Spring in Motion with Foundation Series—Disclosure Sets the Tone, Charlotte De Witte and Peggy Gou Finishes the Journey at Open Radius

By Ryan Hayes

From the very beginning, Blueprint’s Foundation Series has thrived on a simple mission: earn trust, reward curiosity. The flagship house music platform has gradually guided fans toward the deep end, cultivating a welcoming, open-minded community around the genre. Year three of Open Radius, returning May 16-17th, now feels like the clearest expression of that philosophy. If Charlotte de Witte and Peggy Gou serve as the emotional anchors of the weekend, the rest of the lineup shows that confidence runs far deeper than two headliners.

With 22 artists across two days, Open Radius isn’t chasing excess—it’s refining a curated experience. The balance of pressure and play, tension and release, is perfectly executed, with headliners setting the tone and the wider lineup shaping the weekend’s journey.

Find out why Charlotte de Witte and Peggy Gou are a headliner masterstroke. To read my extensive piece of Charlotte De Witte and Peggy Gou’s impact at Foundation, click here.

Day One Preview Highlights:

Eli Brown stands out immediately. His industrial, high-octane techno sits perfectly in Charlotte’s world. With dark, driving basslines and the relentless pacing of tracks like Be The One and Diamonds On My Mind, he is the ideal primer for De Witte.

The energy continues with Layton Giordani, whose collaboration with Eli Brown, When I Push, is another techno masterclass—seamlessly anchoring the day’s soundscape.

Playing off Giordani’s more melodic, progressive edge, Salute brings a fast-moving, emotionally charged sense of euphoric energy to his headlining spot at the Propagate Stage. One of the most exciting bookings on the entire lineup, Salute deviates from the expected, delivering a unique flavor of UK garage, house, and festival-ready energy—it’s time to let a new artist sneak up on you, because his tempo and groove may end up defining your weekend.

Further down the bill, 49th & Main offer texture and variation, bringing a live-leaning, indie-dance crossover feel that adds a different emotional tone to day one. Their genre-fluid, atmospheric house acts as a palate cleanser from the heavier techno styling of the night.

Day Two Preview Highlights:

If day one’s programming largely leans into pressure, day two playfully opens things up. Prospa B2B Josh Baker is a groove forward pairing—two artists dialed into the modern global house movement with an ear for rhythm-first selections. Their collaboration represents a push and pull between classic rave sensibilities and minimal-house groove. Together the forgo the stereotypical rise and fall of mainstream acts favouring a steady, hypnotic climb that keeps crowds locked in a state of constant motion. A spot-on pairing for open duties leading in to Peggy’s infectious sense of joy.

Max Styler & Omar+ are set to sink everyone into the vibe, lift the energy, and get day two flowing. Styler’s recent run of groove-forward, tech-leaning house productions (Every Night, You & Me, & One More) have positioned him as one of the scenes most reliable crossover acts right now. Most importantly—he is undeniably effective in a festival setting. Omar+ is the tone-setter for the night crafting a steady rhythm empowered by nuance. Dail in with Back of the Club, Open Your Eyes, & Back It Up.

If you’re looking for a splash of Euro energy at a higher BPM MALUGI has you covered at the Propagate stage. Progressive, playful, and laden with hooks he brings just the right amount of mainstream energy while maintaining— well earned—underground club sensibilities.

This year Open Radius feels extremely intentional. The Propagate stage has taken a massive step forward in curation and artistry. There is no filler. Every artist has a role, and that is exactly what you want to see at a Foundation Series branded event.

Setting the Tone: Disclosure Returns

Before Open Radius even kicks off, Disclosure are bringing a DJ set to the PNE Forum on April 18th, alongside AYYBO and bushbaby. The duo needs little introduction, at this point their status proceeds them and this one is a guaranteed sell out.

