HASSELBACH, GERMANY — It is easy to feel the relentless pull of history when walking through the sprawling, evocative (some might say “haunting”) grounds of NATURE ONE. Reminders of the site’s previous life as a US nuclear base are hard to miss here, including the tactical missile bunkers that fans pass through during the four-day electronic music festival, one of the largest in Europe.

A gripping setting for a music festival? Most definitely! But the tens-of-thousands of fans who have been coming her every year for the past 30 years are transfixed by far more than Cold War relics. For them, the transcendent experience is driven by a heady combination of music from artists like Sven Väth, Paul van Dyk, Eric Prydz, and Felix Jaehn (all at this year’s festival), and a vibrant stage production that lives and breathes with every performance note for note.

Ensuring that the production on the festival’s main “Open Air Floor” stage moves in sync with the compelling music while also accenting the redolent quality of the unique setting are Marek Papke, his team at GERDON DESIGN. For 15 years, they have created the stage, lighting, and content design for the festival.

“GERDON DESIGN works closely with I-Motion, the organizer of Nature One” said Papke, the company’s managing director. “It is always a pleasure year after year. After so many years of collaboration, everyone knows the processes, and it often only takes a few iterations before a new design is finalized. What I really appreciate about this festival is this relaxed yet professional collaboration, which allows us to reinvent the Open Air Floor every year and explore new ideas and design approaches together.”

This year, the design sough to create a feeling of freedom and openness, so Papke and his collaborators went for a stage design with long, continuous stretches in both rounded and straight forms. “The foundation consists of three large stage arches that span across the Open Air Floor almost like a hangar,” explained Papke. “My focus in designing the Open Air Floor is to translate the club feeling everyone knows from a disco onto a large open-air space. We want the audience to lose themselves in space and time. Therefore, a big focus lies on the structure and the lighting positions above the floor and the crowd.”

Helping Papke and his team achieve this vision was a power-packed and highly versatile collection of 206 CHAUVET Professional fixtures that consisted of 12 Strike V outdoor– ready motorized strobe-washes, 130 COLORado PXL Bar 16 battens, and 64 Maverick Storm 2 BeamWashes.

Artfully wielding these fixtures, Papke conjured up a kaleidoscope of magical looks. His design immerses fans in a tunnel of light that changes colors from bold emeralds to fiery reds, to immersive blues. Sometimes, this tunnel of light burns through fog from atmospheric effects. At other times it is pierced by laser effects.

Given the diversity of artists who perform at NATURE ONE, Papke strives to make this multi-faceted design diverse enough to cover a wide range musical styles and stage personas. “We build a lot of dynamics into the sets,” he said. “We want it so quiet moments can sometimes be lit in a very minimalistic way, which makes the big moments or strong drops all the more impactful.”

Papke described how the creative process works. “Soon after every festival ends, I begin working on the next year’s floor design. Usually, I start by sketching a few basic ideas, and then build them roughly in 3D to test their impact from the audience’s perspective. If the core idea works, I look into how it can be realized using the available truss systems.”

From there, his design evolves, and he begins to equip in with lights and LED surfaces… and in the end magic happens.