When DOA started in 1986 it was the only festival of it's kind. No other festival would even think about a line-up that  consisted of heavy bands only. Of course there was Monsters Of Rock but underground acts had little or no chance of  getting on their bill. In fact, the Aardschokdag festival was the only somehow similar event but that was an indoor event and it  was not held on a regular basis. However, more and more festivals similar to DOA started to appear all over Europe so in  order to be different and stand out from the rest we decided to try a new formula. More days and more stages. 

This, of course, would never be possible at the skating-rink. We needed a bigger site and as luck would have it there happened to be an abandoned military airport within Eindhoven city limits. Welschap as it was called would be our new home for the next five years. And what a home it was. The seemingly endless amounts of space allowed DOA to grow from 43.000 (1993) and 70.000 (1994) to a staggering 118.000 visitors at our tenth anniversary in 1995. By this time DOA had developed into a three day marathon with almost fifty bands on three different stages, covering all heavy genres from death and black metal to hardcore and punk. People were now coming from as far away as Japan and Brazil to visit DOA. As much as half the crowd came from Germany. This would not have to do anything with our liberal laws on freely smoking pot and generally having a good time, now would it? 
Still legendary are the traffic jams leading to the festival in 1994 and 95, to this day in the books as the longest ever recorded in Dutch history. These jams however, did not go down very well with Dutch authorities.
They were not amused to say the least, resulting in a 60.000 capacity limit for future DOA's from then on. So,  needless to say, the last two DOA's at Welschap were sold out in advance. During the five years we spent at  Welschap pretty much everybody who is somebody today paid us a visit, sometimes more than once. Slayer, Venom,  Type O Negative, Machine Head, Korn, Marilyn Manson, Savatage, Dog Eat Dog, Danzig, Life Of Agony, Biohazard,  Monster Magnet, Kyuss (R.I.P.)...again, the list goes on and on. 

Unfortunately, DOA had to leave Welschap after our twelfth festival in1997 because the site was needed to build 6.000  houses which left us with a huge problem. Months were spent looking for a suitable new location but to no avail. In the end it came down to either not doing a DOA at all or to go back to the skating-rink as a temporary solution.  Of course we opted for the skating-rink although this meant that only 30.000 people could attend the thirteenth edition, headlined by a brilliant Rammstein and a drunk and pathetic Pantera. New talent came with the likes of Deftones, Coal Chamber and Sevendust to name a few. 

Our quest for a permanent location was far from over. We knew from the start that we could only use the skating-rink this one time so in 1999 we faced the same old problem; where to go next? Eventually we ended up in Mierlo, a small village just outside of Eindhoven. The former garbage dump proved to be a disasterous choice. The site turned out to be too small and the smell was horrendous. Parking was a nightmare. 

No matter how beautiful the Goffertpark, we wanted more. More bands and more days. And, by miracle, we found a new site, in the far east of Holland, in the little town of  Lichtenvoorde. But it wasnít to be. We were ready to go, with great acts like Tool, Savatage,  Motörhead, Cradle Of Filth, Saxon and Slipknot. Almost 20.000 tickets were already sold when  disaster struck; foot and mouth disease! Four weeks prior to the event we had to call the whole thing  off. For the first time since 1986 there was to be no Dynamo Open Air. 

Our quest continued once more. But wherever we looked, there would always be some obstacle in our way. In the end the friendly people at the Bospop festival in Weert reached out a helping hand and let us use their site for which we are still eternally grateful. Attached, as a third day, to Bospop we were able to organise a small scale Dynamo with the likes of Soulfly, Death Angel, Dropkick Murphys, Biohazard, Within Temptation en Children Of Bodom. 

By the end of 2002 we thought we had found another new  site. Again! And really close to home too. In the town of  Nuenen, only five miles outside of Eindhoven, and literally  only a stoneís throw away from the Mierlo site we used in  1999. The site would have been big enough for a three day  event with 25.000 people but a newly installed  environmental law (to protect birds in their breeding season)  prohibited us from using the site. By the time we were told,  it was already too late to organise an alternative so 2003, again, turned out to be a year with no Dynamo. 
 

Dynamo Open Air 2004 was held - for the second time - at the beautiful Goffert Park in Nijmegen. More than 12.000 people enjoyed a dry and eventually sunny one-day event with Slayer, Nightwish, Life Of Agony, Soulfly, Ill Niño and others.
 
 

 Andre,  18-02-2005