Dance Valley

Dance Valley festival, 2009

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.

The date for the 2007 event was July 14. The event no longer was a 3-day event as the UDC returned to their roots and reopened the HQ field much to the delight of clubbers.

IN 2009, the fifteenth edition took place on July 11th from 11:00 till 23:00.

DJs

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, Tiësto, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Paul Oakenfold, Ferry Corsten and Yoji Biomehanika all having made appearances.

Music

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, Mona Sahlin 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.

External links

• Official Dance Valley site