, we didn’t have an integrated platform.
Now, we can see who the most valuable customers are. We can see the difference between segments of our audience: newcomers vs. veteran warriors.
The program helped us communicate better and interact with the audience in a more relevant way.
A loyalty program can influence everything. It’s basically glue. If anything, these XP points are like an overarching currency, incentivizing people to buy tickets earlier, upgrade their travel options, but also motivate them to preferred actions such as entering in panels, surveys and helping out tribe members.
This loyalty program is a way to engage our customers with our brand year-round. To create year-round touchpoints like monthly raffles where participants can win meet-and-greets or merchandise packs.
We can create quests for basic engagement, like opening and reading an email with information about an event, such as the lineup. This way, we can design touchpoints for months before and after the festival.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
“Don’t do the full roll-out right away. Start with the premium group who is most engaged and most vocal. Collect feedback and progress from there. Follow the under-promise and over-deliver philosophy, while co-creating with your user base.”
‍Tim Corporaal
Loyalty Project Manager at Q-dance
The Path is built with Quests, Experience Points, Trophies & Badges, and Ranks.
Quests enhance a member’s journey. Quests contain a selection of legacy and future achievements, either earned at events or online.
These actions range from attending Defqon.1, taking a leap of faith at the bungee jump, or other ways of contributing to the tribe in a meaningful way.
Quests can be completed and with each completion members earn experience points (XP) that add to their rank within the tribe. Â
As they complete Quests, members rise through the ranks.
Experience points (XP) serve as a measure of a member's current progression in The Path. By completing Quests they accumulate XP, advancing through the different ranks within The Path. The more XP they earn, the higher their rank is.
In addition to XP, each Quest also rewards a trophy, symbolizing a member's accomplishments. There are four types of trophies, ranging from Cardboard, Silver, and Gold to Orange. Each type of trophy reflects the difficulty or significance of the Quest that has been completed.
In general the trophies are a measurement for how much XP a Quest will give: E.g. Cardboard Quests offer the least XP, while Orange Quests offer the most.
There are a total of 3 different ranks within The Path:
Members are placed in a rank based on their XP. By completing Quests, they climb through the 3 different ranks within The Path.
All Veterans in rank 3 are confronted with a choice that defines their role within the tribe:
Though the choices before them all have a certain allure, they can only choose the path that resonates with them most.
The Top 10 most dedicated members (people who have been to around 40 Q-dance events already) received a special invitation at the festival to join a tour with the creative director before the doors to the festival opened. They could see the stages before everyone else and get familiar with the narrative and philosophy behind the festival theme.
“We want our program to provide a two-way street with our customers and fit the tribe philosophy. Surprising valuable members with these kinds of experiences is truly priceless. For us, but especially for them.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
The loyalty engine is integrated with a proprietary membership platform, Shopify - a complete commerce platform, and Braze - customer engagement platform.
Challenges:
“A rule engine is a must-have. You need a place for designing all the program logic. But it also requires a front end, audience segmentation, and a place to create achievements.
You can build it yourself or go with a SaaS provider. We felt that SaaS is the way to go because there is expertise and stability.
Also, in terms of hosting and server capacity, there are many moments with quite a high TPS (transactions per second). It’s much better if you have a dedicated party to handle that.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
“What distinguishes Q-dance is that we are very creative and innovative. We knew that our loyalty program was not going to be a standard one; for example, we don’t offer spendable points.
We shortlisted a couple of potential vendors. As soon as we talked with Open Loyalty, you were quite new (scale-up). A start-up would have been too risky for us. As a scale-up, you gave us the impression that we could develop this program together and co-create something that fits our system and solution.
We feel that our opinions and needs influence the features that you develop. That's where you guys excel. It's not often that there’s such a level of co-creation with a SaaS provider. When we share our ideas and plans for the program, you don’t question whether we need to do it but instead set priorities.
I’m personally very happy with this approach. It gives us way more flexibility than a company with set-in-stone processes. It feels like you offer us a more flexible foundation that builds and progresses with us. That really makes you the partner we were looking for.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
“One of the pillars of our program is to create real value for people who contribute to the tribe and build our legacy with us. There are so many opportunities to offer them unique experiences. When they feel the value, it really becomes a co-creation process and genuine loyalty that is a two-way street.
We are world-class when it comes to the offline festival experience. We want to design a digital experience that fits the tribe and also meets the customer's needs. And the best way to do it is to co-create.
We innovate with a two-step process: a qualitative feedback panel on The Path with ten Warriors (50% Rank 3 members), followed by a survey to all dediqated members. Both of these feedback sources will shape our development.”
‍Koen van Santen
Head of Digital at Q-dance