Disclosure were a personal defining act of FVDED 2025—their set was effortless, groove-driven, and deeply communal. Their latest single, The Sun Comes Up Tremendous is a breath of fresh air in the dreary rainy months. Light, effervescent, and oozing warmth it feels destined for heavy summer rotation.

Show up early for AYYBO, a self-taught Tik-Tok era producer packing dark-driving tech house that he artfully infuses splashy playful hooks.

As a prelude to Open Radius, Disclosure feel perfectly at home, and it is surprising it has taken 13.5 outings to bring them into the Foundation fold.

Over three years in and Foundation Series is Blueprints most consistent brand. Built on mutual trust and a loyal fanbase of growing house fans it guides you in, then let you discover the rest. Disclosure & Open Radius are the perfect one two punch to get springtime moving.

Four Festivals, Four Philosophies — One Scene in Motion

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By Ryan Hayes

This year Canada’s tentpole festivals feel less like they are competing with one another and more like they’re running in tangent. FVDED in the Park, VELD, Escapade, and Ilesoniq may share similar audience pools and some artists, but they represent four distinct visions of what a successful dance music weekend should look like.

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Who the Lineups Are For

FVDED stakes its claim on momentum. After two years of careful recalibration, Blueprint’s flagship event emphasizes artists actively shaping the current moment rather than relying on legacy or nostalgia. Yes, Fisher and Dom Dolla are bankable ‘mainstream’ acts, but the buck stops there. Most of their lineup relies on rising and mid-tier artists—Mau P, Knock2, Disco Lines, Marlon Hoffstadt, Odd Mob, MPH, Notion, and OMNOM—all signal a booking philosophy where active grassroots fandom outweighs past peaks. At first glance the lineup may appear lighter on star power to casual festivalgoers, but it’s one of the most accurate reflections of the current scene FVDED has presented in a decade.

Ilesoniq is Eastern Canada’s most ambitious festival experience as it attempts to straddle both momentum (like FVDED) and mass appeal (like VELD). There is a balance between polished mainstage acts and side quests meant to reward attendees who dig deep. Headliners like Above & Beyond, Chris Lake, Dom Dolla, Deadmau5, and Rezz provide large-scale credibility, and stage mastery, while supporting artists—AYYBO, Bullet Tooth, KLEED, LYNY, ¥ØUSUKE YUK1MATSU, Marco Strous, and Kattana —highlight the festival’s bet on discovery. It all comes together to ensure that every hour is full of sonic texture regardless of your stylistic preferences.

VELD leans heavily into scale and safety with a clear trance throughline that is backed by bass music. More than any other festival its 50-artist lineup emphasizes instant recognition, and a juxtaposition of emotional payoff and communal peaks. Headliners like Above & Beyond, Armin van Buuren, Kx5, and Charlotte de Witte guarantee unifying progressive emotional spectacle, while bass-heavy acts like Subtronics, Slander, Illenium, Black Tiger Sex Machine, and Ray Volpe promise high-energy communal peaks. The message here is the most direct of the big four: comfort, familiarity, & marketability. A weekend of escapism.

Escapade is the only festival to stretch itself over a three-day period and because of that it operates on its own wavelength. A scattershot a maximal volume with a simple mission: touch every corner of under the EDM umbrella. Its sprawling roster of over 70 artists—including Tiësto, Illenium, Alan Walker, FISHER, GRiZ, Slander, Loud Luxury, and Svdden Death—cohesion is secondary; the focus is choice and grandiose spectacle.

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Most Prominently Featured Genres & Overlaps

Across Ilesoniq, FVDED, VELD, and Escapade, house and tech-house emerge as the connective tissue of Canada’s 2026 festival circuit. Groove-forward mainstage acts like FISHER, Dom Dolla, and Chris Lake dominate, while crossover-friendly digestible festival house (Disco Lines, Mau P) and darker club-leaning variants (Odd Mob, OMNOM) round out the spectrum. Even festivals with strong bass or trance identities pad out their programming with four-on-the-floor accessibility.

