[This Weekend] Awakenings Festival, One of the World's Strongest Techno Festivals

The pride of the Netherlands and one of the world's leading techno festivals: Awakenings.

Its flagship, Awakeing Festival, takes place this weekend, Saturday, June 29 and Sunday, June 30, at Spaarnwoude Houtrak (although tickets are already sold out).

I live in Southeast Asia and can't go because work comes first, but if you can attend, enjoy it!

Lineup and Timetable

Lineup

Watch the video. “When you think of Awakenings performers, you think of these people!” It feels like they've covered them all. Impressive.

Incidentally, the lineup announcement was on January 17 this year, accompanied by a live set from Joris Voorn.

Timetable

Saturday, June 29

Sunday, June 30

By the way, to digress a little, with EDC JAPAN, ULTRA JAPAN and others, Japan's washed-up festivals barely announce their lineups around a month before the event each year.

Seeing that makes me think, “Do they even intend to attract audiences from overseas?” What do you think?

Japan's population is aging and its birthrate declining, and young people are attending festivals less each year, so I think attendance will keep falling unless they finalize lineups early and attract overseas audiences...haha.

About the Venue, Spaarnwoude

I'll put a map here.

Livestream Schedule

Watch this video too.

Nina Kraviz, Enrico Sangiuliano, Maceo Plex, Joris Voorn, Bart Skils X, Victor Ruiz, Kölsch, Guti appear, it seems.

A Sold-Out Techno Festival: The Dutch Scene Is on Another Level

From here, I'll stray quite far from the article's original subject...

Still, all nine stages featuring techno and tech house, and tickets sold out, is enviable—or rather, astounding (my memory is vague, so the figure may be inaccurate, but I think attendance was something like 400,000).

Awakenings is itself a long-running techno and tech house festival, so this is the fruit of years of persistence. But it isn't just the organizers' ability: without a willingness to nurture music festivals and techno and tech house, including among people outside the music industry, it wouldn't reach this level.

In Japan in the 2000s, there was also WIRE, a wonderful indoor techno festival organized by Takkyu Ishino.

Thanks in part to Takkyu's direction, the lineup featured Sven Vath, Richie Hawtin, Josh Wink, Monika Kruse, KEN ISHII…etc., an impressive array of international DJs. Mitsubishi Motors was a sponsor, and looking back, it had international quality.

Incidentally, STERNE, held monthly at WOMB, also let us discover up-and-coming international techno DJs thanks to Takkyu's steady efforts.

Both WIRE and STERNE have ended, but it was a time when techno and tech house were very much alive in the Japanese scene in other ways too.

I'm not trying to say “the old days were better!” (going forward, I think everyone can express the music and love of music they enjoy in their own preferred places and ways), but perhaps understanding among people outside the music industry in Japan peaked then and reached its limit.

Go to a High-Quality Festival in Its Home Scene

If you call yourself a dance music lover, try visiting a festival that is something of a spiritual home at least once.

That said, rather than Tomorrowland or Ultra Miami, where Japanese attendees stick together on a “field trip for self-proclaimed festival lovers,” pick an event with little information available and tickets that are harder to buy.

Domestic festivals will start looking unsophisticated, and your sensibilities and worldview will undoubtedly be updated.