All About DGTL Festival

DGTL, the global electronic music festival, will take you on a journey of discovery, inspiration, jaw-dropping art installations, and lighting production.

The fest is an electronic music mecca in the Dutch capital. Every year, house music newcomers and techno adventurers come to Amsterdam’s city center to see their favorite musicians performing in a spectacular location, combined with dazzling light displays and thunderous sound systems.

DGTL Festival 2022 edition dates are 15-17 April 2022. Go get your DGTL Festival tickets on Soundclub, the social app for live music experiences covering +3,000 international festivals.

DGTL Festival lineup will include +80 artists. Among DGTL Festival headliners to look for, we can find Paul Kalkbrenner, Jon Hopkins, and Laurent Garnier.

Here’s everything you need to know about DGTL Festival.

DGTL Festival has come a long way since its inception

Amsterdam’s famed DGTL is the world’s first circular electronic music festival. Its sustainability and circularity goals pave the path for electronic music festivals and events to have a greener future.

The first edition, held as a one-day event in 2013, hit a home run by selling out the tickets – a challenge that is mostly never conquered by rookie festivals.

This gigantic debut encouraged DGTL to further deliver its ethos, characterized by three pillars – music, art, and revolution. The festival quickly flourished, as it sold out the tickets on its second and third editions as well.

Not long after, the one-day festival morphed into a two-day renowned event that cherished the much-lusted-after international character.

In 2020, COVID-19 did not defeat DGTL Festival. The electronic titan took over the digital universe to deliver its eye-catching music program and allow festival-goers to participate with just one click.

Fast forward to 2022, DGTL re-energized the festival season for Dutch ravers with a triumphant return to the dance floor.

DGTL has enjoyed a spectacular journey and rapid rise in a very short period of time. It has become a powerful international force to be reckoned with thanks to its off-the-wall blend of underground dance music, conceptual art, and forward-thinking ethos.

A different approach from other festivals

This music festival, which supports the underground, emphasizes creativity and exploration. DGTL doesn’t boast lineups of the blue-blooded music heroes only – it chooses to highlight the present and the future’s top influencers.

By incorporating major names from the electronic realm with a wide range of local up-and-coming talent, and surprising back-to-back sets, DGTL balances its musical lineup.

This all-inclusive strategy is coupled with excellent audio setups and creative set designs. The crew behind the scenes pushes artistic limits with out-of-this-world visual art pieces, while techno artists perform their heart-racing music sets.

Home to all things electronic, DGTL covers soundscapes ranging from upbeat disco, house, and funk to jungle and UKG.

It adds some modern trance and industrial music for the rave-hungry crowd and minimal techno for the electronic aficionados.

With a lineup of over 80 artists, including the likes of Monolink, Adriatique, Nicola Cruz, and Jon Hopkins, DGTL attracts more than 40,000 visitors every year, transforming Europe’s City of Sin into an electronic music mecca.

DGTL Festival takes place in a former shipyard

There are seven stages at DGTL Festival

Some of the best electronic music artists in the world have performed in the renowned festival every year since the inaugural DGTL Amsterdam. The festival is on track to provide a magnificent mix of musicians, from beloved underground icons to explosive rookies from Amsterdam’s deep-sea of electronic talent.

The festival’s 2022 edition featured seven stages and 80 acts over three days. These stages were designed to house a plethora of sounds and themes delivered through electronic music. Each one offers something distinctively different to DGTL attendees.

The Modular Stage is where techno and house collide, while the Generator Stage is home to dark and bullet-hard techno. At the same time, the AMP Stage showcases a state-of-the-art LED system used for hypnotic visual effects and video projections.

Gain Stage is all about artsy collaborations and creates a space where artists are encouraged to play a music genre that is different from their go-to one.

The Frequency stage features eclectic electronic genres, including progressive techno and house, in an outdoor setting. Filter offers an intimate club-like environment with a limited capacity and great interaction between the audience and the artist.

Last but not least, Live Stage hosts live performances combined with an exceptional plant-filled setup and lightings.

DGTL offers something for everyone when it comes to accommodation

DGTL Festival features its own official campsite located in north Amsterdam, just a short bus ride from the event’s grounds. In connection with the campsite, there is a restaurant, a laundromat, and modern bathrooms with facilities for disabled individuals.

The campsite presents different options to respond to everyone’s needs and pockets. Festival-goers will be able to rent a tent spot, tent, or cabin.

Not a fan of camping? Luckily, DGTL is located in an area brimming with hotels and Airbnb apartments.

Attendees will be able to book their place, choosing from eco-friendly hotels to budget-friendly hostels that can accommodate an entire group of friends.

