This week Amsterdam is all about beats and business during Amsterdam DanceEvent (ADE). In dark clubs, techno DJs such as KI/KI and Charlotte de Wittewill let the music rage hard: now that the dance floor is open again, louderand faster seems to be the motto. The bpm (beats per minute) goes up and thefists are in the air. Trance – the melodic genre with which Tiësto caused afurore in the 1990s and which was then considered uncool for years – is nowmaking a comeback. At his own Trance Party, English DJ Evian Christ willintroduce a new generation of clubbers to trance pioneers Klubbheads, andyoung artists like Himera will showcase their new, harder, uninhibited visionof trance.
ADE is a festival, business conference and networking event in one: itconsists of more than a thousand parties, panels, speeches and workshops,spread over about two hundred locations in the city, with 2500 artists andspeakers. The organization expects about 450,000 visitors this year.
It is no coincidence that one of the largest business events of the danceindustry takes place in the Netherlands worldwide. The Netherlands has been aleading country in the genre for years. Buma Cultuur, the foundation involvedin the international promotion of Dutch music and co-organizer of ADE, reportsthat dance music accounted for 154 million euros in export value in 2019. TheNetherlands also scores well in the DJ Mag Top 100, a British list of the mostpopular DJs in the world: last year half of the top ten consisted of Dutchartists.
Nevertheless, in the years before corona there was a small contraction in theDutch market share of the dance industry worldwide, according to research by_RTL News_ , which compared the Dutch export figures of Buma Cultuur withindustry reports from International Music Summit (IMS), a dance conference inIbiza. In the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, the Dutch market share increasedaccording to the calculation of RTL News from 10 to 9 to 8.5 percent.
You now see that more suppliers are emerging in other countries. They keep> getting better and are often cheaper.
According to Frank Helmink, director of Buma Cultuur, this does notnecessarily mean that the Dutch dance business is declining: “I do not havethe figures for 2021 yet, I cannot say much about them yet, but you can seethat the dance market globally is not yet at its peak. The Dutch share may besmaller, but below the bottom line it may not be that bad.” The overall marketis growing: according to the IMS Business Report, sales and streaming ofelectronic music increased by 32 percent in 2021. The Dutch market may justnot grow at the same rate.
Local artists
Helmink does see trends that can weigh in on that shrinking market share: “Yousee that everyone has started to focus on local artists during corona time.This applies to the Netherlands, but also to America and China, for example.Wherever events could still be organized, local acts were booked more often.The question is how much effect that will have on the Dutch figures abroad.”
Allan Hardenberg, who has been internationally active in the dance industryfor more than ten years as director of concert promoter ALDA, sees theposition of the Netherlands also changing: “Five years ago I called theNetherlands the Silicon Valley of dance. Everything came from here: the DJs,but also the stage builders, the marketers, the lighting technicians. You nowsee that more suppliers are emerging in other countries. They are gettingbetter and better and are often cheaper.” ADE director Meindert Kennis alsonotices that a shift has taken place at the Dutch suppliers: “Many people havestarted doing different work during the corona period, they do not just comeback.”
Yet his co-director Jan-Willem van de Ven also sees a positive remnant fromthe corona period: “During corona there was an enormous need to come togetheragain, a need for self-expression and self-discovery. That’s what nightculture does. Everyone is more aware of that now.”
This week, during Amsterdam Dance Event, hundreds of thousands of visitorswill again gather in clubs and on festival grounds in the city. They come toparty, to network, and to discover new trends. This year, for example, therise of artificial intelligence is striking; for example, Don Diablo (numberseven in the DJ Mag Top 100 of 2021) talks to an AI-generated version ofhimself. Van de Ven: “Bar Borisov also has an artificial intelligenceshowcase, where a DJ will remix himself using AI.”
There is also a lot of attention for African music and in particular foramapiano, a house genre from South Africa. According to the IMS BusinessReport, amapiano is one of the fastest growing genres of the past year, andthis is reflected in ADE’s program with DJs such as Philou Louzoulo andCharisse C.
Export value
What can the Netherlands do to safeguard its strong international position indance? A position that, emphasizes Helmink, also has financial advantages:“Dance is not only of cultural importance, it is also an industry thatgenerates money. In recent years, about three quarters of the export value ofDutch music has always consisted of dance.”
According to Van de Ven, care is needed to maintain this value: “We have to becareful with our maternity rooms. This is about stimulating both small clubsand large venues, but also providing subsidies and training new people.”
Helmink also mentions the importance of innovation: „I can make a directcomparison with the musical corner where I come from, the metal: theheadliners have been the same for years. Metallica, Slayer and Iron Maiden areall from the last century.” Dutch dance superstars Tiësto and Armin van Buurenhave been successful since the 1990s. “The new growth must be stimulated.”
“Dance is in our DNA,” says Hardenberg. “For more than twenty-five years, weare one of the first in the world to do something with dance in theNetherlands. Now a new generation of twenty-somethings has to stand up and beinnovative. We have to make room for that.”