ADE marks 30 years with more than 1,500 artists confirmed for 2026

Thirty years changes the meaning of an event. What began in 1996 now occupies Amsterdam at a scale that makes the distinction between festival, conference and cultural gathering increasingly difficult to maintain. For its 2026 edition, Amsterdam Dance Event is leaning into that position.

ADE has revealed the second wave of its anniversary programme, bringing the number of confirmed artists and DJs beyond 1,500 ahead of the event’s return from October 21 to 25.

Âme, Angel D’lite, Bad Boombox, BASHKKA, Ben Klock, CARISTA, DJ Stingray 313, Eric Prydz, HAAi, Hunee, Kittin & The Hacker, Maceo Plex, Max Cooper, Miss Monique, Narciss, Paul Kalkbrenner, Scooter and Todd Terry are among the latest additions. By October, the complete programme is expected to exceed 3,300 artists across more than 200 venues throughout Amsterdam.

Scale, however, only tells part of the story. The anniversary edition continues ADE’s gradual movement into spaces where electronic music meets other disciplines. Boris Acket will present the installation EINDER, while Het Nationale Ballet and ISH Dance Collective open the event with Swan Lake Remixed. Dome Concerts will extend from ARTIS Planetarium into Fabrique des Lumières, with Max Cooper and Colin Benders among the artists involved, while the ARTIS Aquarium enters the programme with an immersive 4DSOUND experience.

Club culture remains at the centre. Gashouder will host shows including Eric Prydz, Armin van Buuren b2b Benwal, Job Jobse and MOCHAKK CALLING. Paul Kalkbrenner takes his live show to Theater Amsterdam with Loveland, while Scooter will occupy Ziggo Dome for SCOOTER CRUSHES ADE. Elsewhere, Awakenings returns with eight shows, SPIELRAUM takes over Club RAUM for 55 hours, and Audio Obscura spreads more than 40 artists across multiple events.

The conference programme is looking just as deliberately toward electronic music’s next phase. Jean-Michel Jarre and Lady Starlight will discuss music and machines, while Marcel Dettmann joins Luciano for a conversation shaped by more than three decades in electronic music. AI receives its own artist-led roundtable, with Boys Noize, BT, Dave Clarke, Mathame and Portrait XO, alongside sessions involving SoundCloud, Google DeepMind, Believe, Warner Music and manager Troy Carter.

There is a certain symmetry to ADE discussing artificial intelligence, new artist economies and the future of music during its 30th year. Since 1996, the gathering has watched electronic music move from a network of scenes into a global cultural and commercial infrastructure. ADE grew inside that transition, and eventually became one of the places where its different worlds regularly collide.

The anniversary is therefore less a retrospective than a measure of how much territory electronic music now occupies. Thirty years later, Amsterdam remains the meeting point. The conversation around it has simply become much larger.