Marc's Blog: clubbing - ASOT Rotterdam, A State of Techno and Taste of Trance :)

Haha, yes, it was a click bait title, but still kind of true. Read on or you can try the video summary I made last year which I find still mostly funny and relevant this year :)

Ok, now that the silly things are aside, yeah, ASOT is continuing to shift towards what my brain labels more as techno but still gives us a taste of trance at the right time and places, and those are still epic. I'm a bit sad since I never was able to attend the stellar looking ones that were full of trance before ASOT 1000, back when they were single day events that were fantastic but difficult to justify flying for from across the world, for just one day. But glad to be able to enjoy these newer 1.5-3 day events, so let's go:

nice welcome at the train station

20 Years since I first went to Ahoy for Armin Only!

You of course don't need to do math on how old I'm not :) but yes, my first time in Holland for a festival was 20 years ago for Armin Only at Ahoy

missing LEDs, but my cousin lent me two lovely Dutch dates :)

we were all so young :)

Haha, 20 years for me since my first time at a real festival in holland, and 25 years since ASOT started (my first ASOT I listened to was 113XXL). Time flies! Anyway, back to ASOT 2026:

How about the music?

Before I start, I had an enlightening discussion with Ruben and it became clear to me that what my brain labels as trance and techno is not what other people label as such. So when you read those words below, trance to me is anything where I can hear a lovely melody with a beat, from thrillseekers, to Aly and Fila (it's all about the melody indeed), to high energy tech trance like Sean Tyas played. Techno for me is where the beat becomes overwhelming and the melody disappears, like the little of Funk Tribu I heard, or Nifra, or David Forbes (both of whom I'm thankful to know). I have someone dear to me who gets a bit bored by "just trance" and loves the higher energy of those Djs, and I personally label as "more techno". I also know that I'm in the minority at this point in preferring the more melodic aspect of trance than the heavier beat aspect of techno, so do not take anything below as anything more than my personal biased opinion :) Similarly, I don't really think Maddix fits in the trance bucket much, but I actually enjoy his very different sound even if it fits more in my techno bucket with heavy beats, so there you go, it's hard to make sense of it all :)

Back to the event: the "more techno sounds" trend continued, plenty of non trance music, especially on stage 1. Armin explained more than once in the last years that "State of Trance" always meant to explain the feeling of being in Trance because of the music, and it was not meant to be about Trance music itself. I'll let each decide if changing the meaning after the fact, and whether Armin genuinely loves techno and genuinely gets in a trance when listening to techno but for me, techno makes me run away more than get into a trance. To each their own I guess.
Friday did have good trance, starting with Ruben. Armin also did play a wonderful trance set on friday for the 25 years of ASOT, so that was absolutely lovely, and area 2 had some good trance DJs too (but also played techno at other times, leaving the choice between techno on area 1 and techno on area 2 at the same time).
On Saturday, area 1 was probably mostly techno, sadly, I didn't go check all the time due to the punishing huge detour route in and out of 1, it took 15mn or more to get to 1 and back out, a pretty high penalty. I went for the beginning of Armin's set, and after it turned into techno after a few mere minutes, I realized I was stupid and should have stayed at area 4 for Jorn Van Deynhoven who played a fantastic trance set.

I will admit that I'm a bit saddened that techno is being pushed so hard at ASOT, I do hang out with the folks who really don't care for it, and I can't say if the people at mainstage will just take anything you throw at them, or whether they are now genuinely coming because of the techno sound. I realize that classic trance may lack energy for many (you can give me a 6H thrillseekers set any day, but I know it lacks energy and punch for today's crowds). But then, I will ask: last year, Superstrings closed mainstage with a great classics trance set and the crowd loved it, did we really need what I assume was hard techno to close this year? (I was at area 2 which arguably was also techno for the last hour).
When you elect me president of ASOT lineups, I will put Sean Tyas on mainstage. Sean's sets have relentless energy that just keeps on going, and it's trance. When you have tech trance, who needs techno? :) (Sean played at Area 4, it was pure joy, but not sure if it was recorded). Also, instead of so much techno, why not add a bit more psytrance of high energy variety?

