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Cover photo by Audio Obscura
This year the City of Amsterdam is celebrating a monumental milestone: 750 years since it was granted city rights. To honor this anniversary, the Dutch capital launched an ambitious, yearlong program that stretches from October 2024 to October 2025, featuring a mix of cultural events, public art installations, neighborhood festivals, concerts, and civic moments. From floating exhibitions to spontaneous performances in the streets, every corner of the city has its own energy. But among the many festivities planned, one event stood out for its audacity and vision – a celebration not just of the city’s past, but its future.
This past weekend, Amsterdam did what few cities would dare: it shut down a major highway and invited the public to dance on it.
Festival op de Ring
On Saturday, June 21st, a 15-kilometer stretch of the A10 ring road, normally busy with thousands of vehicles, was transformed into the surreal setting for “Festival op de Ring” – a monumental one-day cultural festival. Divided into zones – West, South, and East – the highway played host to a variety of public programs: a forest of 8,000 temporary trees, a 7.5-km “fun run,” performances, art installations, and theater productions.
But the heartbeat of the day? The “Highway Rave Op de Ring,” a bold, nine-hour electronic music event curated by Audio Obscura, a collective known for turning unexpected spaces – train stations, museums, cathedrals – into temporary temples of sound.
Staying true to their love for unconventional spaces and uncompromising sound, Audio Obscura crafted a lineup that pulsed with the city’s electronic heartbeat: Armin van Buuren, Joris Voorn, Benwal, Bella Claxton, and many more.
With the A10’s concrete expanse beneath their feet and a hazy summer sky above, thousands of ravers danced from noon until 9 PM. Free entry tickets had to be reserved in advance – and with over 600,000 applicants vying for one of just 200,000 spots, demand was outstanding.
The Highway Rave Op de Ring will likely never be repeated. It was a once-in-750-years moment that captured Amsterdam’s essence: bold, inclusive, creative, and defiantly alive.
