Haven: An Open Air Club
When conceptualising the first edition of Doel, we were heavily looking at the village and its surroundings, asking ourselves what are some of the most prominent, striking features and landmarks present in this nearly abandoned town. There’s numerous empty houses, but also storefronts, hangars, a school, city hall and chapel, the types of infrastructures every village needs and is built around, all equally deserted and or boarded up. Two gas stations eventually became the base inspiration for one of our largest stages.
Although a gas station looks simple architecturally, transferring it into a temporary structure proved to be a difficult exercise. A large roof balancing on heavy beams, not easily sourced and hard to install without leaving traces in the terrain. We decided to go for scaffolding instead, a look which we deemed fitting in Doel, as if a new space, a new club, was being built in a place where large gatherings were no longer happening. From just a roof, it went to a roof with transparent walls, a metal skeleton with a black hat. To still reference the gas stations, we looked at how these were lit and copied a simple light plan: two long rows of tube lights.
Each stage of Doel Festival is named after the street it is located in or a strong characteristic of its direct environment. Our skeletal club would rise perpendicular to the Havenweg, a broad walkway going from the West side of town to the East, with two large planes of grass next to it. ‘Haven’ means ‘harbour’ in Dutch and we thought a harbour is like a gas station for boats and a club is like a harbour for dancing, so naming it the ‘Haven’ stage was just perfect.
The first edition of Doel Festival saw lots of rainfall which made the overall tone more grim, yet for some reason it amplified people’s will to dance. It created quite the dystopian atmosphere, a distinct rawness, and the feeling of “we are in this together”. Combined with a barebones scenography that more so slided into the village, rather than willing to overtake it, this all felt very grounded. With artists like Héctor Oaks, MCMLXXXV and Ceephax Acid Crew (Live) playing the Haven, the newly born open air club might have been the boldest stage at the time, a true haven for dancing.
Year two, we wanted to expand on the idea of the club. Without imposing any big changes, we enlarged the dance floor to increase capacity and, by extension, a larger surface needs a larger roof. There was now elevated room around the deejay booth, for dancers, and we added small podium steps to the scaffolding columns to dance on. We reimagined the light plan, going for something a little more dynamic and recognisable from what you would see in a large venue, replacing the tube lights for moving heads, beaming down into the crowd at intervals. But most notable, the energy rose even higher than the year before, with DJ Gigola and SPFDJ tearing down the makeshift roof and we saw dancers climbing and crawling the scaffolding. We told security to stop asking people to come back down, because we absolutely loved the energy. The Haven became an arena, a turbine pushing and pulling dancers back and forth, up and down, and the crowd visibly became like a wave, moving upwards towards the sides of the stage.
The Haven became an arena, a turbine pushing and pulling dancers back and forth, up and down, and the crowd visibly became like a wave, moving upwards towards the sides of the stage.
To capture that energy was our mission in year three. How can we facilitate that need to climb up and into the metal skeleton, to generate that sassy mischievous behaviour without the risk of harm? With more dance platforms inside the columns, lowering the concrete weights, adding steps for easy access, adding railings for safety, creating easier access to the podia next to the deejay and installing a large two level podium in the back, elevating the final rows of dancers. The Haven was bigger and bolder, rougher and tougher. Now with artists Kathleen C, Chippy Nonstop and u.r.trax, among others, this version of the Haven reached its final form, serving an unmatched display of the powerful dancing spirit of our visitors.
This year, we are happy to say that with the support of Diesel, the international lifestyle company, we will be taking the Haven to an even higher level. Redesigning the stage from the ground up, with all of the previous in mind. Still the familiar open air club, with its skeletal walls and black roof, but different in shape, going for a full 360 degree dance floor and matching sound installation, with the deejay in the middle and dancing platforms all around, even closely around the deejay booth, making both the deejay and you, the dancer, the center piece of the new Haven stage. The full lineup this year consists of Miss Bashful & DBBD (Live), BASHKKA, Ellen Alien, Hyperaktivist & Mac Declos, IN_CONSTANT, Liyo and Mietze Conte, promising nothing less than mad dancing fuel, the purest of club diesel.
Since 2023, Diesel has been a partner of Doel Festival, originally supporting our physical poster campaign, gradually growing closer each year. Last edition we invited Diesel to host our Bungalow stage, where we designed a run down graffiti clad storefront in one of Doel’s streets, functioning as the deejay booth. Now Diesel will be the host of the Haven stage, Doel Festival’s second largest podium. Diesel’s presence will be marked by a club sign inside the stage and a large billboard outside.
Each stage at Doel Festival is in constant evolution. Stage locations are carefully chosen for their specific environment and each year we rethink how a stage can fit that space, slowly shapeshifting into their future form.
Founded by Renzo Rosso in 1978 and rooted in denim mastery, Diesel evolved into being a leader in fashion, now a true alternative to the established luxury market. Since 2020, Diesel’s collections are overseen by Belgian born creative director Glenn Martens, who graduated from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts. With Martens digging into the brand’s pop culture heritage and blending club references with a Y2K revival, Doel and Diesel have found each other in that culture. Doel is a place that was almost washed off the map, it has seen distress, much like Diesel’s denim, and is now being reinvigorated through the power of music and art. Diesel, for successful living. Doel, for successful raving.