Walk the Amsterdam Dance Event programme this week and techno gets most of the real estate. Awakenings runs a five-day residency at SugarFactory, Drumcode lands Adam Beyer, Enrico Sangiuliano, Ilario Alicante and Kevin de Vries for one of the loudest single nights of the conference, and the hardest-edged programming gets most of the press. House and tech-house get one real answer this year, and it already sold out before the week started.
Why does Paradise matter inside an ADE built around techno?
Jamie Jones has spent fifteen years turning Paradise, the party he grew out of Hot Creations and built into a full residency at [UNVRS] in Ibiza, into the clearest brand name house and tech-house has left on the touring circuit. Bringing it to ADE as a one-off with Loveland is a statement: in a week where the biggest bookings skew techno, Paradise is the night promoters, bookers and touring DJs point to when they want proof the groove-led side of the scene still fills a warehouse. It sold out before the headline acts were even finalized on some listings.
What's actually on at Mediahaven on October 23?
The bill runs from 23:00 to 07:00 at Mediahaven, the warehouse venue in Amsterdam's Houthavens district that Loveland uses as its main ADE base. The marquee moment is a Jamie Jones b2b Seth Troxler set, flanked by Hot Since 82 and Manda Moor, the Paris-based Danish-Filipino DJ whose Hot Creations release 'Picante EP' hit the top of Beatport's house chart. The rest of the fifteen-name lineup, AJ Christou, Archie Hamilton, Easttown, Fifi Forte, Fleur Shore, Hidde van Wee, Joe Rolet, Olive F, Omar+, Prunk and Rooleh, fills the room across the night. Presale tickets started at 64.27 euros; by the time ADE opened, there were none left.
Jamie Jones has turned Paradise into the one name that still makes house and tech house feel like an event at a conference built around techno headliners.
Mediahaven doesn't go quiet after Friday either. Thursday night belonged to Mau P's own all-night 'Baddest Behaviour' session, also sold out, and Saturday hands the same room to '909 x Loveland' and Mind Against's 'Habitat', before Reinier Zonneveld closes the four-day run with an eight-hour live set on Sunday.
Where else should house and tech-house heads go this week?
The other unmissable ticket lands the same Friday night, a few kilometers away. Elrow's ninth ADE edition, 'Dance with the Serpent', takes over De Kromhouthal from 23:00 to 06:00 with Patrick Topping, Denis Sulta, Marco Faraone, Bastian Bux, Dan Shake and AAT, wrapped in the Austrian artist NYCHOS's serpent-themed stage design. It's the closest thing ADE has to a second Paradise this year, and it means Friday night in Amsterdam effectively forces a choice between two sold-out rooms for anyone chasing house and tech house over the week's techno anchors.
For a conference that still gets framed around its techno headliners, that's the real story: two different warehouses, the same night, both full, both betting on house and tech house over anything harder.