The most shared artists across the four festivals are FISHER, Dom Dolla, Disco Lines, and Crankdat—underscoring a house music focus. Crankdat’s dominating presence is a bass-driven high-energy anomaly that suggests promoters see him as a bridge between house and heavier festival bass—a wildcard that could potentially unify diverse crowds. But with Crankdat’s bombastic sensibilities it may not pan out that way.

Regardless, in 2026 house isn’t just present—it’s foundational. In an ever-shifting fickle musical landscape house is the current king.

As far as direct comparisons go Escapade and VELD share the highest percentage of crossover. Sharing eight of the same artists—Illenium, Slander, Black Tiger Sex Machine, Frank Walker, Odd Mob, Disco Lines, Maddix, and Crankdat—the festivals reflect a shared focus on high-recognition, peak-energy festival acts.

Despite have two very different philosophies FVDED and VELD share the most interesting overlap. Here there are six crossover artists—FISHER, Disco Lines, Effin, Mau P, Levity, and Crankdat. Despite their differing booking styles—FVDED leaning momentum-driven and VELD leaning legacy-focused—the overlap reveals a shared belief in the dominance of current wave of house and bass artists.

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Sonic DNA

• FVDED: House-forward, with curated bass and UK/European club influences. Acts meant to push the boundaries of North American festival norms, asking audiences to trust curation. This festival will reward your curiosity. A boutique experience at its very best.

• VELD: Has an emotional architecture built around trance & an influence throughout the genres full spectrum with bass serving as a secondary audience release. Yes, the lineup minimizes risk with reliable headliners, but the emotional core of Veld’s 2026 is bold—trance is timeless, its impact felt throughout EDM—but focusing on headliners with this level of classic resonance is a nuanced choice.

• Escapade: Genre saturation reigns supreme in this three-day behemoth. Bass, golden era big-room, festival house, tech-house, techno, and a splash of trance. Cohesion is secondary; for Escapade variety is the spice of life.

• Ilesoniq: House dominates main stages while bass stakes its own territory. The trick? Balancing globally recognized headliners with rising talent. The weekend feels seamless despite its genre breadth, and the payoff is cohesion, discovery, and spectacle in equal measure.

The Bottom Line: Four Paths, One Scene — No Wrong Answers

What 2026 makes clear is that Canada’s major EDM festivals are no longer fighting for the same identity. They’re more concerned refining their own legacies.

• FVDED is doubling down on momentum, relevance, and cultural alignment. A festival for those either very involved in the scene or fans who trust curation over familiarity and believe the dancefloor should reflect what’s happening now, not five years ago.

• Ilesoniq stands as the bridge between ambition and accessibility: scale, curation, and cohesion. Spectacle meets discovery in Eastern Canada’s most calculated and confident offering. It’s big enough to impress, but thoughtful enough to guide.

• VELD remains the pillar of mass appeal and mainstream certainty. It delivers reliability and scale as a service to fans—trance-laced architecture, bass-fueled peaks, and the comfort of instant recognition.

• Escapade embrace volume, breadth, and sheer spectacle to define its ethos. Choice over cohesion, abundance over restraint. Something for everyone, with the commercial names to back it all up.

Across all four festivals, Canadian EDM in 2026 doesn’t feel fractured—it feels diversified. House and tech-house anchor the entire circuit, acting as the connective tissue between cities and audiences. From boutique momentum to sprawling mainstream spectacle, there is no single strategy for success—and no wrong answer for fans deciding where to spend their summer. The scene isn’t shrinking or splintering. It’s evolving. Layered. Intentional. And in its current form, stronger than ever.

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Ilesoniq 2026: Scale, Curation, and Unmistakable Identity

By Ryan Hayes

For its 12th outing, Ilesoniq has cemented itself as Eastern Canada’s most ambitious festival experience—a weekend where scale meets niche curation, and established star power bolsters discoverability. With over 50 artists across multiple stages, the 2026 lineup rests on polished, festival-functional house with strong crossover appeal, while still rewarding side quests for diehards who venture beyond the main stage.

