The Amsterdam Dance Event has grown immensely over the past 18 years. Starting out with only thirty DJs and three venues in 1996, the festival has now grown to include 115 clubs and venues, 300 individual events, and 317 speakers.

However, with news coming about this years instalment we can surely confirm Amsterdam Dance Event 2013 was bigger and better than it has ever been before. In its entirety it’s just as much a festival as it is a conference and networking opportunity for a number of dance music professionals from around the world.

The eighteenth edition of the Amsterdam Dance Event attracted a record, 300,000 fans who had the opportunity to see 2,156 different artists at over 300 events in 115 different venues. We can attest that the scale and scope of the event, although at times overwhelming, was an honest and creative interpretation of the global dance music culture in 2013.

The ADE Conference series ran alongside the main festival, providing a networking destination for 5,000 electronic music industry professionals featuring 317 speakers including Nile Rodgers, Richie Hawtin, Kyle Hopkins (Microsoft/Xbox), Duncan Stutterheim (ID&T), Shelly Finkel (SFX), amongst others.

The festival, which took place from October 16 – 20, also hosted the ADE Playground, which covers all things related to electronic music lifestyle including film, art and software and hardware pop-up events.

Performances were seen from notable artists such as Carl Cox, Calvin Harris, Pete Tong, Hardwell, Mark Knight and Tiesto, all of which saw remarkable number of attendees.

With the prodigious success of this year’s edition, we’re surely excited to see what the next few years will bring!