At DGTL, you can pamper yourself

Is your adventurous mood on? We have fantastic news for you. DGTL has expanded its flagship version with the help of their Sexyland pals, a conceptual club on the NDSM Wharf, by including a hidden spa.

But to be granted entrance, people will have to climb the crane and win a bingo competition. By partnering up with Faralda Crane – a mind-blowing hotel that offers a once-in-a-lifetime experience – festival-goers are spoilt for spa choices inside Sexyland’s concept.

From bubbly jacuzzis to relaxing massages, this tranquil environment is a breath of fresh air from DGTL’s hustle and bustle. They can enjoy artwork, quiet conversations, private dancers, self-care activities, and performances in an all-inclusive VIP experience.

At DGTL, art and music go hand in hand

Cultural and creative activities are significant components of DGTL’s identity, as art is one of the festival’s main pillars.

Since DGTL prides itself as a creative space, it holds remarkable art pieces, ranging from industrial and modular installations to environmentally-friendly projects to keep festival-goers engaged. This translates into cutting-edge visual art and technology that maintains its zero-waste strategy.

Every year, the DGTL works in collaboration with local artists to provide conceptual art performances. The festival scatters its grounds with art projects created by local artists and designers participating in the competition.

The music festival holds a yearly competition to choose an art installation winner. Whoever is talented and creative enough to sweep DGTL’s organizers off their feet can add “a music festival featured my project on its grounds” to their CV.

One of the noteworthy art installations that’s both jaw-dropping and eye-catching is Skyline.

The project features mind-blowing 4D sound, combined with a dynamic lighting scheme to provide a completely new, distinctive, and compelling sensorial experience.

Special performances supported the project during the weekend – every day, an artist performed during a specific time slot to hype up the crowds.

DGTL never runs out of surprises

In 2015, every festival-goer who decided to camp in the on-site chalets and tents was automatically granted entrance to the festival’s nocturnal after-party festivities. The relatively intimate scale of DGTL and the massive Scheepsbouwloods after-party venue meant that activities could go on until the early hours.

Fast-forward to 2017, electronic legend Maceo Plex deserved to have his own room at DGTL, where the techno grand master delivered an iconic performance. He played the finest of what the underground has to offer, breathing Ibiza’s hot air into European dance floors.

And that’s not all – during 2020’s hard time, many music festivals were canceled in an ongoing fight against COVID-19.

But the unstoppable DGTL refused to reschedule and organized Digital DGTL, the world’s largest online festival, ensuring every festival lover gets a taste of its electronic-fuelled weekend.

Anyone who virtually attended the renowned music festival transformed their living room into a festival area. Meticulously working on the details, the organizers approached DGTL’s virtual space just like they would have done with their real festival edition by streaming different stages simultaneously.

The 28 performing artists were able to deliver a taste of the iconic festival to the revelers stuck indoors by playing eclectic electronic beats for two days in a row.

Say goodbye to the performers and enjoy the foods and goods

By partnering with Beyond Meat, DGTL has switched to a plant-based diet, receiving positive feedback about the food – even meat fans praised the plant-based burgers, despite not being informed of the food’s environmental advantage.

But the music festival does not stop there.

DGTL works with sustainable clothing brand, Unrobe to produce clothing using recycled polyester and organic cotton, which means no chemicals and pesticides are used.

The clothing items combine great quality with cool and minimal designs that appeal to any and every festival-goer.

DGTL becomes fully circular

Since its launch, DGTL Festival has worked toward its circular festival goal by recycling plastic, opting for meatless catering, and using collected urine as garden fertilizer.

In addition to placing recycling stations all over the festival grounds, it also collects plastic cups to recycle trash for various things, including brand-new art installations and skateboards.

The festival, which is highly aware of the environmental impacts, has launched a zero-emission tool to determine the means of transportation attendees use.

In 2019, DGTL Festival won the International Greener Festival Award for its sustainability efforts and Green Operations Award, thus becoming the world’s most sustainable music festival among 40 festivals from 17 countries.

The DGTL Festival is laying the groundwork for future electronic music festivals and events to be more environmentally friendly.

They want to change how we live in the future by sharing a framework that can inspire other events to create a greener future.

DGTL has an international character

DGTL is an Amsterdam-based festival with a global presence.

Regardless of being a relatively rookie festival, DGTL doesn’t fall short in attracting significant numbers of music devotees. It made a big splash with the first edition, therefore becoming a strong festival brand both in the Netherlands and worldwide.

In addition to its Amsterdam home base and ADE series, DGTL has editions in Madrid, Santiago, São Paulo, Bangalore, and Tel Aviv.

With the same music DNA and principles as the mothership event, DGTL is primed to take music fans everywhere into the same dizzying sense of musical pleasure and global community under the heart-racing bass.