Bass genres come in a close second in overall share, and the balance feels intentional. There’s a quiet confidence here: Ilesoniq leans on established names and popular genres to drive early ticket sales, creating breathing room for varied programming—the kind of diversity that truly breeds a standout event.

A Variety Pack of Headliners

This year, Ilesoniq’s headliners run the gamut, showcasing sonic mastery across the board. Above & Beyond will deliver their classic cinematic, emotional trance. Deadmau5 and Rezz play perfectly off one another—Mau5’s irreverent progressive house, with a splash of tech depending on Joel’s mood, juxtaposed against Rezz’s driving, hypnotic mid-tempo bass intensity, emphasizing mood over spectacle. Both artists are an acquired taste that excel at unifying fiercely loyal fanbases.

Chris Lake & Friends may be the weekend’s biggest question mark. 2025 was a career-defining run for Lake, with his groove-forward, dancefloor-ready tech house permeating mainstages worldwide—and there’s a strong chance of a surprise Anti Up appearance. Dom Dolla remains the reigning titan of infectious, digestible house built for peak energy, while Boris Brejcha promises maximalist tech-house layered with dark, melodic, theatrical motifs.

Genre Diversity and Curated Flow

Ilesoniq’s wide focus doesn’t just stack genres—it weaves them, making transitions from bass to trance to house feel seamless and intentional. Depending on how the individual days and set times shake out, there’s real potential for unexpected pairings that offer fluid shifts between genres with similar BPMs. For the more open-minded festivalgoer, that’s peak curation.

Perhaps most importantly, the supporting artists elevate the festival beyond its headliners. AYYBO, ¥ØUSUKE Y𝑈𝐾1𝑀𝐴𝑇SU, KI/KI, HAYLA, and Riordan just scratch the surface of a massive talent pool, giving casual attendees a chance to walk away with a new favourite artist. The depth of the roster signals Ilesoniq’s calculated bet on discovery. Smaller sets across multiple stages ensure every hour of the weekend is filled with sonic texture.

Bottom Line

Ilesoniq 2026 is a showcase of layered programming—headliner spectacle framed by discovery. Where FVDED bets on momentum and VELD leans on legacy, Ilesoniq sits in between as a festival of both scale and sophistication.

By balancing globally recognized headliners with rising talent, curation rises to the forefront. Ilesoniq weaves house and bass in all their multifaceted subgenres, splashing in trance and euro-pop along the way. On paper, it shouldn’t read as a cohesive weekend—but it does. And because of that, it stakes a claim as Eastern Canada’s most compelling festival experience

VELD 2026: Built to Endure

By Ryan Hayes

For its thirteenth outing, VELD is throwing its weight around as an established mainstream cornerstone of the Canadian EDM festival circuit. With 50 acts, this year’s lineup is engineered to satisfy as many fandoms as possible. The headliners are all proven, the genre coverage is wide, and the event is clearly focused on instant artist recognition and scale. There’s no boutique play here, no attempt to break new ground—but in an age of rising costs and festival insecurity, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

VELD 2026 aims to deliver a reliable, massive weekend resting on the shoulders of dance music titans and reinforced by accessible bass. And honestly, that’s a valid mission statement in a market that increasingly craves communal escapism.

This year’s curation leans heavily on high energy acts, with a somewhat unexpected reliance on trance. Whether pure and classic (Armin & Above & Beyond), trance-inspired progressive (Artbat, KX5, Miss Monique), or refracted through a techno lens (Charlotte de Witte and Sara Landry), trance is one of VELD 2026’s defining through-lines. It’s less about genre purity and more about emotional resonance. VELD’s programming prioritizes spectacle, emotional peaks, and big-room, all-in moments.

