The origins of Amsterdam’s carnival
As most of you must have noticed, Amsterdam Dance Event happened last week. This always means a week full of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll (or in this case, electronic music). I thought it might be fun to dive into the history of ADE, to give myself and you a crash course understanding of these crazy five days in Amsterdam.
While it might sound unbelievable, ADE’s first edition did not include yellow flags all over the city, and thousands of people flying to Amsterdam for the weekend. ADE started as a tiny get-together in a hotel, with about 30 DJs. Richard Zijlma organised it so DJs could licence their tracks and network with music labels. There were no performances or festivals involved–who could have imagined! This casual get-together grew into a proper one-day conference in De Balie, followed by 30 performances in Paradiso, De Melkweg, and Club Escape, attended by approximately 300 visitors in 1996. From 1997 onwards it turned into a two to three-day conference, taking over more locations in Amsterdam, such as De Brakke Grond, DeLaMar theatre, RoXY, and de iT.
These last two have been of great importance in Amsterdam’s electronic scene. The mythical RoXY is considered to be the nursery of Dutch house music, with resident DJs such as Eddy de Clerq and Joost van Bellen. The club was known for its theatrical performances, with beautifully extravagant decors and outfits, often curated by Pieter Giele. If you want to get a better understanding of these beautiful performances, google the Love Balls of the RoXY. These benefit performances (which were my first encounter with the RoXY), raised money for the AIDS fund through exhibiting works from very well-known fashion designers and artists. It was one of the things that made the RoXY internationally famous.
As well as the RoXY, the iT became a notorious queer club, mixing house/techno with theatrical performances. However, the iT was more focused on the art of dance, often in relation to drag. Its inside consisted of many small podia which allowed visitors the chance to dance as freely as possible. There aren’t many days that go by that I don't think about these spaces, and the freedom and culture they must have offered. The light these clubs shone on the Dutch electronic music scene, as well as their fashion and (visual) art, is still so relevant to this day and was of significant help during ADE’s starting years.
Unfortunately, the RoXY burned down in 1999 due to the use of fireworks in the club, in honour of Pieter Giele’s funeral. The iT closed permanently in 2004. In other words, an immense gap formed in Amsterdam’s electronic scene. This gave ADE the opportunity to solidify their brand even further, and in the process shape Amsterdam’s electronic music scene. By 2004 the conference expanded to around 25.000 attendees and 300 DJs–a banging 840% increase. In 2012 it became a five-day event, and nowadays Amsterdam Dance Event has about 500.000 visitors and numerous DJs visiting from all around the world.
Yes, ADE is an event unlike others in the world, but that doesn’t make it all flowers and sunshine–or sweaty basements and heavy basslines. ADE is heavily commercialising the electronic music culture in Amsterdam. While the government is giving less and less funding to creative spaces, especially those hosting minorities and creating “outskirt” art (think about ADM, De Valreep, De Trouw, etc.), ADE happily received €175.000 euros during 2020-2024. Not to mention how expensive attending ADE is! A regular club night during ADE will at least cost you 20 bucks. Most festivals such as Awakenings, DGTL and Intercell ask around €75 euros per ticket. All the Uber prices double or triple during this week, and I’m not even mentioning drink prices–which I’ve seen as high as €6 (!!!) euros for a small beer.
There is a golden ticket, better known as an ADE pro pass. However, this pass will cost you a whopping €700 euros. In all the years I have attended ADE, which have been many as I was born and raised in Amsterdam, I have never met someone who bought such a golden ticket. Most people get it for free. However, don’t be naive like me and think these passes go to people that actually work in the scene as a DJ or a sound engineer. No, one of the lucky golden ticket owners I know simply works in the ADAM tower (for a jingle company!), and thus gets a pro pass free of charge. Another one does the marketing of De Helling, a club in Utrecht. Others go to influencers, or companies ADE wants to work with. Don’t mistake me for bitter (a little jealous maybe), I just don’t see the way in which these passes maintain ADE’s original objective. In my experience, they are vastly used for getting into parties, while there is little mingling and licensing of tracks involved (maybe because the owners aren’t even DJs anymore, lol). The passes have become a physical product that shows ADE has evolved into a money machine, which most people only attend to take a bunch of drugs and listen to whichever DJ is designated as cool that year.
