The UNTOLD 2026 line-up is online. Somewhere among the two hundred names is mine: DJ Jack Orange, Thursday 6 August, Tram Stage, 20:45 to 21:45. On exactly the same calendar date, four years ago, I stood there for the first time.
The sixth of August, twice
On 6 August 2022 I played the Time Stage, from 18:00 to 20:30, together with Will Johnston. What I wrote about it myself at the time, when the booking came through:
"Filed under 'dreams come true': on Saturday 6 August I get to play festival UNTOLD as Jack Orange, together with Will Johnston. We are allowed completely off the leash on the Time stage, from 18:00 to 20:30."
A week earlier I had put it more soberly: "it is a small step up from playing hits at tennis clubs to full-throttle tech house at UNTOLD." That was accurate. I came from a tennis club on the Jaagpad where I was the leaseholder myself, and suddenly I was at one of the biggest festivals in Europe.
Now it is 6 August 2026. Same date, a different stage, and a completely different story about how I end up there.
What the Tram Stage is
The Tram Stage is exactly what the name promises: a stage built inside a real tram. It is not the main stage in Cluj Arena, and it is not meant to be. It is the place for local and regional DJs, across every genre. Small and close, and honest because of it: there is no production to paper over your mistakes.
For me that is exactly the right place. I am at my best in long sets where the build is in my own hands - I prefer to do the warm-up myself.
One hour. That is shorter than what I usually get booked for - normally two hours or more, and I am at my best in long sets where the build is in my own hands. So when the times came in, my first reaction was that I had homework to do: in sixty minutes everything you have to say has to fit, without sounding rushed. A good challenge.
The part nobody sees
Something changed between 2022 and now. In 2022 I arrived as a DJ and left as a DJ. Since then I have been there every year - but wearing a different hat.
UNTOLD 2026 will be my fifth edition as a television producer. Together with the Dance TV team we build the live broadcast: the picture that travels from the festival site to people's living rooms, in the Netherlands via KPN and Ziggo among others. The technology behind it comes from Viewcast, the company where I am CEO.
This is my wrist on a festival day. Three bands at the same time: CREW, PRESS and ARTIST. That is not a collection - that is the job. I need to be able to get where the crew goes, where the press goes and where the artists go, because at a festival I am all three.
Five years of UNTOLD, in short
- 2022 - Time Stage, 6 August, together with Will Johnston
- 2022 to 2025 - four editions as producer of the live broadcast for Dance TV
- 2026 - Tram Stage on 6 August, 20:45-21:45, and the fifth edition behind the scenes
Why that matters
I do not know another DJ who plays a festival and builds its broadcast at the same time. I have no idea whether it makes me a better DJ. What it does do: I know exactly what the artist feels when the sound drops out, and I know exactly what the viewer at home sees when the picture goes black.
Those turn out to be two completely different problems. Most people in this business only solve one of them.
6 to 9 August
UNTOLD 2026 is called UNTOLD ONE and is the eleventh edition: 6 to 9 August in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. More than two hundred acts across eight stages. I am on Thursday 6 August at the Tram Stage, from 20:45 to 21:45.
Four years ago it was "dreams come true". Now it is simply work - and that may well be the nicest thing there is to say about it.