Beyond traditional mainstage euphoria, there’s a clear secondary focus on the rising mainstream power of bass. Subtronics, Slander, Illenium, Black Tiger Sex Machine, Crankdat, Levity, Ray Volpe, and others bring chaotic torrents of peak-time energy designed to keep massive crowds fully engaged.

House music is represented but downplayed—offering just enough star power to ensnare house heads and convince them the lineup is worth their time. Here, big names like Fisher, Disco Lines, and Mau P carry the genre. There’s also a smattering of more EDM-leaning acts set to deliver a flavor of digestible mainstream, house-adjacent sets: Galantis, Frank Walker, & Lost Frequencies.

Although the lineup is light on them, if you’re hungry for the unknown—underground-adjacent artists you can claim as your personal 2026 discoveries—make sure to catch ¥ØU$UK€ ¥€, Panteros666, and Effin. While the three share little sonically, these are your “avoid autopilot” choices: the sets most likely to feel like discovery rather than consumption. Two additional standouts—less underground and more under-commercialized—are Lilly Palmer and Genesi. You’ll likely recognize a few of their productions; at the very least, their styles will be familiar, and they’re both primed to deliver.

Ultimately, VELD 2026 knows exactly what it is—and executes that vision with confidence. It’s a festival built on familiarity and emotional long-term fan payoff, designed to deliver a massive weekend for a broad audience rather than challenge it. Guaranteed escapism.

This year, VELD doesn’t redefine anything—but that isn’t the mission statement of every festival, nor should it be. What this lineup does accomplish is firmly securing the festival’s place as one of Canada’s most dependable—and consistently attractive—pillars within a dwindling festival landscape.

Pressure & Play: Open Radius Finds Its Balance

By Ryan Hayes

Year three of Blueprint’s Foundation Series festival Open Radius feels like the payoff of a carefully paced long game. In year one, FISHER and Purple Disco Machine anchored the weekend with an accessible, feel-good house. Year two pushed further outward with John Summit delivering a less mainstream focused set and Sara Landry nudging the crowd deeper into house’s harder sub-genres. Now, in year three, Charlotte de Witte and Peggy Gou are a confident step forward, a natural progression.

Blueprint didn’t push too hard, didn’t rush its audience towards the deep end; they’ve slowly and intentionally built a house-literate fanbase. Open Radius v14.0 headliners mirror the confidence of the FVDED’s lineup: poignant, timely, and unmistakably earned.

Charlotte de Witte’s sound is built on driving pressure and precision release—her sets are hypnotic, trance-infected modern techno designed for total live immersion. Tracks like “The Age of Love (Charlotte de Witte & Enrico Sangiuliano Remix)” and “Doppler” are standouts: long-form tension, rolling momentum, and pinpoint accurate release that hits hardest when shared in a sea of bodies. Locked into a synchronise pulse Charlotte’s journey promises to be dark, driving, and consuming.

Peggy Gou sits on the other side of the spectrum, radiating warmth, groove, and playfulness. Tracks like “Starry Night” and “(It Goes Like) Nanana” capture her broad appeal: infectious melodies and bouncing basslines that project a sense of joy. Peggy turns dancefloors into a communal celebration rather than drop riddled spectacle.

Together, they set a perfect emotional balance for the weekend, and we’d expect the remainder of the artists to follow suit. Both Charlotte and Peggy have spent years refining their craft—touring relentlessly, building labels, shaping their respective scenes, and earning their prestige and authority the hard way. Here credibility is key. And in a scene overwhelmingly dominated by male headliners, an all-female top billing matters—a reflection of where dance music should continue to head. Talent first and foremost.

With 22 artists across two days, Open Radius isn’t about excess. It feeds off direction and focus. Charlotte de Witte and Peggy Gou provide exactly that—and they are more than enough reason to trust this year's festival will be worth your time.

For tickets, click here.