Fortunately, there are organisations objecting to this side of ADE, such as ADEV (Amsterdam Danst Ergens Voor - Amsterdam Dances For Something). It’s a parade that starts at Dam Square and makes its way to another location in Amsterdam, this year it went to Westerpark. The parade began as a critique on the commercialization and the lack of variety that ADE brings. The parties became too expensive to attend but also became uninteresting (for some) as there were little to no parties playing dubstep, DNB/jungle, or hardstyle. Nowadays, this problem has (luckily) been solved partly. There are still little to no gabber parties, however, dubstep and DNB have become more frequent.
The parade still happens every year though, with a focus on the lack of support for creative spaces, and the housing crisis. Creative spaces have always marked the cultural landscape of Amsterdam. They used to exist within the city centre, De Pijp, Staatsliedenbuurt, and in Oost. However, due to the lack of time and economic support given by the government (I think they just don’t like us), these places have been pushed out of the city under the guise of a lack of space and a housing crisis. But apparently, the city can still make space for half a million (!!) ADE visitors?
This year ADEV focused on the right to protest and had a nice little balaclava fashion show in protest of the ban on face coverings in Amsterdam. So, if you missed ADEV this year, I highly recommend going next year, as it gives a great visual of different forms of counterculture, and it shows dance culture is a form of social activism. And even though the rest of ADE might appear to be Amsterdam’s heavily commercialised version of carnival, I do think there is still so much cool stuff to see. An example is the time Jeff Mills (one of techno’s pioneers from Detroit) imprisoned himself in Rembrandt’s House for a couple of days to compose and produce new tracks, inspired by Rembrandt’s painting Philosopher in Meditation. He wasn’t the first DJ to do so, Jamie XX did it the year before him, however, seeing Jeff Mills compose in such a culturally important place is incredibly unique. Or STOOR live, which also happened this year, where 5 DJs are simultaneously improvising, which is composed into one big set by Speedy J. So, my tip for next year is to dig deep into what ADE has to offer, spend some money (or probably a lot, nothing is cheap nowadays), and gain some great experiences only ADE offers.
As for me, I had a lot of fun this weekend. I was lucky enough to hear some great DJs spin and learned something from their skills. Various sweaty basements were entered, smelling of beer and ketamine–not sure if it was the room or myself. My leg muscles were sore after all the toilets I squatted on. And some peeps trying to finish runs for the Amsterdam marathon had a good laugh running into me while I was biking home. So, to end this little history lesson, I have written a little poem in honour of ADE(V):
De stad kleurt geel
En terwijl de vlaggen wapperen
En de flyers door de stad fladderen
Razen de toeristen voorbij op (fat)bikes
Ook de nacht kleurt geel
Door de lasers
En de gouden ADE pro-passen
Terwijl de piskrullen worden versierd, ADEV stijl
De lijnen tussen dag en nacht vervagen
Door de marathon renners die de ravers tegenkomen
Door de lijnen die worden gelegd in toiletten
In huizen, en op de dansvloer
Ik herinner mij de lachende gezichten
De bezwete dansende lichamen
De rijen voor de toilet
De spanning in de rij, kom ik wel binnen?
Maar ik herinner mij ook de massa bij ADEV
De mensen die door de poorten van Ruigoord
Zo de Dam op waren gereden
De mensen die het oude Amsterdam missen
Ik hoop dat jij alleen het geluk kan herinneren
De goede platen
De intieme momenten met vreemden
En de twinkelende gele ADE lantaarn
Want dan herinner je, je ADE nog als iets moois
In plaats van een uitgeholde versie
