Top 5 Moments from Shutdown Festival 2018

Photo Credit: Katarina Cvetko

Written by: Katarina Cvetko

Only weeks after hosting their major festival for the 6th year in a row, Revolution Events have returned to the endless green fields of Austria for yet another incredible event. Last weekend marked the second annual edition of Shutdown Festival, a harder style festival located in the small town of Zwentendorf. Held at a completed but never activated nuclear power plant, the one-day festival featured over 40 artists across four stages. From the impeccable organisation to the impressive lineup, this festival was by far one of the most exciting events of the summer. Here are the top 5 moments that stood out to me from Shutdown Festival 2018.

SCALE & THE DESPERADOS RUSH RUMBLE

Midway throughout the festival, resident DJ Scale brought the main stage to life with the official Desperados Rush Rumble, an hour of pure energy and madness! The 60-minute fast paced celebration featured something that can only be matched by one of the largest festivals in the world: Defqon.1’s power hour! With exciting hard dance anthems dropping on the regular and anything and everything ranging from pool noodles to giant balloons being thrown out into the crowd, this was by far one of the most exciting moments from the festival.

THE LIVE PERFORMERS

Accompanying the Rush Rumble and extending into the night, a number of live performers periodically appeared on stage. From professional dancers to light up robots on stilts and even dancing inflatable t-rexes, the on-stage performers definitely created a lot of memorable moments throughout the night. My favourite would have to be the dancing t-rexes who improvised the most entertaining dance moves to some of the most iconic songs in the hard dance world. One of them even danced all the way to the point of deflation (and continued dancing long after that)!

OFFICIAL TRASH MOMENT

If you’ve been to many hard dance events, you will be familiar with ‘trash moments’, a concept where the entire crowd picks up a piece of trash from the ground and throws it in the air at the drop. DJ Coone recently created the official trash moment song together with Ummet Ozcan and MC Villain earlier this year, which makes for the perfect trash moment. While the concept is rather strange, seeing thousands of empty water bottles and cup holders flying around in the air all at once is definitely a sight to see!

DA TWEEKAZ

If I had to pick a favourite set, it would of course be the Norwegian legends Da Tweekaz! Straight off the plane from another festival and directly onto the next, these guys have one of the busiest summer schedules in the hard dance scene and still manage to give 110% at every single performance. Dropping a tonne of new music as well as their classic Disney sing-along tracks, these guys never fail to put on one of the most entertaining shows of the entire event!

THE ENDSHOW

With only a couple of hours of darkness at this event, Shutdown saved the best for last and went all out for the official endshow! From thousands of lasers to the impressive fireworks finale, this was definitely not the endshow I was expecting, but it was absolutely everything I wanted and more! Incorporating the surroundings, the endshow featured a projected story onto the wall of the power plant, which then turned the focus back onto the main stage where hundreds of fireworks filled the entire sky for the last 15 minutes of the event.

OVERALL

Revolution Events has definitely outdone themselves with this event. Having attended festivals all summer, I never would have guessed that Shutdown Festival was only in its second year! Everything from the organisation to the lineup was comparable to some of the biggest events in the world and I can definitely see this event growing quickly. Shutdown Festival was definitely the perfect way to spend my Saturday and I can’t wait to return next year! Mark your calendars; the 2019 edition will take place on Saturday, August 10!

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