Thirty years ago, Amsterdam Dance Event opened its doors with about 300 delegates and three venues. This October it celebrates its 30th edition with more than 3,600 artists across the city. And for the first time, DJane Mag, DJane Mag Brasil and DJane Mag UAE will be there together, covering it from the inside.
It has taken a month to get here. A month of building an agenda line by line, writing to managers and PRs, confirming interviews, studying every panel in the programme, and saying yes to more coffees than I can count. At the same time, back home, we kept campaigning for our own community: more than 90 women DJs and producers in the UAE who deserve the same visibility as the names on the biggest posters.
This is a hunt for the superwomen who reshaped dance music.
My mission in Amsterdam is simple. Sit down with the women who are changing how this industry sounds, works and decides, and bring their stories back to the community in the UAE, in Brazil and everywhere DJane Mag is read.
ADE 1996, the first edition.
ADE Pro, 2006.The women I am meeting
- Jessica DeSouza Lady Of The House
DJ, singer and music marketer between Miami and Medellín, Director of Music Marketing and Radio Promotions at Jeff Deane & Associates and the North American voice of Lady Of The House. A vinyl digger who knows how a record travels from the studio to the radio. - Nastia Techno
More than twenty years behind the decks and one of the most influential techno DJs in the world. She helped build Kyiv’s club culture, co-founding the Strichka festival and running Propaganda Records, and she has spoken openly about mental health and about Ukraine. - Sofiya Nzau Afro house
The Kenyan singer and songwriter who sings in Kikuyu. Her voice on “Mwaki”, built by the Brazilian producer Zerb from a sample pack, reached No. 7 on the UK Official Singles Chart, and in 2025 she became the first Kenyan artist to play Tomorrowland. - Portrait XO Music, AI and data
Transdisciplinary artist and researcher (she/they) working where sound, artificial intelligence and ecological futures meet. A pioneer with the Dadabots collective who trains AI only on her own, ethically sourced data, and winner of Germany’s first human + AI jazz prize. - Lady Starlight Hardware techno
New York bred, Berlin based. Raw, hardware-only live sets built in real time, releases on Ostgut Ton, Tresor and Stroboscopic Artefacts, and years on tour with Lady Gaga taking techno to stadium crowds. - Isabelle Fallmann Purple Wall
Artist manager at Purple Wall, home to names like Korolova, Claptone and Vintage Culture. Ex Apple Music and Warner Music, co-founder of the Berlin agency ELEVEN:59 and now founding an AI management software. Empowering women in electronic music is, in her words, one of her biggest missions. - Anna Knaup Co-founder of ADE
She co-founded Amsterdam Dance Event in 1995, built Anna Agency into one of the world’s leading DJ agencies and managed Hardwell from the early days to world tours. Thirty years later, she is the reason this week exists.
Where women run the room
Interviews are only half of it. ADE 2026 is full of nights and talks built by women, for everyone, and these are the ones I will be at:
- Wed 21Music & Machines
Jean-Michel Jarre with Lady Starlight, JakoJako and Meike Jentjens, artists from different generations on technology and sound. - Wed 21ADE Mixer by shesaid.so x UPTAK
Music, networking and drinks with the global network for women and gender-expansive people in music. - Wed 21Network Drink & Showcase by Loud Ladies
Beskar Bookings, Decks & Stories and Loud Ladies open the week together. - Wed 21SONAIA, hosted by Female DJ Society & Clink Noord
Music, art, networking and tattoos, with Paulittahh, Gigi CD, Eva Lakritz b2b Aneya Rose, Cherry Mystique and Soph. - Thu 22ADE Friends Talk: Can We Really Close the Gender Gap?
shesaid.so x Equal Beats, with voices from AlphaTheta, Homecoming, NOT BAD FOR A GIRL and the Pete Tong DJ Academy. - Thu 22The Shrinking Gatekeep
A shesaid.so panel of women artists with Novah, SPFDJ, LYZZA and HoneyLuv, moderated by Connie Chow. - Thu 22Women of House
A 100% female line-up at Van de Werf, NDSM. - Thu 22Sofia Kourtesis
DJ-Kicks at De Wester. - Sat 24Voices Behind the Bass
Lynnee Denise on the sound of women in the making of electronic music. - Sat 24Female DJs in Brazil: Breaking Beats, Breaking Barriers
With Lua, DJ Ray, Galecta and Monique Dardenne. - Sat 24Women of House, second edition
Another 100% female line-up, at PRIK. - Sat 24The Tunegirl (Live) at Club Baggerbeest
An ADE takeover built live on stage. - Sun 25NUNA in Amsterdam
Omnisound’s showcase of female DJs from Asia, with DJane Luane representing Brazil.
Ellen Allien in the booth.
Kelis at Paradiso, ADE 2010.Inside the ADE Lab with Neon Fox
One of our own made it into the room where the future is trained. DJane Neon Fox is part of the ADE Lab this year, on the production track, and she will take over our social media from the inside: the classes, the studios, the mentors and the late nights. An exclusive for our community, straight from the source.
Casa Brasil, because I am Brazilian
I live in Dubai, but my ears never left Brazil. From far away I have watched Brazilian electronic music take over the world, and it has done it with a long list of standout DJanes, from B4RBRA to Carola and Ella de Vuono. So on Saturday I will be at Casa Brasil by Hot Beats, back at ADE for a second year on the LuminAir rooftop, from 4 PM to 3 AM.
The women on the line-up: Carola, Ella de Vuono and Mary Olivetti, with a live showcase by Grag Queen, who makes her Netherlands debut. Ella de Vuono also speaks on “The Brazil Boom” panel, and the “Female DJs in Brazil” talk brings Lua, DJ Ray, Galecta and Monique Dardenne to the stage. Even one of my interviews has a Brazilian thread: “Mwaki” was born when a young producer from Brazil found Sofiya Nzau’s voice in a sample pack.
And then, Jean-Michel Jarre
I am anxious to be close to a childhood memory that may have shaped my own search for electronic music: Jean-Michel Jarre. On Wednesday night, he opens ADE with “Oxygène and Beyond” at AFAS Live, celebrating 50 years of Oxygène, the album he recorded in a makeshift studio in his Paris apartment and released in December 1976. He was an icon of my childhood, and his music was my first live album, the first time I understood that electronic music could fill a room the size of a city.
Oxygène, 1976.
Equinoxe, 1978.Two years after Oxygène came Equinoxe, released in December 1978, the record that taught me what a synthesizer could feel like. Hearing that world again, live, on the opening night of the 30th ADE, is the kind of circle you do not plan. The same afternoon he joins the “Music & Machines” panel next to Lady Starlight, one of the women I am interviewing. Generations meeting in one room: that is ADE.
Why this matters for the UAE
Every conversation in Amsterdam is also a door for the women DJs in the Emirates. The managers, labels, promoters and artists we meet are the same people who decide who gets booked, signed and seen. We are going to listen, ask the questions our community would ask, and come back with contacts, references and stories that make the next opportunity easier to reach.
See you in Amsterdam. Where women lead the scene.
Follow the whole week on @djanemaguae: interviews, panels, Casa Brasil, Neon Fox inside the ADE Lab and, yes, Jean-Michel Jarre. And read our previous editorial, The Season Finale Has a Soundtrack.