Ok, so I like electronic dance music, more specifically Trance. When I started in the 1990's, the US was a bit behind in that department.
Still, with San Francisco and San Jose nearby, I've had some opportunities to see some great EDM/Trance DJs. Back in the early 2000's, they sadly played club music in the US that was nowhere close to the hits they had composed and were known for, but over the years, as Trance started becoming more popular, those DJs finally started playing their good tunes in the US too, and maybe from 2004 on, it's only been getting better. Popsicle Halloween 2004 was really the beginning of great music parties in the San Francisco Area, and thankfully things have gotten even better since then
As a matter of fact, after another 10 years (2015 and beyond) the good news is that Trance has grown quite a following in the US, and places like the SF Bay Area, and while Trance has been declared dead a few times in the last 10 years, it's still going strong here.
Trance Family SF is definitely strong in the area, we've been getting more big trance parties every year, including many top DJs that come visit us what feels like every other week now (as of 2018-2019), and through those events, I made many friends in Trance Family SF. Thanks to you all.
Over those years, I got the chance to meet a few of my favourite DJs, including Armin more than once, and my last hobby has been to work on lights for my shirt and pants (version 3) and (version 4)
And if you are curious about my LED outfit, you can read more about it on my led peacock engineer medium post and if you'd like to read all my festivals or dreamstate, or clubbing posts, please click on the links higher on the page to get taken to those categories.
π
2025-04-04 01:01
in Clubbing, Dreamstate, Festivals
I cannot believe it's been 7 years already since our last 2 Day Dreamstate in San Francisco. There was a DS SF NYE last year, but that was while I was with my family in France, so I couldn't attend that. So happy this one worked out.
It was a very welcome Trancefamily SF Reunion:
David and Sony both got to open the vision stage, congratulations!
Welcome back to SF, we missed you!
Back to DS, each time there is a new venue, we always get to wonder how good it will be and what the setup will look like, and I'm happy to report that the production level was the best we've had in SF, bar none! The insomniac folks continue to be overachievers, and the dream stage was absolutely wonderful. