Author: Festival Insights

NETHERLANDS: The Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), one of the world’s leading events for electronic music, will take place from October 18 – 22 2017. The organisers are expecting around 375,000 national and international visitors for the 22nd edition. ADE, an initiative of Buma, is the world’s largest club-based festival and conference for electronic music. The event continues to grow and develop each year, with last year’s edition featuring over 2,200 artists and 550 speakers in a record-breaking 140 venues. “Amsterdam is the centre of the global electronic music scene during ADE, a hotbed for cultural and technological innovation. It’s amazing…

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Reece Miller is the Director of We Are FSTVL, the UK Festival Award-winning dance festival which has just added camping for its fastest selling year to date. Here he discusses how to make your festival campsites as hospitable as possible. In terms of our ambitions, We Are FSTVL has always planned on making the transition from a single-day festival to a full camping weekender. The basic nature of each respective event type is very different: one a long and special but limited day event, whereas the more successful shows with camping become a real holiday with your best mates and…

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FRANCE: The relatively nomadic Nuits Sonores festival has announced a change in venue for its main site in 2017. Since the early days of the festival, its promoter Arty Farty has conducted – in collaboration with the Lyon based architecture studio LFA (Looking For Architecture) and the lighting designer Yves Caizergues – substantial work on the architecture and aesthetic of Nuits Sonores’ main sites. The visual atmosphere of the festival has always been one of its priorities, leading to an extensive exploration of its hometown’s many unique spaces. Over the past 15 years, Nuits Sonores has already moved to, among…

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MEXICO / COLOMBIA: The Social Festival will bring its quintessential house and techno offering to the thriving dance music district of Mexico City at the colossal Arena Ciudad de México and Bogotá, Colombia from March 17 – 18. Mirroring the success of his UK festival portfolio that currently consists of The Social and The Winter Social, Nic Fanciulli’s vision to take the brand worldwide will come to light in the new year – just five years since the brand’s inception. To celebrate the move, the Saved Records boss has enlisted his good friend and Space Ibiza Closing partner in crime…

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SOUTH KOREA: With the opening of an office in Seoul, BigCityBeats will be working with the city of Incheon and Incheon Tourist Organisation in South Korea to deliver the first World Club Dome to be held in Asia. The festival will be held at the 500,000-m² site of the Incheon Munhak Stadium. The Munhak stadium is a state-of-the-art sports complex that was built for the 2002 FIFA World Cup and will be modified to host the ‘biggest club in Asia’, for a single weekend in 2017. In an emulation of the BigCityBeats World Club Dome in Frankfurt, this event will…

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WORLDWIDE: MelodyVR and Warner Music Group have announced a worldwide partnership for virtual reality content creation. With the VR sector growing at an exponential rate, this groundbreaking global deal will see MelodyVR and WMG release hundreds of cutting edge virtual reality experiences featuring artists from the company’s roster. The VR content production and distribution framework will see both recorded and live immersive experiences released via Melody’s VR Music Platform. The interactive virtual reality experiences, designed to bring artists and fans closer together than ever before, will provide users with otherwise unobtainable experiences, such as being onstage at a sold out…

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UK: John Young, former Head of Technical Services at Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), has partnered with training specialist Gallowglass to produce a ‘Top 20’ suite of training courses for technical staff in the entertainment and events industries. A specialist trainer in venue and production management, Young left ATG last year to set up his own project management and training consultancy, John Young Creative Industries. He has also been leading the advisory group working towards the Creative Venue Technician Trailblazer apprenticeship framework, designed for budding technicians in the live performance and screen industries. Taking on the lead role at Gallowglass Training,…

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Since its creation in 1994, Airstar has been a world leader in designing and producing inflatable technologies across various industries – from lighting to aerospace and architecture. From the very early days, Airstar has worked with major festivals as promoters increasingly recognised the demand not only for quality line-ups, but also for strong organisational and aesthetic elements. Recently, Airstar supplied its trademark lighting balloons to the Wine & Dine Festival, which brought world-class food, drinks and entertainment to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour skyline in late October. Aside from wine-pairing meals designed by master chefs and tasting classes by industry experts,…

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Paul Geddis joined the International Communications department at Sónar Festival in 2015, and as Head of Content, develops communications content and strategy for Sónar Festival in Barcelona, and events around the world. Prior to this he worked as a journalist and filmmaker as Editor-in-chief of VICE Spain, and as a freelance contributor for numerous local and international publications. Here he writes on how dedication to building a scene has resulted in Sónar becoming a truly international festival. In 2018, Sónar will celebrate its 25th edition. It goes without saying that in the quarter century since the festival first started, a…

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FINLAND: Flow Festival, set to take place at Suvilahti in Helsinki from August 11 – 13, has revealed the first names to grace its 2017 edition. The festival will once again feature many of today’s most interesting established artists and promising newcomers, including Lana Del Rey, The xx, London Grammar, Aphex Twin, Vince Staples, Flume, Angel Olsen, Jenny Hval, Jon Hopkins, Maceo Plex, and Bicep. One of the planet’s most forward thinking festivals, Flow combines music, art, culture, culinary excellence and sustainability. The festival has an outstanding reputation for presenting some of the globe’s most pioneering artists in a jaw…

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