So the real question, are we, true trance lovers living in the past, and techno and hardstyle are the inescapable ways forward, and ASOT knows this but we're not quite accepting it yet, or can trance continue to evolve and remain relevant with a range going from Superstrings to Jorn Van Deynhoven, Aly and Fila, and Sean Tyas, and ASOT should stop pushing techno so hard and give Trance a chance? Let me know in the comments.

Also, after writing all this and talking to some folks, I second guessed myself, so I asked Google Gemini AI to look up all artists from the last 4 ASOTs and count how many are considered Trance overall or Techno overall vs everything else. I should note that I used Gemini Pro 3.0 which is the best AI model available today and it took several minutes to carefully gather the info on each artist and then research what set they actually played before giving the result. I got a table for both the entire event and just mainstage. I should also note that Gemini considered Nifra and David Forbes as Tech Trance, so it's a generous definition of trance. I think the numbers of trance vs techno at ASOT speak for themselves:

Then I thought, wait a minute, I want the table that shows what the DJ actually played at ASOT since some of them can play either, and I've even heard Laura Van Dam play great trance at the ASOT hotel while every other time it was more techno. So I got 2 new tables, and they just slide further from trance to techno by a few points:

But as I said elsewhere in this report, while it's depressing to see the steady decline of Trance in front of Techno, as long as the Techno crowd allows for the event to continue existing, it's still a good thing.

Thoughts for this year

This was the first year that Insomniac Europe had taken over and had time to help out with their knowledge, and I only saw good changes from last year:

This year, overachievers could actually do EDC Mexico and ASOT back to back as they were one week apart (Thanks to Insomniac for ensuring the 2 events didn't conflict). Outside of too much techno, ASOT did improve in some ways compared to last year. Let's go through it:

ASOT was 6.5h on friday and 9h on saturday. That was still the same weird offset schedule

but, whether someone read my feedback from last year pointing out that 15h of festival was a bit short for people travelling across the world, or it came from surveys, ASOT improved this year by adding more events and hours to make the trip more worth it for non locals. There was a pre-party radio show on thursday, and friday added an official after party at another club from 01:00 to 05:00. Thank you!

Unlike other festivals that were very annoying with personalization like parookaville and tomorrowland, while ASOT did ask you to personalize but in the end, it didn't matter, you just had to scan a bar code at the entrance. Also, they had a good resale platform setup, so it was easy to buy verified resale tickets. Kudos for this.

ASOT had reasonable food options and they took real money, none of that fake money bullshit like Tomorrowland, Untold, Parookaville, Transmission Bangkok, EDC Mexico, and a few others. Thank you for being sensible.

Many people complained of long lines getting in (some got 45 to 60mn), so that was not ideal. For me, arriving at opening time, it only took around 10-15mn to get in, so that was good.

I would still vote for starting Day 2 earlier than 21:00, even just 1 or 2 stages.

There were also more things happening at the official hotel for ASOT hotel package guests

Since last year:

The stage production level improved. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Insomniac folks brought in their light and laser knowledge :)

But generally for stages other than 1, stages still felt better at Jaarbeurs. Jaarbeurs had just more room, better layout, no narrow stages like area 2 or 5 (5 was still the worst, so small next to a sea of lockers). According to google mainstage size of Jaarbeurs and Ahoy is similar.

it felt to me like cellphone connectivity improved, which was great. They also had mostly working wifi, that was great for staying connected with friends after separating or sending a scout to area 1 to tell us if it was worth the long walk there and back or if it was just mostly techno and fine to avoid.

While the main festival hours didn't really change, they did add 2 extra official parties to add extra party hours, very good change.

the added warning tape on the half step of death in VIP, hopefully fewer people fell on it. It's a small change, but I notice those things :)

Suggestions for Alda/Insomniac Europe

the paylogic website didn't have a simple page with all the festivals tickets you needed on a single page (pre-party thursday, ASOT tickets, post party friday, and bus back to station on sunday morning at 06:00 when trains or metros aren't running yet). For that matter I never found the page where to buy the thursday pre-party, and had to use a link sent by a friend. Later, it was not easy to go to the paylogic site, log in, and get all my tickets all at once in one place.

The official resale platform, when the event was just 10 days away, had one big issue: it offered your tickets to one person at a time, and they each got 48H to decide. That's way way too long that close to the festival, and to make things worse, when I decided to pull my spare tickets out to transfer them to friends, I Was not allowed to and had to wait over 24H for someone to sit on the buy offer, not reply, and waste time that close to the event. They really should offer resale tickets to multiple people at a time, first buyer wins, and of course the ticket owner should be able to reclaim their tickets anytime.

The post party on friday was a great addition, but having to go to a small club in the middle of the night while it was raining, was not ideal. How about just keeping area 2 running at Ahoy for those who wanted to stay? Hell, it's even possible to have some kind of after party ticket where you can only enter the remaining area after hours with that extra ticket.

On the topic of money, having talked to a good amount of people, it's pretty clear that some festival goers think that ASOT is expensive as is and don't want to pay more, while others are used to festivals that cost $200+ anyway and don't mind paying more to get more party hours. Given that, while I didn't love the piecemeal part where you could buy 4 different tickets just from paylogic, this allowed each to pay what they wanted/could afford, so that was probably the right thing to do and to continue doing in the future, but it should be on a single page, easy to get all at once

Just like last year, the mandated long walk around for stage 1 was a pain in the rear and really looked unnecessary, especially as mainstage never filled it up. Even as VIP, there was no shorter path, that made it undesirable to even go check out the music there, because of how long it took to get in and out. This was just as bad as last year, and I'm pretty certain it can be made better, please consider this, it made Area 1 "so far away" as a round trip that it turned me away from going to check it out several times. Similarly the one ways in and out of area 2 felt over the top and unnecessary although the detour was not nearly as painful.

this fence was 1000% unnecessary, making everyone walk around added lots of pointless walking and did not improve any flow. They literally made you walk a long away around to the other side of that same fence, and it was so stupid that all the staff went through the shortcut, but we could not

While I wish saturday started earlier than 21:00, Adrenaline Sessions had an unofficial pre-party starting at 16:00 in a club across town, Reverse, close to the main station, which was a reasonable option, but still having ASOT start earlier, potentially with a small a extra fee for whoever comes early, would be great thing.

I again have to say thank you for the the 2 extra official parties that were added this year, but indeed having them announced earlier would be better next year, they were announced only in the last weeks after far away people had already booked flights, and Adrenaline sessions even had to move their own party after ASOT announced theirs that conflicted in time. It worked out in the end, but it was a bit confusing and last minute to line up all the parties.

Realistically most of what long time trance lovers call trance was at stage 4 this year. It had lovely trance indeed, but it does not look like it was video recorded (maybe sound only). I realize it's a smaller cheaper stage, but it would be lovely to still have those sets full recorded, especially to put on youtube and bring more people to trance.

About the stages

Mainstage improved this year, much better lights and decors

Area 2 also got better lights and decors but still weirdly shaped, although that's not fixable for that location (Jaarbeurs was better on that front)

Area 3 was music that I don't know what it was, but the stage was pretty cool looking with an open concept, so even if it was full, that wasn't terrible, you could enjoy it from the back and the sides.

That was not true of stage 4 though. Trance moved from stage 5 to 4 this year, so I spent more time there. It had a bit of an EDC wasteland concept bordered with shipping containers, cool in some way, but also restrictive space-wise. If it got full, and it did so quickly, it was uncomfortable and hard to get in and out of. But, but but, area 4 was better than 5 which was way too small, so having trance move to 4 was an upgrade from last year.

area 4 was inside indeed

Area 5 was still pretty but way too small, once full, and it would fill up quickly. Once full, it was near impossible to enjoy, never mind the location next to lockers and a fries' stand once it overflows like it did last year with trance.

