Sound-Fleet is once again back at ADE to offer the most unique party experiences of the whole conference: on a proper boat meandering through the Amsterdam canals.
From October 16th to 20th they have seven parties planned with hosts and brands like Rejected, Magdalena, HOSH and his fryhide imprint, Muse by Lehar and Musumeci, The Bliss Office, Olivier Weiter and more.
The boat itself is fully decked out with a killer sound system and offers a great way to dance while taking in the blissful sites of the gorgeous city. Here we speak to the man behind it all, to gain more insight on what attendees can expect from the Sound-Fleet series of events.
Head HERE for tickets and info, and read on for our exclusive chat.
Introduce yourself, give us some background on you?
Hi there, Iām a music fanatic, almost 45 years of age and being in the industry for about 25 years. Happily married one year ago and enjoying being a father since a bit over 2 years. I like playing tennis, soccer and golf in my spare time and all of this above keeps me young, I guess. I love my life how it is right now and looking forward to ADE very much!
Who is involved with Sound-Fleet?
Actually I run Sound-Fleet myself together with the owner of the Pure-liner ship. I know him since I started my cereer in the corporate event business. Now weāve teamed up again and Sound-Fleet is kind of the label for the public parties at his ship.
When did it first start and why?
Sound-Fleet started in 2018 since we needed to find a venue for the Sudbeat x The Soundgarden party. Once I called my old friend from Pure-liner, we decided to go all in for the whole week.
How hard was it to get off the ground?
Pretty hard I must say. We did have great program and we were sold out for 95% of the week’s shows.
Hosting Lost & Found by Guy J, Sashaās Last Night on Earth, two shows from Goldfish and the Sudbeat x The Soundgarden party from Hernan Catteneo and Nick Warren. So we had a massive program, that wasnāt the issue. But there is a lot of legislation and restrictions involved with the project by doing boat parties at ADE. A lot of people donāt see this. But it takes a lot of effort to communicate with ADE and the government to be on the water all week long.
What is your day to day job, what do you do in an average day?
I wake up early and go to bed around midnight. Trying to get at least 7 hours of sleep. But Iām ok with 6 these days. I have a good focus at the moment and especially the September and October months itās full-on preparing towards our ADE project. Of course trying to find some family time in between but in November Iām Mister Family Guy again. Iām in control of the programming, marketing and F&B together with the team of Pure-liner. Itās kind of 360-degree event management but thatās what I love the most.
What informs the line-ups? How do you decide who to invite?
This year I wanted to step away a bit more from the classic progressive sounds. So I wanted a bit more house and melodic deep house in the program. I must say Iām pretty excited about this year again.
Inviting new cool labels like Shadows, Muse and fryhide. And with Rejected, The Bliss Office and Olivier Weiter & Friends we have a superb balance of incredible underground dance music. How do I decide? Itās about networking and sometimes you meet new contacts with you have a good vibe. And then you just go for it.
Tell us about the boat itself? What’s it like, what features does it have?
Have a look at www.pure-liner.com and see for yourself. Itās an amazing ship with a modern look, LED in the sides and we have a new L-Acoustics Sound System of where Iām so much looking forward too. Hope the artist will love it too but Iām pretty sure they will be impressed by the vibe onboard. We definitely created a massive club vibe onboard.
What are you most looking forward to in this season’s parties?
Musically Iām really happy to welcome Magdalena with her Shadows project. Iām a big fan of Michael Mayer and she invited him for ADE. Lucky me! Also the special guest is topping off the billings nicely together with Tom Zeta and Gheist live. It fills up the gap with Diynamic not being present at ADE this year so it fills up the gap nicely for the fans. But letās be honest, I really like all the shows with such great artists involved. On Sunday weāve got Agents of Time with the complete occupation doing a special ADE DJ set.
What are the hardest challenges for you on this project?
Competing with my fellow Dutch friend promoters as ADE gets harder and harder every year. Luckily weāre doing boat parties and they are always kind of special, and the public thinks so too. Weāve had a great launch in 2018 and our goal is to go international as well with Sound-Fleet.
What do you do after ADE, what’s next for you?
Taking some rest for sure and spoiling my family with quality time. Maybe catch a bit of Sun. After this weāre going for the next run of events in the Christmas Holiday and NYE period. And looking forward to 2020 already as this should be the year of Sound-Fleet going abroad.
So, good times ahead!
