The Main Stage

The Main Stage display was planned and constructed by the artist Amir Chodorov – the initiator and director of the memorial site – together with his partners in creating the memorial exhibits at the site, Jojo Rabia and Yohai Rivlin. The story of the display is presented to you from Amir’s personal point of view.

The Main Stage, which rises to a height of five and a half meters, was designed to highlight the intensity, warmth and love that characterized the party community. In contrast to the blackness associated with memorial monuments, I chose to have it covered with all the colors of the rainbow – from sunrise to sunset tones, out of a deep desire to commemorate the beauty, colorfulness and joy of life that filled the plaza, until the moment when the music ended.

The stage features works painted by murdered artists, alongside works created in the memory of those who were killed. It unites the memory of key figures in the production and music of the three parties that took place in the South on October 7: the Nova Festival, the Mushroom Project and the PsyDuck Party.

In memory of the production and music people who are commemorated on the Main Stage:

Matan (Kido) Elmalem – One of the producers of the Nova Festival and the head DJ.

Matan Mordechai Lior – One of the producers of the Nova Festival and the head of Sound.

Michael and Osher Vaknin – Twin brothers, producers of the Mushroom Project.

Yuval Rabia – DJ at the PsyDuck Party.

To create out of a sense of longing

A large painting, seven meters long, stands in the front of the stage – a work born out of a personal story of pain, hope and revival. Matan Lior’s sister Hila had told me that their mother Sarah, a gifted artist, had stopped painting since that Shabbat when Matan, one of the Nova Festival producers, was murdered. Wanting to return the brush to her hand, I brought a canvas specially adapted to the dimensions of the display to her studio. When she found it difficult to imagine herself returning to creative work, I replied simply: “We have all the time in the world.” The powerful and colorful work that now stands at the heart of the stage was created and formed out of her grief and longing, over the course of four months.

The spirit of memory and creativity is intertwined in every part of the structure: on the back of the display, artist Aviel Ziv has created a graffiti piece depicting sunrise and sunset, in memory of his murdered friends; the piece complements the stage’s language of both color and longing. But beyond the idea and the art, the display came to life thanks to dedicated manual labor. The structure itself and the concrete surface (about 200 square meters) were built by Jojo Rabia, father of the late Yuval Rabia, and by Yohai Rivlin, using their own hands, over a period of four months, and according to the sketches and planning that I prepared. With their work, they cast foundations of memory, love and revival.

This stage, which was built out of love and longing, symbolizes the moral value of “love your neighbor as yourself,” and the beauty of the lives that were cut short. Because of the deep meaning that was cast within it, the Main Stage was chosen to serve as the official stage at the central memorial ceremony held at the site on October 8, 2025, in the presence of the President of the State of Israel.

The PsyDuck Party

Psyduck is a trance party production group that was established in 2018 and grew out of a cohesive community of friends, which gave its events an intimate and familial character. On October 6, 2023, the production held a nature party in the area between Nirim and Nir Oz, which continued into the morning of October 7 and was hit by the terrorist attack.

The Psyduck community – born out of friendship, music and love – continues to carry in its heart the memory and stories of all those who were murdered.