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.

Talla 2XLC, real name Andreas Tomalla, is an electronic music producer and DJ whose work has spanned from industrial music to trance music.

In 1979, Talla 2XLC began DJing with the sounds of Kraftwerk, YMO, and Depeche Mode.

In 1984, Talla 2XLC started a small nightclub event called Technoclub, the first such club in Frankfurt to focus on electronic dance music.^{[citation needed]} Initially, Technoclub was a Friday-night event held in the smaller, 350-person capacity room of the Dorian Gray discothèque inside the Frankfurt International Airport. In 1986, Technoclub moved to the 600-capacity Roxannes, where it remained through 1988. In 1989, it briefly moved to the 800- or 900-capacity Omen venue, then in September 1989 to the Dorian Gray's 2000-capacity main room, where it remained until the Dorian Gray closed in 2000. Technoclub may have been the world’s first major "super-club".

In the mid-1980s, he was involved with a band called Moskwa TV. In 1987 he co-founded the group Robotiko Rejekto and was associated with the fledgling record label Techno Drome International, an imprint of ZYX Records. Robotiko Rejekto's track "Rejekto" was one of the label's first releases. In 1988, he started a new project called Bigod 20, which would go on to be one of Europe’s most successful EBM acts of the early 1990s.