ADE parties are the night half of Amsterdam Dance Event - the room-by-room, warehouse-by-warehouse calendar that runs alongside the festival's daytime industry conference each October. For the exact 2026 dates, passes and how the week fits together, Mood's ADE 2026 guide covers the essentials; this guide stays on the parties themselves - the club nights, afterparties and showcases that make most visitors book the week in the first place - mapped day by day.
The scale is the first thing to understand. In Mood's data, 239 ADE-tagged events are already listed for the week, running from Wednesday 21 October through a handful of closing sets that carry past midnight into Monday. That number climbs every week as promoters confirm rooms and line-ups through September and October. The calendar builds from a lighter Wednesday - 25 events on the opening day - into a Saturday peak of 69, so the deeper into the week, the more the choice becomes about which room rather than whether there is one.
The Sound of ADE Week
The spread of styles is wider than ADE's techno reputation suggests. In Mood's data, house and techno split the week almost evenly - 102 house listings against 101 for techno - with melodic house and melodic techno the clear third pillar. Trance, minimal, electro, progressive and hard techno all keep their own showcases running, so the week reads less like a single sound and more like a map of the whole electronic spectrum.
Wednesday 21 - the soft open
Wednesday is the quietest night, and it works as a warm-up rather than a peak - a night for the early-arriving crowd and the smaller showcases before the week goes vertical. Clubs like Melkweg run label nights and touring shows, Westeweelde hosts a six-hour Hernan Cattaneo b2b Nick Warren set on the progressive-house end, and the canal-ring rooms open at a manageable pace. It is the one evening where walking in without a ticket is still realistic at most doors, and where Mood's list of free ADE parties is worth checking before the week's cover charges climb. The full Wednesday line-up is on Mood.
Thursday 22 - the melodic showcases
Thursday is where the week shifts up. The melodic house and techno programming clusters here, with nights like Adam Ten b2b Mita Gami at Het Sieraad - the Tel Aviv-rooted melodic sound that has become one of ADE's signature threads. The harder end runs in parallel: H7 opens its all-day rave, and I Hate Models & Nico Moreno's showcase at Gashouder pulls the darker, industrial-leaning crowd into the Westergasfabriek grounds. Thursday is also when the bigger club brands launch their multi-day takeovers. Mood's full Thursday line-up tracks all of it.
Friday 23 - the week goes wide
Friday is the first of the two heavy nights, and the choice becomes genuinely difficult. The tech-house and house end runs marquee showcases like Paradise x Loveland at Mediahaven, Jamie Jones's long-running party brand in one of the larger industrial rooms. The techno side answers with nights like the AURA ADE special at RADION, a hypnotic-techno showcase in a former dental clinic turned 24-hour club. This is the night the city's warehouse spaces fill first - Mood's Friday line-up is the place to see what is still open.
Saturday 24 - the peak
Saturday is the busiest day of the five, and it runs from arena-scale to underground. At the top end, AMF at the Johan Cruyff Arena is the stadium event of the week, with David Guetta, Afrojack and Armin van Buuren on a bill built for 40,000 people. At the harder end, Verknipt's ADE special at AFAS Live stacks hard techno, acid and frenchcore into one room, while the long-form club sessions run all day - six-hour b2b sets and warehouse marathons across Het Sieraad, Thuishaven and the Westergasfabriek grounds. Saturday is where the calendar is at its densest, and where the ticketed showcases sell out earliest; the full Saturday line-up is on Mood.
Sunday 25 - the closer
Sunday is the long goodbye - day parties, closing sessions and the classic-house end of the programme, with a handful of sets running past midnight into Monday morning. Nights like Todd Terry & Friends at Het Sieraad lean into the house heritage that ADE is built on, and the mood shifts from the week's intensity to something looser and more celebratory. Many of the best Sunday events are daytime, so the week ends in daylight rather than another 6am finish. Mood's Sunday line-up has the full run of closers.
How to Plan Your ADE Parties
The difficulty at ADE is not finding a party - it is choosing between the fifty happening on the same night. Line-ups overlap, tickets for the marquee showcases sell out weeks ahead, and the good warehouse nights are often the ones not on the front page of the listings. Following a venue or a promoter is the way to catch the announcements as they land rather than after they sell out.
Mood pulls the full ADE calendar into one place - every night, every room, with venue, date and a link out - so the planning becomes which sound and which night rather than which ten pages to refresh. The techno programme and the house programme each have their own browse, alongside each day's dedicated page above.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many ADE parties are there?
Mood already lists 239 ADE-tagged events across the five nights, from Wednesday's soft open to the closing sets that run past midnight on Sunday into Monday. The count keeps rising as promoters confirm rooms and line-ups closer to October, and the full list updates daily on Mood.
Do you need tickets for ADE parties?
Most night events are ticketed, and the marquee showcases - the big club-brand takeovers and the arena shows - sell out weeks in advance. Smaller weeknight showcases are easier to walk into, and a handful of nights run with no cover at all. Each listing on Mood links out to the organiser for tickets and entry details.
What kind of music is played at ADE parties?
ADE's party calendar covers the full electronic spectrum. In Mood's data, house and techno are the two largest categories across the week, split almost evenly, with melodic house and melodic techno close behind and trance, minimal, electro and hard techno each running their own showcases. It is a techno-forward week, but far from techno-only.
Amsterdam Dance Event turns the city into a single connected dancefloor for five nights each October. The full run of parties, showcases and warehouse nights - every day, every venue - lives on Mood's ADE hub.
