ADE 2025

There’s something strangely comforting about watching the same city briefly transform into epicenter of global club culture every autumn.

A familiar yellow tension builds up in the days leading up to the city’s annual takeover - not by tourists, but by turntables, USBs, and the world’s most finely-tuned ears. Amsterdam, with its tight canals and wide-open nights, has been hosting this migration for decades now and the first lineup drop for Amsterdam Dance Event 2025 makes one thing clear: it’s grown more unpredictable, and more interesting every year.

Happening from October 22–26, ADE moves differently than most major events. It’s not a single space with one crowd, it’s hundreds of spaces, thousands of conversations, and far too many set times to ever catch them all. It’s business meetings over coffee in the morning, fringe label takeovers by night, and everything in between. This year’s early lineup announcement pulls from across the map: Black Coffee, Skepta, KI/KI, Job Jobse, Helena Hauff, Clara Cuvé, and Klangkuenstler, among others, lead a bill that draws from techno’s raw end, house’s smoother lines, and scenes that don’t quite fit either box.

Black Coffee’s name has become shorthand for a certain kind of polished, emotionally rich sound, but his solo date at Ziggo Dome hints at a broader ambition. Skepta’s move into house music continues, with his Mas Tiempo label showcase landing at Shelter. Once seen as an outlier in club circles, he now sits comfortably in the lineup - not as a guest, but as part of the furniture.

The local heavy-hitters are holding their ground, too. Job Jobse returns with a rare four-hour slot at Hemkade, a welcome contrast to the quick-change chaos of festival programming. Dave Clarke, who could’ve easily stepped back by now, instead marks two decades of his long-running series with a proper throwdown, a proof that consistency still matters, even in a scene that often moves faster than its own memory.

Lower on the poster, there’s plenty worth paying attention to. Artists like Eris Drew, Octo Octa, and NIKS continue to center connection and careful selection over spectacle, without losing the energy that keeps a room moving. DVS1, Planetary Assault Systems, and Robert Hood bring grit and focus, grounding the week in sounds that don’t follow fashion but still manage to feel current.

What ADE tends to do better than most is stack the familiar next to the quietly essential. You’ll see chart-friendly names like James Hype and Oliver Heldens on the same run as deeper selectors like SPFDJ, CCL, or Helena Lauwaert. These worlds might not fully collide, but they share the same infrastructure for a few days - and sometimes that’s enough to spark something new.

As always, the city itself plays co-host. The venues matter. Ziggo Dome offers scale and spectacle, while spots like Shelter and Gashouder serve up tighter, darker rooms where the sound can breathe differently. ADE has always been more than a list of lineups, it's also about how those lineups are framed, and the spaces they fill. Even with over 200 venues in play, the event never feels bloated - just stretched, in a way that leaves room to find your own path.

What makes ADE stand out, especially in a festival calendar packed with repetition, isn’t just the bookings. It’s the feeling that this is where things shift, not with headlines, but with late-night conversations, unexpected back-to-backs, or a track played at the wrong place and time that somehow works. It’s one of the few places where modular techno at noon and big-room house at midnight don’t clash - they connect. Not because anyone planned it that way, but because here, it just makes sense.

‍

‍

‍_{Words: Zvjezdana Lastre for Ibiza Live Radio}