NATURE ONE is the festival for techno, house, trance, hardstyle and all other varieties of electronic dance music in Germany. In 2024, tens of thousands of EDM fans again flocked to the legendary Pydna Kastellaun missile base to party for three days with the scene’s best DJs. A lot of the special atmosphere at NATURE ONE is thanks to its main stage in particular. At this location, visitors don’t just dance in front of the stage, but in the middle of an elaborate truss construction with numerous light and video elements. Marek Papke from GERDON DESIGN has been responsible for the stage, lighting and content design for the main stage for many years and once again relied on the IP65 lights from Cameo this year.

“I’m always amazed at how easily the OTOS H5 survives an outdoor techno festival lasting several days,” said Marek Papke, notably impressed by the IP65 Beam-Spot-Wash Hybrid Moving Head. The team distributed exactly 100 OTOS H5s across the scaffolding structure of the main stage and the trusses above the open floor. “My approach is to follow the lines of the stage with the spotlights. For example, there are several long, straight arrangements of Cameo OTOS H5s, which I use to emphasise the geometry and shaping of the stage.” Marek Papke arranged further OTOS H5s as sets of four on the scaffolding structure to create a classic “sky beam” look. A matrix of 8×4 OTOS H5s is also used in the centre grid above the floor, delivering plenty of punch from above.

With this year’s stage design, GERDON DESIGN established a new look which stands out above all for its clean lines and uncluttered architecture. The stage applies a contour based on architecture, and it is filled with decorative elements such as banners and single-pixel LED strips. On the floor, parallel crossbars above the heads of the dancing crowd complement the basic shape of the pyramid that everyone is familiar with. “Our motto this year is “organic industrial”. We applied this to the video content above all, for which we created a look with plants that brings to life the industrial-looking base structure of the Layher stage, using organic elements.”

Because the weather at NATURE ONE is unpredictable and can change quickly, Marek Papke decided years ago to work exclusively with IP-certified floodlights (“We prefer to just play it safe in this respect”). With their IP65 certification, the ZENIT W600 Outdoor LED Wash Lights and ZENIT P130 LSD PAR lights fit in perfectly with the team’s requirements profile. While the ZENIT P130 is primarily used as a backlight and truss toner, the ZENIT W600 provides coloured banner lighting.

The Cameo lights for the main stage were supplied by the responsible technology contractor, schoko pro. Read the full interview with Papke on the ideas behind the festival here.

Cameo