Hardstyle goes virtual with Roblox raves

RF Productions, a project founded by Daniel Sokolov, is responsible for building a hardstyle community that goes beyond the Internet and brings the festival essence to your computers.

If you have been active in socials in the past few weeks, you might have noticed that several artists have been promoting Ignition Festival, a virtual rave that has been hosted in Roblox the past weekend. This goes way back, as this is not the first hardstyle party that has been hosted into this game this year.

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RF Productions is the promoter - if we can use this term for the digital world - behind this and a few more events inside Roblox. Daniel Sokolov as founder and director and Kieran (also known as YuckyDucky) as production manager are the two main actors of this amazing project, which we have got to discover a bit more.

"My passion grew into the idea of bringing the energy of festivals to those unable to attend in real life"

We have spoken to both of them to know who's behind RF Productions and how has this journey been, since the very start until today. "I started as a young festival enthusiast who loved the atmosphere and energy of festivals but couldn’t always experience them in real life myself", Daniel told us. "It all started back in 2017, when I discovered and began building stages in Roblox without really intending to host anything on a large scale. Around 2019, I started bringing the community together and building more ambitious stages. RF Productions was officially founded in March 2022 and that’s when we began organising large scale events", he added.

In the past few months, RF Productions has hosted several special events and tributes around artists such as Sub Zero Project, Rebelion, 4444 OF A KIND and the above mentioned Ignition Festival, about which we will talk later on. Probably, the biggest highlight for Daniel and his team so far is the official collaboration with Tomorrowland.

"We recreated the Mainstage using their assets and brought shows featuring Sub Zero Project and Dimitri Vegas into the virtual world. For me personally, this was also a dream come true, as working with Tomorrowland had always been one of my biggest. Being part of this project was a huge milestone for us and opened new doors, showing us just how far the virtual festival community can go", he said.

A team formed by developers, 3D modelers, scripters, lighting and pyro technicals...

If you have seen any clip of these raves online, you might have noticed that their events aren't just a cool mainstage and a couple of virtual avatars running around. The productions are indeed very professional, especially for the virtual world. Daniel told us that they design the entire experience from scratch, which can take weeks or even months to prepare.

"We first build the stage and virtual environment (map) then our lighting and pyro teams integrate the technical elements, from lasers and lighting to special effects", he explained to us. "After that comes testing, programming and fine-tuning to fix bugs and ensure everything works as intended. Even during events, we’re constantly monitoring everything behind the scenes. It’s taken us years to develop our workflow and learn how to push Roblox to its limits and none of this would be possible without the people behind RF Productions".

It is also curious to know that their shows are slowly getting more similar to real life ones. Not only in terms of the team behind them, but also in the workflow. "We also have an amazing team of lighting directors who follow the cues and control the lights live during every show. Timecoding is slowly being introduced into the Roblox festival community, but our lighting directors still love the challenge of directing and adapting the entire show live, making every performance feel unique".

"We started planning Ignition in August, from booking artists to developing the production"

Last weekend, it was time to witness one of the most important and ambitious projects of RF Productions to date: Ignition Festival. The Roblox rave lasted for four days, with a timetable consisting in several tributes to different artists and some other DJs actually playing live at the event, such as The Straikerz, The Saints, Aversion, Cardination, Mind Compressor, Cryex, Zelecter, Testarossa or GPF.

Around 6,000 people attended Ignition during the weekend, with an average of 1,000 spectators, with the extra people who were streaming it live on Twitch or Tiktok. "IGNITION was definitely one of our biggest original festival productions to date and one of the most special ones for RF Productions", Daniel told us. "Working with these artists was an incredible experience. Everyone was friendly and enthusiastic about being part of the festival and for some, stepping into a virtual festival environment was something completely new", he added.

This event felt like a huge step forward for the brand, as it went from a niche of people inside a certain community to going mainstream within the hardstyle scene, thanks to the performance of several international artists. "We wanted to make sure every artist felt welcome and had all the hospitality and technical support they needed throughout the event. We wanted to give both the artists and our community an unforgettable experience, and seeing everything come together made those months of preparation worth it. The response has been amazing and we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who joined, performed, streamed or supported us behind the scenes".

"I believe we are entering a new era for RF Productions in 2027"

Sky is the limit for RF Productions. It's undeniable that the brand is making itself a place within this industry and that it's gaining more interest from the crowd. Daniel gave us some sneak peaks of what's been cooked for next year. "We’ve been in contact with various event productions, artists and management teams to explore opportunities for future headline shows and exclusive experiences across different genres, not just hardstyle", he said. "We’re also continuing our own festival concepts and push our productions to an even higher level".

Might a real-life event be already on the bucket list for Daniel and his team? "That's definitely one of our biggest long-term ambitions!", he admitted. "It’s a huge goal and responsibility, but definitely something we’d love to work towards".

We will follow closely the next steps of RF Productions and the entire Roblox hardstyle community, which is expanding every day.