Recommendations of the Editorial team
Amsterdam celebrated its 750th city anniversary in October with numerous activities and a large historical exhibition in a giant tent in the Museum Quarter. Praise for a self-confident seafaring and trading city that was able to leave its “footprint” in every century. The Amsterdam Suid administrative center, for example, with its glittering high-rise office buildings points to modern industries between fintechs, Booking.com and other platforms.
The avant-garde (new) film museum on the other bank of the IJ river speaks of the cultural power with which the immense flow of tourists is intended to be directed in a different direction. Away from the annoying drinking sprees in the red light district.
The Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), now the world’s largest platform for electronic music, has an impressive track record in the pop culture sector.
Amsterdam Dance Event is booming
On Monday (October 27th), the organizers reported a whopping 600,000 visitors, over 3,500 artists, more than 1,200 events over five days. The largest edition of the ADE to date, which in the early years was a rather fringe party with specifically Dutch baller sounds.
What began as a small industry conference in 1996 has grown into a phenomenon with a global presence. On the last day of the conference (October 25th), participants discussed the musical and social significance of sound systems in South Africa, Brazil and Bristol, England.
Over 300 venues invited people to an ambitious city rally between various historic palaces in the canal belt and branch locations, such as the ex-gasworks in Westerpark. The ex-hippie venues Melkweg and Paradiso, which have been playing for decades, were able to effortlessly catch up to modernity, for example with a wildly danced AfroBeat evening on Friday (October 24th).
Spontaneous dances in the supermarket
The program reflected the diversity and depth of the scene: Berlin’s KitKat club diva Stella Bossi played both at “Rave In The Church” and in a specially rented train that rumbled through the region on Friday night.
The Cologne label Kompakt around DJ Michael Mayer sailed on a boat through the harbor area for a few hours. In the Central Station branch of the “Albert Heijn” supermarket chain, a light blue DJ booth was set up between bananas and beer cans and the hurrying commuters were treated to firecracker beats, which led to spontaneous dances in the rows of shelves.
The local press spoke of “goosebumps moments” at events like “Praise” – the “black queer church” curated by Honey Dijon and Audio Obscura in the venerable Nieuwe Kerk. Or about monumental shows like “KlangKuenstler Outworld” in the huge Ziggo Dome or “Awakenings” in the new “SugarFactory” location.
Definitely too much to cover everything. At the same time, it was the small places – SkateCafe, Garage Noord, Klaproos, Lofi – where you could feel how close the underground and megalomania still are. Even in the hip “VolksHotel” (the former editorial building of the daily newspaper “De Volkskrant”) the “disco” lasted until six in the morning and the after hour on the seventh floor until eight.
AI, sustainability, fairness – and connection
In the conference part, ADE 2025 showed that electronic music has long been more than dull 4-to-the-floor beats. With the new professional conference location “Rosewood” and the move of the “ADE Lab” to the Westerpark Gasworks, new spaces for exchange and inspiration opened up.
Here, industry stars such as Skepta, KI/KI, Eris Drew, Chris Liebing, ANNA and many others met representatives from industry giants such as Google DeepMind, Epic Games, SoundCloud and Spotify to talk about the infamous intersections between creativity, technology and identity. It was about AI, sustainability and fairness – but also about what music is at its core: connection.
For the coming anniversary year, the organizers announced a further increase in the electric marathon between October 21st and 25th, 2026. But regardless of which names or places are on the Jubilee program, the conclusion remains the same: a city that dances – and a scene that never stands still.