Dance Valley
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Dance Valley ("The Woodstock of Dance") is an annual dance music festival held in the summer in Spaarnwoude, the Netherlands. The first edition was in 1995 when 8000 people attended (and in 2000 90000 visiters) . Dance Valley grew rapidly, both in duration and number of visiters. 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 effect the last two hours of the festival when sun light was still visible on the horizon, this in turn effected 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 2007 of the event was on 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.
[edit] DJs
Many famous and less famous DJ's played music at Dance Valley over time, with big names such as Paul van Dyk, Tiësto, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Paul Oakenfold, Ferry Corsten and Yoji Biomehanika all having made appearances.
[edit] 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 DJ's, In 2006 Armin Van Buuren, Ferry Corsten, Marco V and Simon Patterson (aka Dogzilla) were the main draws. Even Päivi Vahvelainen and Jo Pullan were seen cutting shapes there! With the main stage reserved for the big names in main-stream dance music, up to a dozen secondary, smaller stages are dedicated to styles such as Electro, Eurodance, Hardstyle and Experimental DJ Graham attempts to pull the crowds in with a small stage, usually unsuccessfully.
