Untold to be Dubai’s ‘biggest-ever’ festival
Dubai is set to gain its own edition of Untold, touted as the biggest festival the city has ever seen.
Launched in Romania in 2015, the 100,000-capacity event is one of the largest festivals in Europe and has seen performances from artists including Imagine Dragons, Robbie Williams, Major Lazer, J Balvin, The Script, Jason Derulo and Ellie Goulding.
DJs including David Guetta, Martin Garrix, Steve Aoki, The Chainsmokers, Axwell and Hardwell have also delivered sets at previous editions.
The Dubai iteration is expected to take place in February 2024, welcoming 70,000 people each night to the sprawling grounds of Expo City Dubai.
So far, superstar DJ Armin van Buuren is the only confirmed artist but organisers say the festival will see more than 100 acts – including stars from across pop, techno, K-pop and Arabic music – perform across more than five stages.
“Hosting events like Untold at Expo City Dubai is the perfect way to demonstrate the city’s capability to host mega-events”
Like the Romania event, held in the north-western city of Cluj-Napoca, Untold Dubai will be a family and cultural affair. Entrance will be open to all ages with plenty of non-musical activities also held on the Expo City Dubai site.
“Hosting events like Untold at Expo City Dubai is the perfect way to demonstrate the city’s capability to host mega-events, further reinforcing its position as an international events hub in line with the ambition of our visionary leadership to make Dubai the best city in the world to visit, live and work in,” says Ahmed Al Khaja, CEO of Dubai Festivals and Retail Establishment (DFRE), told The National.
Festival co-founder Edy Chereji added: “Dubai is one of the top tourism destinations in the world. We have an amazing site over there and by working with our stakeholders we hope to create something that will be the next big icon for Dubai and bring more tourists to this great city”.
“By getting visitors travelling into Romania from Western Europe we showed that we can build our own global brand and that was part of the reason why we came to Dubai.”
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NL’s A State of Trance to relocate and expand
Armin van Buuren has announced ambitious plans to expand his Dutch festival, A State of Trance (ASOT).
The Dutch DJ revealed that the festival will leave its long-standing home in Utrecht and take up residency at Rotterdam Ahoy in 2024. This is partly due to the demolition of the largest stage in the event’s former home, Jaarbeurs.
Next year, the ALDA-promoted festival will see more than 70 artists performing across five stages and two days at the arena.
In addition to the usual night-time programme, various fringe activities will be organised in Rotterdam during the weekend, including demo sessions, masterclasses, panels, pre-parties and Q&As with artists. The temporary A State of Trance Hotel will be the hotspot of the weekend.
The move was announced on van Buuren’s A State of Trance radio show: “Utrecht has been a great home base for my A State of Trance events in the Netherlands for many years. We have all been able to make a lot of beautiful memories there; in 1993 I went to the Jaarbeurs for my very first rave and I also held Armin Only shows there.
“We often hear from fans that they would like an even broader ASOT experience, so we will really focus on that next year”
“But the large iconic space where our main stage used to be is unfortunately being demolished, so we had no choice but to look for a new home. We see a lot of possibilities at this new location and I can’t wait to continue building the future of A State of Trance in Rotterdam!”
Allan Hardenberg, CEO and co-founder of ALDA, adds: “The good cooperation with the city of Rotterdam is a great opportunity to further expand the A State of Trance brand and to enhance the experience for the visitor to an even higher level. We often hear from fans that they would like an even broader A State of Trance experience, so we will really focus on that next year with the addition of the day program and the A State of Trance Hotel.”
In other news, a new festival celebrating A State of Trance’s 20th anniversary is coming to London’s Dockyards this summer.
Van Buuren, ARGY, Ben Gold, Cosmic Gate, Gareth Emery, MORTEN, Pretty Pink, Solarstone and Vini Vici are some of the names set to play the 2 July event, which will feature three stages.
Organisers are expecting an audience of 20,000, making ASOT London the largest trance event in the city’s history.
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ASOT1000 sells 55,000 tickets in four hours
The Netherlands’ A State of Trance (ASOT) has sold all 55,000 tickets for this September’s festival, which takes place at the Jaarbeurs convention centre in Utrecht on 3–4 September.
