Verknipt put to rest any last doubt that hard techno is the soundtrack of a new generation of dance music fans.
While Amsterdam Dance Event’s organizers boast that a record 500,000 attendees participated in the 2024 event, longtime attendees observed that crowds looked thin at many of its more than 1,000 parties compared to previous years. That couldn’t have been further from the truth at the two gatherings hosted by Dutch hard techno outfit Verknipt, however.
On Friday, October 18, thousands of revelers descended upon Taets Art and Event Park in nearby Zaandam for a rave headlined by hard techno acts like Indira Paganotto, Shlømo, Ketting, and blk. Then, on Sunday, October 20, AFAS Live in Amsterdam proper played host to DJ sets by Nico Moreno, KARAH, and Pawlowski. Both events sold out well in advance. Collectively, they drew 13,000 attendees, according to a press release.
Those who showed up enjoyed the distinctive blend of hard dance and techno that a new generation of EDM fans simply knows as hard techno. Most of these tracks pair the challenging sound design of heritage techno styles popularized over 30 years ago with contemporary hard dance’s emphasis on frequent and dramatic changes.
At any given time, cold and cavernous kick drums complemented by corrosive, industrial textures blasted from line array speakers. Whereas in techno of years past, they would march on in sustained and hypnotic bursts, a new crop of producers cut them after shorter intervals to introduce blaring synth stabs and cinematic voiceovers a la hardstyle. In doing so, they’ve fitted a genre that once only rewarded patient listeners for a fan base that primarily discovers it via fast-moving TikTok feeds.
Whatever they’re doing, it works. As popular as they were, Verknipt’s two ADE events only garnered a third of the attendance of their most popular to date, after all. Dubbed Verknipt ArenA, it drew a staggering 40,000 to Johan Cruijff ArenA for an record-setting event headlined by hard techno it-girl Sara Landry.
Perhaps more important than these attendance numbers are the demographics of the crowds themselves. The overwhelming majority of attendees at the ADE events belonged to the coveted 18-24 age range — the holy grail of any live event promoter.
At a glance, most members of the crowd didn’t look like members of an obscure subculture, either. Unless you count the throngs of shirtless young men, few attendees donned the kink-adjacent costumes common in clubs like Berlin’s Berghain — and the drab, nondescript attire of the “serious techno” crowd made equally scarce appearances. By and large, it seemed like the current trend of hard techno raves were simply how everyday young people in Amsterdam chose to spend their free time.
The Netherlands has a long and storied history of steering underground dance music in experimental directions. In his 1999 book Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk, Dan Sicko wrote of second-wave Detroit techno mainstay Richie Hawtin’s horror when he discovered that DJs in the Rotterdam club Parkzicht were playing a “really rigid” variant of his contemporaries’ music at upwards of 200 BPM during a 1992 visit to the city.
On the other side of the coin, Dutch artists have managed to capitalize on dance music to an extent that those of few other markets have. The first modern stock exchange was opened in Amsterdam in 1602, and an entrepreneurial streak belies many aspects of Dutch culture. Considering it’s home to the assembly line of DJs that delivered such superstars as Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, and Hardwell, it comes as no surprise that the Netherlands would successfully repackage and commodify techno.
ADE 2024 had plenty of other highlights, to be sure. Dockyard Festival was a sensory feast as always, and its Dockyard Warehouse Festival offshoot showed similar promise in its first year. Awakenings brought a full slate of top-tier techno talent to Gashouder and Ziggo Dome — and the Vision x Kompass Music Group boat party brought what must have been every last drum and bass fan out of Amsterdam’s woodwork.
At its best, though, ADE serves as a barometer of the dance music industry, signaling what trends look to dominate the market. After this year’s edition, even the passive observer can confirm that Verknipt and hard techno as a whole have a long and prosperous future ahead.
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