The Amsterdam Dance Event is an annual, a five-day electronic music conference and festival held mid-October. With thousands of brands, speakers and music-industry insiders flocking to the city during this week, many also popped up along side the big event to cash in on the buzz and heavy foot-traffic.
This year, Storefront worked with many brands and music labels to find the perfect spaces for their pop-up concept alongside the ADE hype. Here are our favorite pop-up spots during ADE below, plus contact us if you want to learn how to get your brand involved for next year’s event!
- Clubbing TV
This TV channel is dedicated to electronic music, DJ’s and Dance Music culture, and is also partner of some of the planet’s biggest electro festivals. The company chose to host a pop-up store in Amsterdam, “to do live TV Shows (live interviews, live dj set, live performances & meetings),” states Laureline Teste Cianfarani, TV Producer/Journalist at Clubbing TV.
The company chose this space because they “wanted to be close to the De La Mar Theater and have a visibility in the street so artists can find the space easily,” she adds. The company has popped up at ADE before, but renting out this Storefront space, known as Bloom Room, was “definitely our highlight”.
Their pro-tip for popping up? Prepare newsletters, post on socials, create video teasers, and visuals for each guest artist. Also, get some branded stickers to put on the windows to make it our own!
- Astralwerks
This American record label, which focuses on electronic and dance music and is owned by Universal Music Group, hosted a pop-up cafe during ADE for a few days. This was the “first Astralwerks pop-up space in the world,” states Toby Andrews the Astralwerks General Manager, and the company used it to show off its recent re-brand. “We were excited to showcase this for the first time by making a combined meeting space and store so people could speak with us whilst being immersed in our new vision,” Andrews adds.
The concept itself, was intent on finding a way to bring people into the new image of the Astralwerks label, and provide them with a “comfortable space to network at ADE, take meetings with the team and do some shopping all in the same place!” says Andrews.
While the label hosted meetings in the shop during ADE, they also invited people into the pop-up cafe to have coffee and beers. “Everyone loved it, we got so much great feedback on the space,” Andrews adds.
Why his team chose to pop-up during this event? “ADE is one of the most important events of the year for everyone in electronic music so it was really important to us to make sure we had something that felt like home for people to come to amongst all the mayhem. Finding good WIFI and coffee sometimes isn’t easy so we were happy to be able to provide that to all our guests and staff.”
- Always Bright
Always Bright, the brand behind the BrightNight and BrightDay drinks, chose to host a pop-up experience during ADE called “hangover heaven”. “We designed the pop-up store to be visually pleasing with a natural look and made sure that (aside from our product) we provided hangover-related services such as anti-hangover massages and product tastings,” says Founder Sam Renders. The space also “functioned as a club, featuring the world’s biggest DJ’s, promoting our product and entertaining their fans and visitors of the store,” Renders adds.
The best part? The customers loved it. The pop-up space was filled all day and Renders admitted that the founders weren’t expecting any sales since the pop-up store functioned mostly as a branding tool, “but we managed to make a decent turnover after all!”
In terms of building on the hype during ADE, Always Bright hosted an invite-only influencer event on the Thursday of ADE, with a lot of big name DJ’s and nightlife influencers, hosted by DJ Sam Feldt. Then, throughout the weekend, the pop-up store “had a different DJ playing in the store every hour from 10 in the morning till 10 at night,” says Renders.
- Spinnin’ Records
Spinnin’ Records regards ADE as one of the most important weeks of the year for the brand. “The Spinnin’ Records Popup Store offers us a spot during ADE where we can get up close and personal with our fans, show our products and also host different activations together with the DJ’s that we work with. This has been a great success for 3 years now,” says Steven de Graaf, Commercial Director of Spinnin’ Records.
For the concept, the pop-up store had to be a multifunctional space so they could integrate different elements of the brand and partners. “When we start the planning of ADE, we never know exactly what kind of activities we will be working on for the store, but the store has to be suitable to fit the needs of very different elements. So we focus on finding such a multifunctional spot in the city center and we found a perfect match with Storefront,” Steven de Graaf adds.
To build buzz, the company hosts an opening drinks event in the store for business relations, DJ’s, managements, bookers, Brand Partners and other Record companies, to get the first sneak preview of the store. They also organized a very special “Silent Disco event for the first time, where DJ Mesto did a DJ set, celebrating his new track release together with a group of fans. This was a crazy event and a big success,” says Steven de Graaf.
As to the customer’s reactions to the space? “We had a lot of positive feedback from customers, business relations and press. Also the show up to all our events in the store and the number of Spinnin’ merchandise items that we sold tell us the Spinnin’ Records Popup Store 2018 was a great success. “
Inspired to launch your own pop-up store in Amsterdam?
- London-Based Lifestyle Brand Mantidy Launches Pop Up in Marylebone - November 13, 2019
- Fashion Retailer SHEIN Opens Dallas Pop-Up Shop With Storefront - November 11, 2019
- Howard Johnson popped-up with a candy-themed store in NYC to support brand refresh - September 13, 2019
