Kaskade and LA's "Electric Daisy Carnival Experience" -- a Postscript

Last Wednesday, a publicity stunt to promote the Los Angeles premiere of a new documentary on the Electric Daisy Carnival Experience went wrong. Essentially, a very large crowd and the LAPD had something of a rumble. What brought the crowd together in the first place was the lure of a free block party in which Kaskade, the internationally known, would be the show. Kaskade tweeted his approximately 95,000 Twitter followers about the allegedly impromptu event. About 3,000 people quickly materialized outside the chosen venue, Grauman's Chinese theater. For an overview of the day's events, the LA Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and the LA Weekly all have stories linked here; the photo in this post originally appeared in the LA Times.) To put it mildly, there's no shortage of articles and posts about this event.

The Electric Daisy Carnival Experience (EDC) has a brief, checkered history in the City of the Angels. Last year, the "Experience" was held at the Olympic-scale LA Coliseum; a 15-year-old died from a drug overdose at the event. City and county officials huffed and puffed about EDC, discomfited by tales of participants' rampant use of Ecstasy and barely harnessed energy. What probably bothered them was that EDC put the DJ nightclub world and its behavior into the daylight, and demonstrated the mass appeal of the music and its sexual associations.

EDC holds shows in other American cities, notably Las Vegas. The Sin City show this year was a tremendous success in certain respects. The event, held at a local raceway, drew nearly a quarter of a million people over a three-day period. No serious violence was reported. Drugs? You betcha. Yet the City of Vice knew how to handle the crowds for this planned event. Hotels near the venue, according to one local account, charged triple the usual room rate and probably looked the other way when the rooms were crammed with EDC fans. Nobody complained, as they were more concerned with the music and the buzz. Las Vegas, still reeling from the economic recession that supposedly ended a year ago, welcomed the influx of money. Some LA media suggested EDC stay in Nevada, and that's probably what will happen next year.

I admit this overview of the EDC events is something of a post-game report. However, I was really struck how the stories brought to light the culture of DJs and their fans, its powerful, swift means of communication, and the energy providing that community's momentum and urgency. The combination makes for quite a cocktail, and a strong, yet fascinating one to consume. The LA Weekly's photos from EDC provide a visual taste.