|
Event Information:
Dance
Valley ("The Woodstock of Dance") is
an annual dance music festival held
in the summer in Spaarnwoude,
Netherlands. The first edition was
in 1995 when 8.000 people attended
(and in 2000 90,000 visitors). Dance
Valley grew rapidly, both in
duration and number of visitors.
2005 marked the first time the event
lasted 3 days in the weekend with
camping available for the
concertgoers at the campsite. It
rained. A record-breaking 53,000
people attended that year.
There
were some big changes to the
festival in 2006. Traditionally held
the first weekend of August, due to
colliding with another festival UDC
(Dance Valley management company)
brought the festival forward two
weeks from the 14th to the 16th of
July. Whilst this had little effect
in terms of sales it did affect the
last two hours of the festival when
sun light was still visible on the
horizon, this in turn affected the
use of lighting with the lasers not
being switched on till later. Dance
Valley also played host to BMX,
skate boarding and motorcycle
competitions sponsored by LG. The
back field HQ resided in was not
used, instead a large tent towards
the entrance was specially erected
for the harder side of dance.
Many
famous and less famous DJs played
music at Dance Valley over time,
with big names such as Carl Cox,
Derrick May, Paul van Dyk, Tiėsto,
Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos,
Paul Oakenfold, Ferry Corsten and
Yoji Biomehanika all having made
appearances. While Dance Valley is a
pure dance-music event, it caters to
a wide audience by not limiting
itself to a specific style though
its heart is (as with most Dutch
events), in trance. The biggest name
DJs on the main stage tend to be
Trance DJs. In 2006 Armin Van Buuren,
Ferry Corsten, Marco V and Simon
Patterson (part of the duo Dogzilla)
were the main draws. Even Päivi
Vahvelainen and Jo Pullan were seen
cutting shapes there. With the main
stage reserved for the big names in
mainstream dance music, up to a
dozen secondary, smaller stages are
dedicated to styles such as Electro,
Eurodance, Hardstyle and
Experimental.
Spaarnwoude is a hamlet in the Dutch
province of North Holland. It is a
part of the municipality of
Haarlemmerliede en Spaarnwoude, and
lies about 5 km northeast of Haarlem.
North of Spaarnwoude lies the
Spaarnwoude recreation area, which
is located in the municipalities of
Velsen and Haarlemmerliede en
Spaarnwoude.
Local
Weather:
|
