Martin Garrix is one of the nominees in the IDMA Best "Trance" DJ category

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The International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) is a major awards show held every year during the Winter Music Conference every March in Miami. To get nominated, fans and EDM business people alike are invited to vote for their favourites in each category that includes anything from the "Best Underground Dance Track", the "Best Global DJ", right down to product categories like "Best DJ Software". This year there are 57 award categories and according to the official site there were "two million votes from music enthusiasts in 209 countries and territories every year" that voted. So that begs the question as to why Martin Garrix, who has nothing to do with trance music, got nominated for the Best Trance DJ? Having Martin Garrix as a nominee in the trance category is equivalent of let's say David Guetta getting on the list as the "Best Techno/Tech House DJ" list. In all fairness to Martin Garrix, it wasn't his fault for being nominated as it was his countless fans that decided to write his name down on the ballot. Whatever happened, someone clearly dropped the ball on this one. 

To view the full nominee list, click here. 

Update: Martin recently tweeted this: 

Couldn't agree with you more. 

What to do this weekend (Feb 7th - 9th)

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Bal en Blanc adds Fatboy Slim and Andrew Rayel to the official lineup

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The 20th edition of Bal en Blanc, the annual all-night white party in Montreal that takes place on Sunday, April 20th at the Palais Des Congres is heating up with 2 big names added to the already stellar lineup. The legendary Fatboy Slim will be joining the Arena 1 stage while rising trance star Andrew Rayel will be at the Arena 3 stage. These two DJs will be joining an already stacked lineup consisting of Hardwell, a special Carl Cox and Friends stage, and New World Punx. The full lineup is yet to be released so expect even more goodness to come from one of the most highly anticipated events all year. 

If you forgot how amazing Fatboy Slim live is, you only need to watch his performance at last year's Ultra Music Festival to understand his greatness behind the decks, watch: 

VIP tickets are now sold out but you can still buy regular tickets for $149+ by clicking here. 

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Preview: Mercer & DJ Snake - "Lunatic"

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These two French artists have joined forces to create a big room(ish) track for the ever popular Spinnin' Records. The track starts off easily enough into the typical build-up to drop type of stuff but then flips the switch when the track suddenly slows down into an almost trap like feel that I really enjoyed, give it a listen: 

"Lunatic" will be available on March 7th. 

(VIA @EDM24_7)