ROTTERDAM ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) claims to be one of the biggest electronic music events worldwide. How should we look a REMF compared to ADE?
Well, first of all Rotterdam and Amsterdam have always been different cities when it comes down to Electronic Music. The sound is different, the people are different but most important: Rotterdam has a real big electronic music scene. Rotterdam is the birthplace of different genres such as of course Gabber but also plays an important role in the shaping of the Drum 'n Bass and Electro scene of today in The Netherlands - think of Triple vision, Clone etc. Not to forget that the first Techno producers on Detroit and Canadian labels such as +8 and also the classic labels such as ART and Jedi Knight’s Global Communication were producers from Rotterdam like Jochem Paap and Gert Jan Bijl. Rotterdam has a long history of record stores, record labels, events, producers and deejays. Some of the finest electronic music distributors have their home base in Rotterdam. Our city has an international film festival, the World Port Day, a formula one city race, the world of the 'Witte de With' and of course the Fast Forward Dance Parade. But we don’t have an accessible festival that focuses on Electronic Music from a broad perspective. And this is what REMF stands for. We don’t have the aim to become a festival that purely focuses on the industry. We want to focus on the whole spectrum of the electronic scene; from deejays to artists, from pro to bedroom performers and from VJ to designers/illustrators. We want the festival to be for our generation, which happens to be an electronic generation, to show what Rotterdam has to offer in terms of Electronic Music and showcase it's ties and network nationally and internationally. A 3-day adventure in our lovely city, creating a good reason for people to invite their international friends for three days of happenings and fun.

Can the upcoming edition of REMF be considered a pilot for a bigger bang next year? What are the plans?
It can not only be considered a pilot: It is a pilot edition for the upcoming bigger bang of the Rotterdam Electronic Music Festival in the beginning of June in 2007. Next year REMF will be bigger. It will have outdoor locations, an electronic summer school and an electronic kindergarden for those young electronic parents among us. At the moment plans are to use the whole Wilheminakade on the Kop van Zuid with the Cruiseterminal, Club Rotterdam, Las Palmas, the Photo Institute and other locations. The main festival ground will have a huge outdoor stage between the cruise terminal and the big KPN tower.

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