On June 1st, 2001, a 24-year-old Dutch DJ sat down in front of a microphone and pressed play. What followed was two hours of soaring synthesisers, euphoric breakdowns, and the kind of unshakeable emotional energy that only trance music can conjure. Nobody could have predicted that this modest Friday-night broadcast — aired on Dutch radio as A State of Trance — would still be running 25 years later, reaching listeners in more than 80 countries every single week.
That DJ was Armin van Buuren, already a respected name in the trance scene but not yet the five-time world number-one DJ he would become. In the years since that first broadcast, ASOT has grown from a local radio slot into one of the most recognised brands in electronic music — a weekly ritual for millions of fans, a rite of passage for countless artists, and a mirror held up to the ever-shifting sound of trance itself.
From airwaves to arenas
The early episodes of ASOT were lean affairs — Armin behind the decks, a two-hour set, and a small but passionately loyal listener base who tuned in week after week. What set the show apart from the beginning was van Buuren’s curatorial instinct: his ability to track a scene in real time, to introduce emerging producers alongside established names, and to build a narrative arc across each episode that felt less like a playlist and more like a journey.
As the show’s audience grew through the mid-2000s, so did its ambitions. Annual ASOT live events began drawing tens of thousands of fans, first in the Netherlands and then progressively further afield. Cities including Utrecht, Mexico City, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City all hosted festival editions, each one a statement of just how far the signal had travelled.
“June 1st, 2001 is where it all began. What started as a radio show grew into a global movement”.
Armin van Buuren
The anniversary year
2026 has been shaped, from the very first week, by the weight of this milestone. Celebrations opened in spectacular fashion at Rotterdam Ahoy on 27th–28th February, where van Buuren played a two-hour trance-heavy set alongside guests including Cosmic Gate, Rank 1, Aly & Fila, John O’Callaghan, Mauro Picotto, Laura van Dam, and Hannah Laing. The evening also featured a three-way back-to-back set between van Buuren, Oliver Heldens, and Maddix — a moment that neatly bridged trance’s heritage with the wider dance music world it has influenced.
Musically, the anniversary has been anchored by two major releases. The official 2026 ASOT anthem, ‘Always You’, sees van Buuren team up with Richard Durand and vocalist Dicosis for a track that premiered at Ultra Music Festival in Miami and has featured in van Buuren’s headline sets ever since — its soaring vocals and driving basslines an unapologetic distillation of everything the show has stood for across two and a half decades.
The companion album, A State of Trance 2026, marks the twenty-third instalment of the annual mix series. Spread across three themed mixes — Pulse, Frequency, and Energy — the 43-track collection maps the breadth of trance in 2026, from the progressive warmth of collaborations with Argy and Andrew Bayer through to the underground intensity of KI/KI and Lilly Palmer.
“Reaching 25 years of A State of Trance is something I could have only dreamed of when I started the show,” van Buuren said. “This album reflects where trance is today and where it’s heading. I’m proud to release another album whilst celebrating the brand’s 25-year anniversary and the music that makes all this possible”.
What’s still to come
The anniversary calendar is far from over. On June 1st — the exact date the show first aired 25 years ago — van Buuren is hosting a free community celebration at The Loft Amsterdam, a capacity-limited and deliberately intimate event designed to honour the listeners who have been with the show since the very beginning.
Later in the year, the ASOT brand takes up a five-Monday residency at [UNVRS] Ibiza, running from 7th September through 5th October — the first time the show has held an Ibiza residency of this scale. Further live dates in Vietnam and Hong Kong are already confirmed, and van Buuren has revealed he is actively working to bring an ASOT festival to the United States for the first time.
A quarter century of belief
What does it mean to keep a radio show going for 25 years? In the age of streaming, algorithms, and attention spans measured in seconds, the answer is deceptively simple: consistency, passion, and an unfailing belief that the music matters. Every week, without exception, van Buuren has sat down and built a show — not because a format demanded it, but because the audience showed up and the music kept coming.
Trance has been declared dead several times over the past quarter century. It has been eclipsed by progressive house, absorbed by EDM, and periodically dismissed by critics who prefer their electronic music more opaque. ASOT survived all of it by remaining exactly what it was from day one: a broadcast built around the idea that a single piece of music, at exactly the right moment, can make you feel like you are not alone.
Twenty-five years on from that first Friday night, the signal is still going out. And the faithful are still tuning in.
Leave a Comment