FAN: Where Event Creatives Find Their Crowd
Organising a music event might look glamorous from the outside, but behind the scenes it’s often messy and inefficient. For MSc Business Development & Entrepreneurship student, Hidde Tierolff, that chaos became the starting point of a business idea.
Organisers told me they often spend hours messaging DJs via Instagram, negotiating over WhatsApp, and juggling spreadsheets just to confirm a single line-up. DJs, on the other hand, struggle to get booked outside their own network — unless they join expensive agencies. And that just a fraction of the people involved
Introducing FAN
is an all-in-one platform designed for nightlife events and festivals. It centralises the entire organisation process — from artist profiles and stakeholder communication to negotiations and agreements — into one seamless platform. It features:
A single place for DJs, event organisers, and creatives to offer, respond to, and organise bookings.
Easy access to work opportunities without long-term commitments or agency fees.
Lower entry barriers for emerging talent to get discovered.
A purpose-built platform for managing nightlife events and festivals.
In just a few weeks, over 120 talent profiles — including DJs, videographers, and agencies — joined FAN without any paid marketing. This strong early traction shows the industry’s hunger for a solution like Hidde’s.
But FAN’s impact goes beyond efficiency:
By simplifying event organisation, we're making nightlife more accessible, affordable, and diverse. It helps new talent break through, and strengthens local cultural ecosystems
Launched From a Lecture Hall, Grown at Playground
The idea for FAN started during a , and Hidde further developed it in his MSc thesis. After attending another class at Playground, he recognised FAN’s potential and realised it could gain the support needed to evolve into a full-fledged startup at Playground.
Over the summer, Hidde decided to pursue FAN with Playground seriously. Through Playground’s coaching programme, guided by startup coach Wiepke Koekenberg, he began building his startup.
When Opportunity Strikes
Last week, Playground hosted its first collaborative session with as part of HU's . The initiative challenges HU's ICT students to work on technical projects for real clients — giving entrepreneurial ideas a chance to come alive. Several businesses and entrepreneurs pitched their ideas, and FAN, was one of the few projects chosen to move forward.
Hidde’s preparation clearly paid off. Students crowded around his pitch, asked questions, and ultimately selected FAN as one of the projects to develop further. He walked away with a team of six HU students ready to help bring his vision to life.
It's really cool, but also surreal. This all started with an idea during a university course, and now it’s an actual thing. I was familiar with different entrepreneurial frameworks before, but working them through with Wiepke really helped me build FAN. Wiepke also helped with connecteing me to HU. She shared my idea with their teachers, who found it both an interesting and feasible project for students to work on. This collaboration is a great, it keeps my startup lean, connects me to talent, and moves the startup forward on a low budget. With the HU students on board, we can now include vendors and sponsors into the app too! And just hearing I received a 1000 euro aid from PlayGrant to fund the HU project is amazing — it means we can bring in an external developer to guide the students and increase the project’s chances of success. Without Playground, this collaboration probably wouldn’t have happened.
Hidde also credits Playground Ambassador Kseniia Eremchuk and student debater for helping him nail his pitch:
I attended [their] For & By Students 'How to Pitch Like a Debater' workshop last term and learnt a technique called the principal imperative. It teaches you to establish common ground, explain the problem, its cause, why it matters, and how to solve it. I used this in my pitch today and I managed to get even more HU students interested in my project than I expected
What’s Next for FAN?
Over the coming months, Hidde and the HU team will be building the first version of FAN. But he’s also looking for more:
I’m looking for someone who can technically lead development, guide the student team, and take on the more complex tasks. Could you be my next co-founder and help bring FAN to life?
