Airbeat One

The festival was born on 6 July 2002 on the Neustadt-Glewe gliding airfield, under the name Airbase One, set up by Music Eggert (ME-Events), an event-production company. About 1,000 people came to this first, strongly trance-oriented edition; by the third, the name had become Airbeat One, for trademark reasons.

After a year by a lake near Neu Zachun in 2007, the festival returned to the airfield and never left. The first Mainstage arrived in 2010, the Q-dance hardstyle stage in 2016, the techno Arena and cashless payment in 2018. Attendance followed: about 40,000 people a day in 2016, 65,000 in 2019. The 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled by the pandemic, and the 2022 comeback drew 200,000 visitors across the festival.

Since 2014, each edition has been a journey: the Maya world, ancient Rome, Asia, the United States, Great Britain, India, Italy, Germany for the 20th anniversary, France, Spain, then the Netherlands in 2026. The theme sets the decor of the Mainstage, the Arena and the grounds, and the official site tells each edition as a stage of the same travel diary.

In 2026 the organiser announced about 210,000 visitors across the festival, around 70,000 a day, for some 350 artists on nine stages and over 465 hours of music. The Mainstage was a windmill 180 m wide and 45 m high, the Harder Stage a lion's head taken from the arms of the County of Holland. The 2027 edition celebrates the festival's 25th anniversary, themed on Australia.