Amsterdam Dance Event 2026 runs 21-25 October, its 30th anniversary edition

Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) is the world's largest electronic music conference and club festival, combining a daytime business programme for the music industry with five nights of club shows and concerts across Amsterdam. It started in 1996 as a three-day conference with about 300 delegates and thirty DJs; the 2026 edition marks 30 years since that first gathering, and it has grown into an event drawing several hundred thousand visitors and reportedly around 2,500 artists across roughly 200 venues citywide.

Dates and schedule. ADE 2026 runs from Wednesday 21 to Sunday 25 October 2026, five days and nights. The professional conference programme (panels, masterclasses, networking) runs largely during the day, while club nights, concerts and showcases fill venues across the city each evening; the two strands run in parallel rather than one after the other.

Where it happens. There is no single ADE venue: the festival takes place across clubs, concert halls and cultural spaces throughout Amsterdam, plus a dedicated conference hub for the professional programme. Exact venue-by-venue schedules are published closer to the event on ADE's own site and app.

Tickets. ADE sells two distinct kinds of access. The ADE Pro Pass is the industry pass, priced at 725 euros plus a processing fee of roughly 3.77 percent (all-in, close to 750 euros), payable in installments through Klarna or PayPal; it includes access to the full conference programme (ADE Pro, ADE Green, ADE Culture Hub, ADE Startups), entry to ADE Festival and Arts & Culture events at more than 300 venues, a year-round online ADE Pro database, access to official Business Hubs, five days of free travel on Amsterdam's GVB public transport network, and a limited-edition anniversary bag.

It does not include ADE Lab, which runs as a separate free programme from Wednesday to Friday. Separately, individual club and concert tickets for ADE Festival's public-facing shows are sold by each venue or promoter rather than bundled into one all-access festival wristband, so fans attending only the nightlife side typically buy single-event tickets rather than the Pro Pass.

Getting there. Amsterdam is served by Schiphol Airport, with a direct train into Amsterdam Centraal in about 15-20 minutes. Because ADE venues are spread across the whole city, the GVB tram, metro and night-bus network is the practical way to move between shows; Pro Pass holders get five days of GVB travel included, while other visitors should budget for day or multi-day transit tickets.

Tips. Because venues and their capacities vary hugely, from small clubs to large halls, popular showcases can sell out or hit capacity limits even with a Pro Pass, so arriving early for in-demand nights matters. First-time visitors focused purely on the club nights, rather than the business side, generally do better buying individual event tickets as they're announced rather than the Pro Pass, which is priced and built for industry professionals.