Down The Rabbit Hole on growing future headliners

Down The Rabbit Hole festival director Ide Koffeman has spoken to IQ about the event’s penchant for growing future headliners.

The 11th edition of the MOJO-promoted festival took place last weekend (5–7 July) at De Groene Heuvels near Ewijk, in the Netherlands.

All 45,000 full festival tickets were sold within 45 minutes of going on sale last December, setting a new record for the event.

Unlike most festivals, Down The Rabbit Hole exclusively sells tickets for the full three days, which Koffeman says is “part of our formula and part of the success”.

With day tickets off the table, the festival’s booking team can approach the lineup as a package, rather than three individual headline shows.

“We try to create what we call a flock of artists… so it’s not at all just about the headliner”

“We try to create what we call a flock of artists,” says Koffeman. “So it’s not at all just about the headliner. We look at what the artists stand for and the diversity of the programme and then we get a nice flock that tells a story. This year it worked out very well. I am completely satisfied and I don’t say that every year. We had a lot of great reactions as well from our audience too.”

Top-billing artists at the 2024 festival were LCD Soundsystem, The National, Michael Kiwanuka and Jungle – with the latter two delivering a co-heading slot on Friday.

“That was the first time Jungle played our festival since 2015,” says Koffeman. “And it was their first big festival headline show for 45,000 people so we were very happy they said yes. For them, it was a big step but they were happy to be presented in this way. We call them a future headliner.”

And it’s not the first time Down The Rabbit Hole has created a ‘future headliner’ at their festival.

“We had the War on Drugs headline a tent in 2015 when the festival was 15,000 capacity,” remembers Koffeman. “That was their first-ever headline show and they remembered that when they came back to headline in 2022 to 45,000 people. So look what happened in eight years.”

“We like to present acts that can do a successful show without being stadium-level”

He continues: “We like to present acts that can do a successful show without being stadium-level. With our formula, we do have room to play with the possibilities. So perhaps on Friday, we have a spectacular new act that’s a future headliner and on Saturday, a more established act. And then it all adds up and people buy tickets for the whole package. It’s like booking one big show.”

The success of the 2024 edition is particularly impressive given the backdrop of issues in the domestic and international industry – weather being a major one.

“Three weeks ahead of the festival, we noticed the rain was very bad,” Koffeman tells IQ. “The groundwater level was very high and we’re next to a big river so [the ground] is clay. There was a big question mark over parking and we had to pause the sale of parking tickets because we couldn’t guarantee spaces.”

“With our formula, we do have room to play with the possibilities”

The festival spent a great deal of time, money (and emissions, Koffeman points out) reinforcing the ground and fortunately, the weather held out for the weekend.

Generally, weather is lower down the list of issues for the Dutch industry, which is facing widespread festival cancellations largely due to rising costs, and the prospect of a huge VAT hike.

“Raising the taxes is stupid,” says Koffeman. “It’s already difficult for our festival – and we’re one of the biggest – but if you are organising a one-day festival that might make 5–6% of the total, you can just stop.

“Costs are rising so quickly and life has become more expensive in the Netherlands, so people have to make choices. Just a few festivals sold out as quickly as we did so, right now, we’re grateful for that,” he says.

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