Loveland Festival

Loveland Festival is a house and techno festival that first ran on 28 August 2005 at Sloterpark, Amsterdam. Loveland Events, founded by Marnix Bal, organised it for the brand’s tenth year. The planned date was 14 August; Cyclone Harvey raised wind and the site was ruled unsafe. The team moved it two weeks. Crowds danced, ate, used the pools and DIY workshops. The brand had begun on 12 August 1995 as Swim & Dance at the tropical pool of Gran Dorado in Zandvoort: free condoms, money to AIDS funds, Dimitri, Godard, Michel de Hey and DJ Marnada. Steven Soeters helped set up the Loveland Foundation.

Bal told Partyscene that 2005 was the jubilee and that the first regular festival was 5 August 2006, 10:00 to 23:00, thirty DJs and four thousand tickets. Sloterpark became the annual site. In 2010, the fifth edition on 14 August, Early Bird tickets sat at €49 and the bill listed Sasha, Erick Morillo, Stacey Pullen and Einmusik. Festivalinfo called it Amsterdam’s largest open-air and said 2009 had sold out. Stages take names from house concepts: Rise (Ascension Day, 2000), Fire (the 2003 tour) and Nest (intimate nights, 2011). 909 Festival, another Loveland title, has sat in Amsterdamse Bos since 2011.

Loveland van Oranje began in 1997 at Nieuwmarkt as a free Queensday; in 2013 it became King’s Day and left the centre. Sanddance covered Woodstock Bloemendaal through 2005. TGIF ran at Sinners Club until 2 April 2004. T-Dansant used Artis and other rooms on Sundays from 2000. NYE grew from the Amstel to a warehouse with three floors. ADE Special began at Hotel Arena in 2004 and reached eight parties at three sites in 2021. Fight Cancer Tour, 2007, turned a garbage truck into a disco and raised €30,000 in fifteen hours. SAS Bal, 2009, at Beurs van Berlage, remembered Saskia Bal.

In 2022 Swim & Dance returned to Sloterparkbad on the same calendar day as 1995, to open the Fest weekend. In 2025, 9 and 10 August, Loveland marked thirty years of house: more than eighty artists and six stages. Early Bird sold out in 24 hours. Amelie Lens, Dom Dolla, CamelPhat, FJAAK, Franky Rizardo, Gregor Tresher, Adam Beyer, ARTBAT, Azzecca, Mind Against, Sarah Story and Shimza played. Guestzone dated the announcement 3 February 2025. The site remains Sloterpark, west Amsterdam, with grass, water and the Sloterparkbad.

On 8 and 9 August 2026 the Fest returned to Sloterpark. The official timetable listed more than seventy names: Eric Prydz, Fatboy Slim, Jamie Jones, Sven Väth, Ben Klock, Sasha and John Digweed, Michel de Hey, Joris Voorn, Kölsch, WhoMadeWho, Stephan Bodzin, Robert Hood, Rødhåd and Collabs 3000. Those dates have passed; they are not presented as a current season. The site loveland.nl/festival is kept. House and techno measured the bill. Sloterpark has pinned the ground since 2005. Loveland Events runs from Amsterdam, not from a foreign label.

Festileaks filed eleven moments in August 2025. Partyscene interviewed Bal before the third edition, 2 August. Music for Everybody, 2013, toured squares with Pioneer. Diynamic Festival, with Solomun, has used Amsterdamse Bos since 2014. Weekender, 2014–2015, used a southern holiday park until the rules cut it. The Fest holds as a day — and later a weekend — of house in Sloterpark, with pools, food and stages that carry the house’s own names. Loveland’s 25-years page lists Fire! as a 72-date tour in seven cities from Hotel Arena. T-Dansant mixed Armani, chefs and jazz. On Ice, 2012, used Flevopark lake with a van and staff on the decks. Circoloco, Hyte, Afterlife and Diynamic partnered on ADE. Half a Fight Cancer ticket went to the fund. SAS Bal aimed at €50,000 and auctioned paintings. 909 takes its name from the Roland TR-909. Nest is the Fest’s smallest stage. Time To House filed the 2026 bill with Mau P, Hot Since 82, Nicole Moudaber and Vintage Culture. Sloterpark sits west, beside the Sloterplas. Gray Area listed the 2025 weekend. Four hundred Nieuwmarkt residents signed against moving van Oranje. Land van Bosse has hosted Diynamic since 2016, after De Kleine Speelweide. Weekender used bungalows and villas, a pool and pedal boats. Lovelanders is the crowd’s nickname. Bal played five different NYE gigs before 2002. The last TGIF was billed Last chance to dance. The Fight Cancer truck was blue. Beurs van Berlage had hosted royal weddings. The Fest has measured twenty years in the same park. Time To House added Bart Skils, Enrico Sangiuliano and Kevin de Vries to the 2026 bill. Saturday 2025 was almost sold out a month out, Loveland wrote.