Ahoy vs Jaarbeurs

Honestly stages 2, 3, 4, and 5 were all better at Jaarbeurs, and they even had an extra secret stage. I read that Jaarbeurs had to be renovated, which is fair, but from looking at their website and footprint available today, it still looks huge and bigger than Ahoy. I realize that ASOT may not move back there, but I found it a better venue.

it was also cool that the stages had names at Jaarbeurs

Security

If you've read my other festival reports, you know that I'm sensitive about this, and because I have security training myself, it's easy for me to make the difference between a good security team and one with no clue what they're doing but optionally on a power trip (that's you lumi and creamfields). The ASOT security team gets thumbs up for doing a thorough job while knowing how to focus on their real targets. I did hear that they took some people's umbrellas (no idea what size) which was not great given the raining weather outside, and the security lines could be longer if you did not come early (some friends said it took them 40mn to get in later in the evening), but at least in my case they treated me fairly and competently.
So that said, I made a newbie mistake on the first day: I removed one of my LED shoes while in line to find the power switch and turn the shoe on. A minute later, I was pulled out of line, taken to a back room, asked to remove my shoes and socks, and what drugs I was bringing with me, ooops ;) On the plus side, they did a good job noticing someone doing something suspicious looking with his shoes. Once they verified that indeed I only had a bunch of blinky stuff, no drugs in my shoes, and sent my picture to someone in a back office who apparently recognized me and said "all good", I was on my way in, just 5mn or so.

the nice lady who took care of me :)

About VIP, worth it?

This one was a mixed bag:

VIP used to give you access to enter earlier for a warmup set, not anymore

I heard the VIP line to get in was kind of long later in the night, so I'm not sure how much of a win that was

VIP does give access to mainstage when it's otherwise full, but that never happened at Ahoy, so not a great benefit

Free welcome drink each day, nice touch.

Free 0.5 small locker (one small locker for 2 people)

Elevated viewing platform which did go behind the DJ booth.

- VIPs wee allowed in 30mn earlier last year, but not this year

Honestly the viewing platforms for area 1 only were probably the best benefit, but given how much techno was on mainstage, that made that benefit more limited for trance lovers. So I'd say VIP is ok if money isn't that important to you and/or you plan on spending a good amount of time at mainstage.

ASOT Day 0, ASOT Hotel, Thursday ASOT 1266 Live Pre-party, and Adrenaline Sessions Post-Pre Party :)

time to meet friends again :)

One meeting room was changed into a small club :)

first time I heard trance from Laura van Dam, and it was great

I told Ruben as a joke that I was a big fan and never had a picture with him, he told me to get lost :) (just kidding, he didn't, he's both the nicest guy and a really good sport)

After Ruben ended his set at the hotel, it was time to get ready for the evening, and go to Now and Wow, a small club in Rotterdam for a special live ASOT episode recorded from there:

weird building, no idea what was there before the club

ah yes, welcome to Holland, the land of nickel and diming

things worked, but the pipes and layout were weird

the room was not big and packed, hard to get good pictures

Ferry and Ruben took over for the 3rd hour and it was over by 23:00:

But thankfully Adrenaline Sessions had pre-after party at Reverse Rotterdam with pure trance:

first met Casepeat from Korea at EDC Korea, lovely trance

huge thanks to Ed Lynam for organizing

Thursday Video Summary:

https://youtu.be/5w4NGdMv4fg

ASOT Day 1: Friday

ASOT Hotel had a few live sets starting at noon, although after going to bed at 06:00 with thursday pre-after party, I missed most of Xijaro and Pitch at noon :-//

small merch store

Then it was time for day1: AHOY was a 15mn subway ride from most of Rotterdam and easy 5mn walk in light rain:

lovely opening set from Ruben

as I mentioned, Insomniac dialed up the lights and lasers

Ulrich!

After Ruben, I had to go see Fadi at area 2, because I just can't miss the master Fadi:

bad ass video wall

and then Ferry Corsten

Ferry brought his parents, his mom was dancing to the beat :)

But while I was pessimistic for area one and Armin's set, I figured that as a 25 year of ASOT, it might be worth it, and boy it was. Armin can still put out a wonderful trance set when he's in the mood :) There was no techno, no mainstage EDM cheese, just a wonderful trip in trance memory lane that brought back many artists on stage to thank them for their contributions. It was absolutely wonderful.

