The Essential Mix is a weekly radio show on BBC Radio 1 currently broadcast between 01:00 and 03:00 Saturday morning. Originally broadcast on 30 October 1993, The Essential Mix features contemporary DJs and music producers of electronic dance music.

Eric Sheridan Prydz (born July 19, 1976) is a Swedish DJ and producer based in London, United Kingdom. The pronunciation of his surname is often questioned; it is pronounced "prids", but when under his alias, Pryda, it is pronounced "pride-ah". In October 2011, DJ Magazine announced the results of their annual Top 100 DJ Poll, where Prydz placed at #46.

Until recently, Prydz had only played shows in and around Europe as he has a fear of flying. In December 2008, Prydz was forced to cancel several dates in Australia, New Zealand and Malta after panic attacks prevented him from boarding the outbound flight.

On Armin van Buuren's radio show "A State of Trance" in February 2011, it was announced that Prydz recently became a father.

His debut live show called "EPIC" (Eric Prydz in Concert) was held on April 2nd, 2011 at the O2 Brixton Academy Arena in London where he played most of his own production, as well as unfinished and upcoming tracks. The second show was at Global Gathering on July 29th and the third instalment at the Alexandra Palace on November 26th.

Deep Dish is a duo of DJs and house-music producers consisting of Iranian-American members Ali "Dubfire" Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi. Based in Washington, D.C., Shirazinia and Tayebi are well known for providing house or dance remixes of tracks of famous stars such as Madonna, Cher and Gabrielle, and for their live DJing sets. They often collaborate with DC artist Richard Morel and produced a dance hit with his song "True (The Faggot is You)". Their remixing abilities first came to attention with their seminal 1995 remix of De'Lacy's "Hideaway," a club classic. Other collaborations include "The Future of the Future (Stay Gold)" with British group Everything but the Girl, which appeared on Deep Dish's artist album Junk Science, which was released in 1998.

In August 2009, Sharam was featured on the Essential Mix and his mix was subsequently voted the best of 2009.

Armin van Buuren (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɑr.mɪn vɑn ˈby.rə(n)]), OON (born 25 December 1976 in Leiden, Netherlands) is a Dutch trance producer and DJ. Between 2007 and 2010, he was voted number one in DJ Magazine's annual top 100 list of the most popular DJs. In the 2011 list, he ranked in second place. Since 2001, Van Buuren has hosted a weekly radio show called A State of Trance, which claims to have around 15 million weekly listeners in 26 countries, which would make it one of the most listened-to radio shows in the world. His 2008 studio album, Imagine, entered the Dutch album chart at #1, a first for a dance music artist in Dutch music history.

Armin van Buuren was born in Leiden, Netherlands on 25 December 1976, but grew up in Koudekerk aan den Rijn. Van Buuren started making music when he was 14.^{[citation needed]} He was inspired by French electronic music composer, Jean Michel Jarre, and wished to become a great electronic music composer like Jarre.^{[citation needed]}

He finished high school at the Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden in 1995, and left for college to study law at Leiden University. While studying law, Van Buuren's interest for making music blossomed, and he began working as a DJ in a local club called Nexus. As his musical career began to take off, he put his law degree on hold, although he did return to finish law school in 2003.

Ferry Corsten, also known under the alias System F, (born 4 December 1973) is a Dutch producer of trance music, in addition to being a DJ and remixer. He also hosts his own weekly radio show, Corsten's Countdown. He routinely plays at events all over the world with crowds in excess of tens of thousands. In 2009 Ferry Corsten ranked #7 on DJ Magazine's annual Top 100 DJ Poll, dropping to #9 and #18 in subsequent years.

Ferry Corsten was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He has produced and remixed under many aliases since the release of his first record at the age of sixteen, but he officially started to work as a musician when he was 17 years old. As a teenager he saved money to buy his first keyboard by washing cars, and selling mix tapes to kids in his neighbourhood. He later began to perform live performances with a friend and won his first award "De Grote Prijs van Nederland" at Holland in 1989. He eventually released a record with a couple of friends when he was just sixteen years old and later began releasing self-made productions while he grew up in Rotterdam in the 1990s, producing underground hardcore gabber tracks, later expanding into club-house and trance music. His first single to reach a chart position was "Don't Be Afraid" under the alias Moonman, which was only the start for becoming a composer as well. In 1997 Corsten and his partner Robert Smit established a dance label named Tsunami with the Dutch based dance company Purple Eye Entertainment b.v., this junction made the creation of another label possible; Polar State. Ferry Corsten was studying to become an Electrical Engineer, so he went to the Technical Training School and after that Higher Technical Education.