The ASOT1000 Celebration Weekend, which marks 1,000 episodes and 20 years of Armin van Buuren’s A State of Trance radio show, is the most-anticipated A State of Trance to date, selling out in under four hours, according to promoter Alda.
Headlined by van Buuren, the first night of ASOT1000 will be a “nostalgic journey through two decades of trance”, with the Saturday show a more standard ASOT experience, welcoming a “star-studded line-up packed with new young talent, as well as iconic trance artists”. The nine-hour event will take place across five areas of the 100,000m² Jaarbeurs.
The festival follows ASOT 950, which took place last February, also at the Jaarbeurs, with 40,000 fans in attendance and millions more watching online.
Further ASOT1000 events will take place in Poland and Russia the following month, before heading to more countries on A State of Trance world tour.
“This incredible achievement signifies that music has always been a unifying force”
Allan Hardenberg, CEO of leading dance music promoter Alda, says: “This milestone celebration is a very special one for Alda, as we have been a part of this extraordinary journey for 14 years in organising ASOT events worldwide. We are glad to celebrate this landmark occasion with Armin and fans from all over the world.
“This incredible achievement signifies that music has always been a unifying force. See you on the dancefloor this September.”
Tickets for ASOT1000 Celebration Weekend started at €110 for a weekend ticket, or €65 for a single-day pass.
Regarding coronavirus, Alda says it will take “measures that are necessary at that moment” to protect fans and comply with all Dutch government regulations. Another dance music festival, new event Frontier, says it will also go ahead in a ‘corona-proof’ format, regardless of restrictions, this summer.
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Vrienden van Amstel becomes Netherlands’ biggest live stream
De Vrienden van Amstel (The Friends of Amstel), the long-running Dutch concert series, reached an estimated 1.7 million viewers from 120 countries for its first online-only edition, held on 16 January 2021.
Nicknamed ‘the largest pub in the Netherlands’, De Vrienden van Amstel is one of the country’s biggest concert events, usually attracting around 150,000 people to the Ahoy Rotterdam arena every year. The 2021 event – the first all-digital show in the series’ its 23-year history – became the biggest livestreamed show in Dutch history, with 750,000 people simultaneously streaming Armin van Buuren’s headline set, according to organisers.
The average simultaneous viewers throughout the entire show was 650,000, with fans watching over 1.3m hours of footage, reveals livestreaming partner Red Bee Media, who delivered the stream via www.vriendenstream.nl on behalf on Amstel, event agency Tribe Company and media production firm FabriQ Media Group.
“We are looking forward to delivering many events like this throughout 2021”
“When the largest pub in the Netherlands opens digitally for the first time, offering live entertainment from the biggest artists in country, you know that you can expect a lot of traffic on your platform”, says Tim Verhulsdonck, founder and managing partner of FabriQ Media Group. “With 650,000 tickets sold upfront, there is absolutely no room for mistakes, and after collaborating with Red Bee on SemiFest Live, we knew they were the right partner to deliver a flawless live stream to homes across the Netherlands and the world.
“Throughout the whole event they maintained a steady hand, delivering high-quality streams with no hiccups or interruptions.”
“I’m very happy that we were given the opportunity to showcase the full capacity of our OTT services through such a large-scale event as Vrienden van Amstel,” adds Steve Nylund, CEO of Red Bee Media. “The result truly shows the strength of our platform and our people, and we are looking forward to delivering many events like this throughout 2021 and beyond.”
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Millions tune in to A State of Trance 950 live stream
Trance lovers from across the world gathered in the Netherlands over the weekend for the fastest-selling A State of Trance (ASOT) event in the brand’s history.
Hosted by Armin van Buuren, the ASOT festival debuted at Ultra in Miami in 2011 as a spin-off of the Dutch DJ’s A State of Trance radio show, which recently celebrated its 950th episode.
For the sold-out A State of Trance 950, promoter Alda welcomed more than 40,000 partygoers to the Jaarbeurs exhibition centre in Utrecht on Saturday 15 February – while millions of viewers around the world watched the live broadcast.
In addition van Buuren, ASOT 950 performers included Ilan Bluestone, Ben Gold, Markus Schulz, Grum, Aly and Fila, Andrew Rayel, Giuseppe Ottaviani, Jorn van Deynhoven and Rank1.
Alda’s other festivals include Amsterdam Music Festival in the Netherlands and the upcoming Saga event in Bucharest.
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