Ten Things We Learned at ADE 2016
It’s Tuesday October 25th and the 21st edition of Amsterdam Dance Event ended less than 48 hours ago.
The whirlwind five-day conference and club festival was a marathon to say the least and for me, as a first time attendee of the conference itself (rather than just club events), a lesson on the power, scope and influence of ADE in today’s music industry. From Wednesday October 19th onwards until the early hours of Monday morning, the city of Amsterdam was entirely dedicated to the iteration of ADE, selling out the conference for the tenth consecutive year and breaking all sorts of records, totaling 550 speakers, over 2,200 artists in more than 140 venues, 1,000 events and approximately 375,000 visitors.
Life & Death at Thuishaven. Photo courtesy of Joris Bisschops
After attending several conferences and workshops, interviewing artists and networking with agents and publicists as well as attending nine different parties, I flew away from Amsterdam with absolutely no doubt of my intention to return in 2017, and with a few important lessons learned along the way:
