SAGA: a customer-centric, multi-genre music festival

Allan Hardenberg, CEO & Co-Founder at ALDA, a company that has organised more than 1500 shows worldwide in 57 countries, talked to Business Review about the 2023 edition of the SAGA music festival in Bucharest.

SAGA Festival will hold its third edition this June, so let’s start by going over the story of the festival: how did you come up with the concept, what inspired you, and why did you choose Bucharest as the location?

It was always our dream to organise a festival in Romania; we had visited it a lot over the last 20 years, especially for the Armin van Buuren shows, and we always thought we should create a festival here, so we started looking for a nice venue. Four years ago, we made a trip to Bucharest, we saw different beautiful venues and we decided to build a new festival concept, because the timing seemed right. We love Bucharest because it has a very active underground scene, and everybody loves to party. It’s a beautiful country. So, this is how it all started.

How would you describe the experience of the first two editions? What did you learn from them, were you pleased with their results, and what elements are driving you on the path to future editions?

When we launched two years ago, we immediately felt the energy, the vibe. Everybody was so positive and the crowd was insane. We always do surveys to understand the public’s wishes, their favourite artists and music genres, we are always listening to their opinions, because we want the festival to keep getting better. We have four stages: Source (Mainstage), Heat (Techno), Spark (House), and Switch (Urban) plus other additional surprise stages that support a lot of young DJs and artists: Shuttle Bus, Rave Plane, NFT Area. We always try to create the perfect customer journey. We’ve been very happy with the outcome so far; it’s a startup, we know we’re the underdogs, as there are lots of festivals already happening in Romania. We’re building step by step.

We are ready for the third edition and there has been a big growth in ticket sales and in the general level of interest around SAGA. I mean, I expected some growth, but it’s exceeding my expectations and I am so grateful and excited. We are the talk of the town; there is huge hype around SAGA. We’ve created a better festival based on the experience we had with the past two editions. An important thing to mention is that we are going to expand our area at Romaero—we are going bigger because there are a lot of people who want to attend SAGA and at this point, we are sold out.

We are happy to be back at Romaero, because it has a special vibe, especially in our hangar stages like Heat and Switch. Our house stage this year is special: it’s located under an airplane, so that will be a first for Romania. Our secret stage—Rave Plane—is back, so we are excited that people will get to experience very exclusive parties there with their favourite artists.

I’m so happy to see how SAGA is growing and I look forward to the next five years. I believe there is a lot of potential for SAGA to become even bigger and greater.

What can you tell us about the production of the festival’s third edition?

We always want to improve and make it better than last year. The mainstage will be different, because we can see what’s happening worldwide, we are aware of the trends and of people’s preferences, so we’ve come up with a totally different concept for the mainstage. I can’t give you any more details; you’ll need to come and see it. But it will be insane!

SAGA Festival will be returning to ROMAERO this year—what can you tell us about this aspect?

We did a survey and asked our community what their favourite location was. 90 percent voted to go back to Romaero, while only 10 percent wanted to go back to the National Arena, where last year’s edition took place. As I mentioned before, for us, the customer journey is very important and we take into account what people want, what they think, so it’s essential for us to know that they’ll be delighted with the final result. We have a passion for music, for festivals, and we do it for the fans.

Comparing the two venues, I do agree with the majority opinion; it’s a unique venue for a festival and nobody else in the world is doing it at an airport.

A number of international stars will take the stage at SAGA this year. How hard was it to bring together such an impressive line-up?

This year we decided to have an edition that would feature several genres and a greater diversity of artists, whereas at the past two editions, we focused only on EDM DJs and techno artists. We decided to combine those genres with international and Romanian urban and pop live acts, turning it into a truly multi-genre festival.

I am excited that we’ve managed to get a lot of artists to come to Romania for the first time, including Lil Nas X, Wiz Khalifa, and Skrillex, who’s in the peak of his career—he literally exploded a few months ago. We were happy to be among the organisers who managed to book him, more than 8 months ago, and that he will be part of SAGA this year.

It’s become somewhat of a tradition for SAGA to have at least 6 artists performing in Romania for the first time. We also have Mochakk, a DJ who is very appreciated in Romania and whom people wanted to see; we also have Franky Wah and Melanie C from Spice Girls—a true legend.

What other projects do you have in store for Romania?

We are opening a music venue in September—it’s called Laminor. We will throw a lot of parties there. It’s a big space, enough for around 15,000 to 20,000 people. I am super confident about this special project, but we’ll provide more information about it in the coming weeks.

You are very familiar with the Romanian music festival scene by now. How would you describe it and what are the main strengths of our country when it comes to organising such a big music festival?

I see a lot happening in Romania, including the fact that it has a big underground scene that’s really flourishing. We are doing a lot of shows in different countries across the world, but Romania has something special in terms of the energy; it’s on another level when you look at the party and festival scene. People in Romania get super excited about the festival a year before the next edition, they talk about it, they think of the outfits they’re going to wear, they try to bring lots of friends with them to party together. That’s what I like about Romania.

You are the CEO & Co-Founder of ALDA LIVE, the company behind SAGA. What is the story of your company and how did you decide to enter the music industry?

We started 25 years ago with Armin van Buuren’s and Tiesto’s tours, and since we were doing all these shows worldwide, we decided to create our own festivals. It went very well and we added new offices in Germany and Hong Kong. In 2018, we partnered up with Insomniac, so we now also have offices in Los Angeles. We do what we like best: organising events, creating unforgettable memories. This is what gives me energy. I love to focus on the creative marketing part.

About

Allan Hardenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of ALDA, has been an important player in the international events industry for decades. Allan has come a long way from organising his first events in an old industrial warehouse during the 90s to putting on ALDA shows for audiences larger than 50.000 at events centered around Armin van Buuren. ALDA is now an international powerhouse in event production, promotion and concept development, operating from offices in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Cologne, Bucharest, Pula and Amsterdam with 1500 events to date, organised in 57 countries.

“The artist has always been central to everything we do, whether that’s an Armin solo show or a festival with lots of stages and artists,” says Allan. Whilst ALDA’s focus will always be ‘behind the scenes, Allan realised in recent years that for ravers, it is also important to know the festival promoter. “We are therefore trying to become more and more visible as ALDA to our festival audiences.”

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