Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE)

 

The ADE is the biggest festival for electronic Dance music in the world, in which also several venues in Reguliersdwarsstraat are participating.

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Program 2026

Reguliersdwarsstraat

In Reguliersdwarsstraat, the following venues have a special program for the ADE - click the name of the place for details about the performances:

Gay Dance Event (GDE)

At four venues across the city (including BLEND XL) there's a special programming under the name Gay Dance Event with a clear message against gender discrimination, racism and homophobia.

> More information: www.gay-dance-event.com

Elsewhere in Amsterdam

During the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) there are performances of over 3500 famous and upcoming DJ's from all over the world at more than 300 places all around the Amsterdam city center.

> All information: www.amsterdam-dance-event.nl.

History of the ADE

The Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) was created in 1995 when Richard Zijlma, together with the Conamus foundation, organized a meeting in a hotel at Vijzelgracht where DJs could license their tracks and artists could get acquainted with labels (the Conamus foundation was renamed in 2006 to Buma culture - not to be confused with the parent company, the copyright organization Buma/Stemra).

The first edition was a success and so in 1996 the second edition took place, with a conference in De Balie, followed by 30 performances for about 300 visitors in Paradiso, Escape and De Melkweg. In these early years, the event was able to build on the success of dance music in clubs such as the RoXY and the iT and subsequently fill the gap after their disappearance around the year 2000.

Growth since the year 2000

The Amsterdam Dance Event grew rapidly and was divided in two parts: the Conference and the Festival. During daytime there's the Conference where labels, music publishers, management companies, promoters, festivals and artists can come into contact with each other. In the evening there's the Festival, during which the public can enjoy DJ performances at countless locations.

In this way, the ADE grew into the world leading music conference in the field of electronic, urban and dance music. In 2004, more than 200 DJs and artists played in more than 20 clubs for about 25,000 visitors, in 2012 there were already 1700 artists, who performed at 75 large and small locations for more than 200,000 visitors.

New parts of the ADE

Sub-conferences have also been set up, such as ADE Green, ADE Beats and ADE University, and a special program was launched for music lovers, DJs and producers during the day under the name ADE Playground. A downer was when in 2014 three visitors died as a result of wrong drug use. Despite an extensive information campaign, another person died in 2015.

In addition to the official parts of the ADE, the Gay Dance Event (GDE) was founded in 2008 by Benjamin Aillery and Elliott Matos. Since then, an annual program has been provided at approximately ten ADE locations, which is specifically aimed at the LGBTQ+ community.

The ADE in Reguliersdwarsstraat

It seems that in 2010, the former Havana was the first venue in Reguliersdwarsstraat to participate in the Amsterdam Dance Event. During the next edition, this place was joined by café BLOC and The House of Rising. In 2012, Havana was succeeded by The Other Club, while the new bar Ludwig and for the first time the gay places Soho and club NYX also participated in the event.

Two years later, however, there were no ADE performances at the Soho anymore, while Bar Ludwig had been transformed into A l'Elephant du Congo. The restaurant/bars Rose's Cantina and La Cage had an ADE program for the first time in 2014, so since then four places in Reguliersdwarsstraat participated in the event.

In 2018, only club NYX officially participated, but the business association had decorated the western part of the street with balloons in the colors of the ADE.

Innovations at the ADE

A new part of the Conference is ADE Green, about achieving sustainability at musical events. Because sustainability has also been an important part of the Secret Village project in Reguliersdwarsstraat since 2016, project leader Tanja van der Knoop gave a presentation about these plans during ADE Green that year.

In 2018, the ADE foundation was separated from the Buma Cultuur foundation. At the same time, Richard Zijlma was succeeded as director by Mariana Sanchotene, who previously worked at ID&T, Stage Entertainment and Cirque du Soleil, but who left again after the ADE of 2019.

In 2020, all physical activities of the ADE had to be canceled due to the corona pandemic and there was only a limited online program. In 2021 the event could take place again, but all performances had to be moved to the day and the evening because nightlife venues were only allowed to remain open until midnight.




The 30th edition of the ADE took place in 2026, with no fewer than six venues on Reguliersdwarsstraat participating: Duke of Tokyo, club NYX, bar BLEND XL, and the WIHH Gallery in the western part of the street, along with café De Duivel and bar Bacán in the eastern part.

According to the organization, the 2026 edition of the ADE attracted the roughly same number of visitors as in 2025: 600,000. However, this number likely refers to the number of attendances of the more than 1,300 events. Since many visitors would have attended multiple events, the actual number of visitors is probably around 250,000.

Links

- Official website: www.amsterdam-dance-event.nl

- Social media: Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

- Gay Dance Event: www.gay-dance-event.com

- Wikipedia: Amsterdam Dance Event

- Gay News: GDE, the ADE little brother

- ADE 30 years history: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3