We started this working week with the bumper second round of acts for Future Music Festival, which offered prime pickings right across the dance music spectrum. For those who plan to set up camp at the trance stage there’s now the added of star power of Orjan Nilsen and John O’Callaghan, who join the previously announced Gareth Emery and Paul van Dyk. It’s the much-loved PvD who has been on wish-lists for a couple of years now, and 2011 has seen the German veteran developing his new Evolution stage show. The good news is it’s coming to Future Music Festival.

“Paul van Dyk’s bringing his entire Evolution stage,” confirmed Future director Brett Robinson when we got him on the phone recently. “To deliver Paul van Dyk is a real coup for me. There’s a huge amount of production that’s accessible; so there’s no excuse for just presenting a DJ on a stage these days. Every act on the festival has a production spec.”

Here at ITM HQ we’ve been observing the evolution of ‘Evolution’ from afar, as you can see in the showcase gallery below. “Over the last few years, individual live production became more and more important in the touring circle, and I was looking into what was going on,” PvD told Chinashop earlier this year. “There are quite a lot of impressive screens, but I realised that there’s no real creative input on those screens.”

It’s not just about eye-popping visuals, though. “The music is obviously the most important element,” PvD added. “It doesn’t matter if you have an amazing live show. If the music is not really that good, that doesn’t help.”