Brian Bout: Dance Valley organizer with an inexhaustible love for dance music
Dance Valley is the flagship of UDC Events. Every year, tens of thousands of dance enthusiasts descend on the Spaarnwoude recreation area in Velsen-Zuid. The first edition of this popular festival was held in 1995 and attracted 8000 visitors. In the years that followed, Dance Valley quickly grew into one of the largest festivals in the Netherlands. Bout managed to attract both domestic and foreign artists, which resulted in a considerable increase in the number of visitors every year. Already in 2001, Bout reached the magical limit of 100,000 visitors with Dance Valley.
The Edammer still looks back on that period with pride. The 2001 edition drew 110,000 paying visitors in 2001, which Bout says is still the highest ever in Dance Valley history. Nevertheless, according to the UDC director, this edition was also the low point in Dance Valley’s existence. Due to a huge cloudburst at the end of the day, the shuttle buses could hardly reach the site, forcing visitors to leave the site on foot in the pouring rain.