Killer Fish

Over two years I served as Creative Director and Technical Producer for Defqon.1 Australia—one of the country’s largest electronic music festivals.

The role covered creative and technical leadership across a 33,000-person festival site with six stages and a one-million-dollar annual production budget—curating décor, coordinating suppliers, and aligning creative delivery with Q-Dance and local production teams.

The signature White Stage was a nine-metre scrap-metal monster fish—the Deep Sea Lantern Fish—that blew flames from its head, carried holographic projections in its gullet, moving sawblade teeth, and a custom Defqon.1 disco ball above the dance floor.

Beyond the White Stage, I provided technical production management across five of the six festival stages and the broader site, and designed and produced eight major art installations—including a ten-metre sword, a seven-metre milk-crate flying robot, a scrap-metal monster battle between a Giger alien, a battle tank, and Cerberus, and three live graffiti alleys.

The success of the Australian work led to an invitation to Defqon.1 Netherlands, where I provided international creative and technical leadership on a new version of the killer-fish stage—delivered remotely and on site with the Dutch build team. (See also Defqon.1 2018, Netherlands.)