Dance Valley is an annual dance music

Dance music

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

 festival held in the summer in Spaarnwoude, Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. 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

Carl Cox

Carl Cox is a British techno and house music DJ.-Biography:Cox grew up in Oldham, Lancashire, before attending Glastonbury High Boys secondary modern school on Glastonbury Road in Morden. Cox began his career as a hardcore and rave DJ in the mid 1980s...

, Derrick May, Paul van Dyk

Paul van Dyk

Matthias Paul, better known by his stage name Paul van Dyk is a German Grammy Award-winning Electronic Dance Music DJ, musician and record producer...

, Tiësto

Tiësto

Tijs Michiel Verwest, , known as Tiësto , is a Dutch musician, DJ and record producer of electronic dance music. Although he has used many aliases in the past, he is best known for his work as DJ Tiësto...

, Richie Hawtin

Richie Hawtin

Richard Hawtin is an English-Canadian electronic musician and DJ who was an influential part of Detroit techno's second wave of artists in the early 1990s and a leading exponent of Minimal techno since the mid 1990s...

, Ricardo Villalobos

Ricardo Villalobos

Ricardo Villalobos is a Chilean-German electronic music producer and DJ. He is well-known for his work in the minimal techno and microhouse genres, and is one of the most significant figures in today's minimal techno scene....

, Paul Oakenfold

Paul Oakenfold

Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...

, Ferry Corsten

Ferry Corsten

Ferry Corsten, also known under the alias System F, is a Dutch producer of trance music, in addition to being a DJ and remixer. He also hosts his own weekly radio show, Corsten's Countdown. He routinely plays at events all over the world with crowds in excess of tens of thousands. In 2009 Ferry...

 and Yoji Biomehanika

Yoji Biomehanika

Yoji, often styled as YOJI according to official publications, is a Japanese trance/hard trance DJ...

 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

Stage (theatre)

In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...

 reserved for the big names in mainstream dance music, up to a dozen secondary, smaller stages are dedicated to styles such as Electro

Electro (music)

Electro is a genre of electronic dance music directly influenced by the use of TR-808 drum machines, Moog keytar synthesizers and funk sampling...

, Eurodance

Eurodance

Eurodance is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s or early 1990s primarily in Europe. It combines many elements from House, Techno, Hi-NRG and especially Italo-Disco...

, Hardstyle

Hardstyle

Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre mixing influences from hardtechno, hard house, hard trance, hardcore and rave music. It is between 148 and 157 bpm in speed and is written in 4/4 time....

 and Experimental

Experimental music

Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...

.