Pave your creative career path at ADE University

First up, the “Team Behind” concept is back. A popular feature last year, where you get the chance to meet the people working behind the scenes for a big name artist, label or promotions team. This year we’ve got the teams behind no less than Oliver Heldens, Cocoon and the mighty Spinnin’ Records.

A major recent shift in the global dance landscape has been the US showing an unprecedented appetite for the classic harder styles of dance music - hardcore, hardstyle, and hard house. To give some insight in why this is, where it’s going and how it affects the existing electronic music, club, and even hip hop music scenes, we’ve got some star names from North and Central America to share their experiences.

Along with this there's also going to be a Women In Hardcore panel. Hardcore is big business in the Netherlands and part of an entertainment industry helmed by brands behind hard dance events like Defqon.1 and Decibel Outdoor. Meanwhile, outside of the Netherlands, the hardcore aesthetic is inspiring, informing and liberating a hugely diverse generation of artists, from NON Worldwide's Nkisi and the Indonesian duo Gabber Modus Operandi to idiosyncratic crews like Wixapol, Casual Gabberz and the female-led Drömfakulteten. This new global scene that’s forming appears to be more diverse, inclusive, community-focused and female-friendly than its Dutch counterpart, which is particularly dominated by men, so we're excited to be looking at what might be brewing for the future.

A brand new ADE format arrives this year with “What’s Next”. This is a series of sessions with industry professionals such as PR expert Lydia Laws from the UK, Manager Mickelle Heijmans and agent Jelmer Rotteveel from the Netherlands, and promoter Dom Furber and publicist Uda Widanapathirana from Australia. These are all people who've forged very distinct paths in their industry, so this is an unparalleled opportunity to get a real bullshit-free account of how those career paths do and don’t go according to expectation.

Talking of “bullshit-free”, we’re really looking forward to Dutch Entrepeneur Duncan Stutterheim coming along for a “Learn From my Mistakes” session. In this talk, Duncan will tell you all about his fascinating life - and crucially, this will not be to talk about his successes. Rather this is about his failures, struggles and bumpy roads he’s traversed as an entrepreneur. And we mean literal bumpy roads, by the way: he started out running a courier company as a teenager before turning to gabber rave promotion, and eventually building giant brands like Thunderdome and Tomorrowland. Learning from these mistakes helped him - and can help you - learn to do better business, so this looks to be a crucial talk.

And all of this is just a taste. Every day of ADE Uni is going to be packed full of more insider insight than you could get in a year of networking at aftershows! So keep a close eye on the news for further names and topics, and start filling in your timetable now.

Last but not least, ADE University has got its own Instagram page for all your "uni" updates.

ADE University is an outreach program that aims to inspire and educate both Dutch and international students who aspire to be the music professionals of the future. The conference is accessible for students, a limited amount of young professionals and ADE Pass and ADE Conference Pass holders and takes place at Generator Hostel on Wednesday, October 16th till Friday, October 18th

ADE University is kindly supported by Fontys Academy for Creative Industries and Sprite.