Dance Valley Festival (Spaarnwoude, Netherlands) 2027

Dance Valley returns to Spaarnwoude on 14 August 2027, running its single day format in the recreation area west of Amsterdam. Established in 1995, it is the oldest large scale dance festival in the Netherlands and effectively the template for the outdoor format that Dutch promoters exported worldwide, with aftermovies on the festival’s own channel going back to the first edition.

The site is a natural amphitheatre in the Spaarnwoude recreation grounds between Amsterdam and Haarlem, which gives the main stage its sightlines and the festival its name. Programming spans house, techno, hardstyle and trance across multiple stages, with the hardstyle area in particular drawing a dedicated following, and the organisers publish the bill in waves through the spring.

Tickets are sold through CM.com in tiered releases, usually opening in the autumn before. Spaarnwoude is reached by shuttle buses from Amsterdam Sloterdijk and Haarlem stations, both around 20 minutes away, and because the festival is one day there is no campsite. The 2027 line up had not been published at the time of writing. For anyone tracing the history of the outdoor music festival in Europe, Dance Valley is where a lot of it starts.