The Amsterdam Dance Event 2025 programme is here, and the scale of it is genuinely staggering. Running from 21 to 25 October across hundreds of venues throughout Amsterdam, ADE celebrates its 30th anniversary with more than 1,000 events, more than 3,300 artists on the bill, and a lineup that stretches from sweaty club floors all the way to the Dutch National Ballet. This is the ADE five-day festival at its most ambitious, and there is a lot to get your head around.
The first wave of artist announcements, dropped back in June, already featured over 350 names spanning the full width of contemporary electronic music. Avalon Emerson, Jeff Mills, Jyoty, Eris Drew, Shanti Celeste, Helena Hauff, Octo Octa, MCR-T and ISAbella were among those confirmed early on. Since then the bill has kept growing, pulling in Donato Dozzy, Peach, Hunee, Anz, Midland, livwutang and Angel D’Lite, with no sign of slowing down. Skepta returns with an expanded version of his Más Tiempo show at Warehouse Elementenstraat, and KI/KI headlines two nights at Ziggo Dome with her five-hour show titled KI/KI 5 HOURS.
The guest of honour for ADE’s 30th year is Jean-Michel Jarre, who will give a keynote interview at ADE Pro and perform an opening concert at AFAS Live on 21 October. The timing is loaded: 2025 also marks the 50th anniversary of his landmark album Oxygène, so Jarre gets to look back across five decades of electronic music while ADE reflects on three of its own.
Beyond the club programme and ADE live performances, the festival has commissioned some genuinely ambitious special projects. Swan Lake Remixed at the Gashouder brings together Dutch National Ballet, Junior Company and ISH Dance Collective for a production that mixes classical ballet, hip-hop, electronic music and digital art, with music composed by Rik Ronner. At De Centrale Markthal, artist Boris Acket presents EINDER, an installation built around an 80-by-25-metre moving textile piece shaped by light, sound and fans. Its live programme includes the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on 21 October, followed by Elias Mazian and his live band the next night.
The 30 YEARS ADE Icon Series threads through the wider programme, selecting 30 events that connect electronic music’s history to its present and future across club culture, live music, performance and art. ADE Lab runs a three-day talent development programme for emerging producers alongside ADE Lab Discovery, a free Wednesday-to-Friday programme at Westerpark featuring open sessions, gear try-outs and cultural events. ADE Arts and Culture adds installations, exhibitions and interdisciplinary performances across the city, while ADE Pro explores electronic music scenes in Brazil, the MENA region and Sub-Saharan Africa among its focus subjects.
ADE and VibeLab are also launching the first Nighttime Culture Index, a new project measuring the cultural health of nightlife in Amsterdam, Lagos, New York, São Paulo, Seoul and Sydney. It is the kind of initiative that signals ADE thinking well beyond its own city limits. The full programme is live now at the official ADE website, and passes are available there too.
