The XXX key visual marking 30 years · © Amsterdam Dance Event
30th
edition
1000+
events
21 → 25
October · Amsterdam
Thirty years of a whole city turning into a club
Every autumn, Amsterdam stops pretending to be a normal city. For five days, concert halls, dockside warehouses, deconsecrated churches, canal boats and even a former prison fill up with soundsystems. The Amsterdam Dance Event celebrates its thirtieth edition from 21 to 25 October 2026, and the numbers are still dizzying: over a thousand events across two hundred venues, doubled with a pro conference that gathers half the global electronic industry between two meetings.
The real problem with ADE has never been finding something to do. It's knowing where to look. So we played the game: if Phat & Phurious landed in Amsterdam this year, these are the dates we'd have circled. UK garage, bass house, drum'n'bass, speed garage. Five days, one throughline: the low end. Some of them overlap, and that's fine: these are suggestions, not a military timetable. Build your own from them.
A thousand events, five nights. We're not asking you to do all of it, just to know where to look.
The calendar, day by day
Door times, not set times: the exact slot for each artist is usually confirmed in the final week. “Sold out” = no tickets left on direct sale at the time of writing; the official resale is still an option.
The detail, day by day
Wednesday 21 October · Bass Related, starting with what matters
First night, and for us it's already the most important date of the week. Merow brings back Bass Related, the night she programmes herself around a single obsession: the bottom of the spectrum. The Dutch producer, Megan Nelemaat on her passport, released her debut EP BASS RELATED VOL. 1 on STMPD RCRDS, Martin Garrix's label, and on it she does precisely what we stand for here: dark, front-footed bass house shot through with UK garage. Vluarr joins her.
Why does it matter so much to us? Because bass house spends its life being squeezed between tech house on one side and big-room EDM on the other, and very few people build it a whole night of its own. Merow does, she does it under her own name, and she does it during the most competitive week of the year. Opening your ADE there rather than at a generic launch party isn't a detail. It's a position.
Thursday 22 October · UKG takes the docks, nimino takes the Melkweg
The day happens north of the IJ. DGTL starts its week at the NDSM Warehouse, a converted shipyard, from 17:00 to 23:00. The bill is a statement of intent: DJ EZ, a living legend of London garage, Dr Dubplate & Locky, and above all MPH, one of the names pushing UKG furthest right now. Six hours of 2-step in a steel hangar, bass bouncing off the metal: that's very much our definition of a good day out.
At 19:30 the temperature changes. nimino plays the Melkweg, another face of the spectrum: his productions work melancholy and space rather than impact, with textures that breathe. After an afternoon of sub at NDSM it's the perfect counterpoint, and if the two overlap by an hour, so be it: both belong on the list.
Friday 23 October · Monstercat in the afternoon, two big rooms after dark
Friday starts off the official programme, and that's often where the best stories hide. More Bass More Good sets up at Oliva Amsterdam, 14:00 to 20:00, on the fringes of ADE: an off-party announcing its biggest bill to date. And that's only phase one. RetroVision and Guy Arthur lead it, joined by Fairlane, Tantron and Maze x Trinist.
The detail that makes it: both headliners released ALLNIGHT together on Monstercat. Frenchman RetroVision has been working future house for years; Poland's Guy Arthur, formerly ak9 and a veteran of STMPD, NCS and Gud Vibrations, pushes a groovier, more melodic bass house. Catching them back to back on a Friday afternoon in a human-sized room is exactly what the official programme doesn't give you.
After dark, two rooms open at almost the same hour and we're putting both on the table. On one side the Gashouder, where Mochakk brings his CALLING show from 23:00 to 06:00 with MPH among ISAbella, Juliana X and Solarce Brothers. On the other the Melkweg, where Rampage, the Belgian outfit behind Europe's biggest drum'n'bass weekender at Antwerp's Sportpaleis, teams up with Monstercat from 23:30 to 06:00.
The Rampage bill delivers: Zomboy headlining with Mefjus as special guest, flanked by Arcando, Murdock, FMS, Layz, Odilia and Elle Rich. On paper it's a wide gap between Zomboy's Americanised dubstep and Mefjus's surgical neurofunk. In practice, it's the kind of collision that makes a night memorable, provided you accept that those six hours won't be spent sitting down.
Two moods, two crowds, and a neat throughline if you carry on from Oliva: Monstercat from 14:00 to sunrise without ever leaving the city. The Gashouder leans house and club, the Melkweg leans wall-of-bass. Both hold up. Your call.
Saturday 24 October · Speed garage by day, UKG all night
Saturday is where ADE brings out the heavy artillery. From 14:00, Intercell and Skin On Skin take over Levenslang until 22:00 for an ADE By Day cut for speed garage and techno. The moment we're aiming at: Oppidan b2b camoufly, a back-to-back worth the trip on its own, flanked by EYCEE, Ned Bennett and THELMA. Fair warning: it's already sold out.
At night, head for the Gashouder, that circular former gasworks, one of the finest rooms in Europe, which hands the keys to Sammy Virji. From 23:00 to 06:00 he shapes the entire bill: Riria, SAIDAH, Sam Alfred and Rossi join him for a Sammy Virji Curates that sums up the UK garage renaissance all by itself. Sold out a while back, obviously.
Eight hours of speed garage in daylight, seven hours of UKG after dark: if one day had to justify the trip, it would probably be this one.
Sunday 25 October · Closing inside a former prison
It needed a finale to match. Interplanetary Criminal plays 14:00 to 22:00 at Bajes, literally a former remand prison turned into a club by the Levenslang collective. The Mancunian producer, head of ATW Records and one of the people most responsible for speed garage returning to European dancefloors, has booked only this one date across the whole of ADE.
UK garage in cells, on a Sunday afternoon, as a full stop: hard to find anything more in line with what we stand for here. Sold out again: the official resale is all that's left for the patient.
One last thing
This roadmap is an admitted fantasy: we won't be in Amsterdam this year. But building an ADE schedule remains one of the best ways to take a scene's temperature, and the 2026 reading says something clear. UK garage and speed garage are no longer a niche defended in basements: they fill the Gashouder, they open DGTL's days, they sell out whole rooms before the lineups are even fully announced.
If you're going, two habits that change everything: tickets go weeks in advance (half of this selection is already gone), and an ADE Pass never replaces a ticket for the big nights. Grab a bike, budget thirty minutes between venues, and accept that you'll miss things. That's the game.
And if you catch one of these sets, tell us about it. We read everything.