After that it turned into a f2f with funk tribu, and it degraded into techno in no time, so I ran away to area 2 again :)

where JoC put out a lovely set

By 01:00, it was over, I think they decided that they didn't want to go much longer and public transport did shut down at 01:00, so that was it. But, the best surprise ever was to step into a metro wagon and see it decked out with CDJs, speakers and superstrings. I cannot express how freaking awesome that was. It was only a 20mn ride to the main train station or in my case 5mn to the next stop to go to Now and Wow for the afterparty, but those few minutes were fantastic :)

Superstrings also recognized me and were as surprised to see me as I was to see them :)

I was wondering after it happened if they were on the only DJs playing in the metro, only in that wagon, and only on that one trip, and as I write this, I just heard back from them and the answer is yes :)

So back to Now and Wow for the 2nd night and music until 06:00:

Finally got to meet Jeffrey Sutorius of Dash Berlin

As a side note, at 06:00 you were on your own to get back home, no public transport at that time, so it was walking, biking, or rideshare.

Friday Video Summary:

ASOT Day 2: Saturday

So while I did almost everything until then, I did wake up around 15:00 on saturday and ended up resting a bit and fixing the several things that broke on my LED outfit the previous night. There was a pre-party at Reverse, but it was across town in the wrong direction, I was tired, it was gloomy and raining outside, so I stayed put until the main party, even if I would have loved it if it had started a couple of hours earlier (it might sound like quitter talk, but going back and forth across town for multiple parties was a bit of a barrier to entry

headed for area 4 that had all the trance that night

From there, went to Giuseppe Ottaviani's Ottagon set at area 2, an impressive performance:

Next was Cosmic Gate:

From there, I made te tactical mistake to go check out Armin's set at Area 1, but it techno and I lost time I should have spent in Area 4 with Jorn:

pretty

but the really good music was with Jorn inside the containers

awkward stage, but great music

and then Sean Tyas, OMG, Sean, soo good it was!

master at work

After Sean, it was time for Lovely Richard Durand at area 2

exactly one lit up inflatable pink totem :)

and david forbes closed the night

And that was it, 06:00, time to get back to reality and get some sleep! By then you had to take the for pay shuttles back to the train station, or rideshare to get home.

Saturday Video Summary:

Conclusions/Suggestions

I wrote those at the top, you can go back for them :)

But I can still say: despite more music that my brain labels at techno, there was still plenty of trance to enjoy during most of those 3 days, and we can only be thankful for that. It was a wonderful party, a yearly reunion of friends, and loads of fun. The extra events that stretched things to 3 days was a great improvement. Despite my being a bit sad for having missed those older ASOTs with great trance at mainstage, and now going to the smaller stages to find trance with my fellow trance lovers, I'm also aware that those other stages help pay for the event and venue and ultimately those smaller stages that would not pay for the event on their own, so even if I don't love that music, I'm happy it's there :) I also need to acknowledge that trance was upgraded from area 5 last year to 4, which was bigger, so that was a great change. And as was pointed out to me, those people might get lost, end up at the trance stage by mistake, and decide they actually like that music too :)

Should you go, Would I go back?

If you're in Europe, going to ASOT is a no brainer, even if you dislike techno about as much as I do, you can still find lots of good trance if you go to the right rooms

If you're from North America, by going to ASOT, you'll see multiple DJs you'll never see in the US, like Jorn Van Deynhoven, that can totally bot worth the trip if you can afford it.

Last year, I said ASOT was a bit of a hard sell at 1.5 days only if you travel from far, but realistically this year if you went to all the pre and post parties, it was pretty much 3 days, Much better!

Last year, I wrote 2 things: "I hope Insomniac Europe invests more into ASOT next year, to bring it back to a real long term sustainable 2 day festival worth flying across the world for. And maybe not conflicting with EDCMX would still be a good idea", and both wishes were granted!

So despite the worrying trend of trance being replaced with techno, let's hope it stops or reverses somewhat (even Tiesto said Trance is cool again :) ), and if they do 3 days of parties next year again, I can recommend ASOT as "worth the trip"!

Last but not least, just like the dreamstate guys, the ASOT team, cares, listens, tries to please as many people as they can, and put a lot of work into all this, so thank you so much to everyone!