The Song Planner

Big Room

tagStarted c. 2010Peak 2012-2015Last big hit still active as festival nostalgia and revival drops

Located in 1 route

Electronic / Dance → EDM / Festival / Mainstage

Big Room is the blunt-force festival language of the early-2010s EDM boom: sparse kick drums, enormous reverbs, simple lead riffs, white-noise rises, and drops with enough space for pyrotechnics and crowd chants. It can borrow from house, trance, electro, and hard dance, but it strips detail away so the hook survives outdoor sound systems and livestream clips. The style is often criticized for formula, yet its best records are unusually effective at turning a two-bar motif into a shared festival signal.

History

Big Room rose through Dutch and European festival circuits, with Spinnin' Records, Revealed, Mainstage Music, and major festival brands amplifying the sound. Hardwell's "Spaceman," Martin Garrix's "Animals," DVBBS and Borgeous's "Tsunami," and W&W's "Bigfoot" made the drop-first approach unavoidable around 2012-2014. The style became saturated quickly, prompting backlash by the mid-2010s, but its production grammar still appears in mainstage edits, hardstyle crossovers, and nostalgic EDM sets.

Defining artists

Show 2 more

Essential listening

Show 2 more
← Explore Electronic / Dance

Sources

  • EDM.com Martin Garrix Animals anniversary https://edm.com/features/on-this-day-martin-garrix-animals/
  • Recording Arts Canada big room overview https://recordingarts.com/record/evolution-of-house-music/big-room/
  • Apple Music Tsunami single listing https://music.apple.com/us/album/tsunami-single/1350838094
  • Relentless Beats W&W Bigfoot release note https://relentlessbeats.com/2014/01/w-w-to-release-bigfoot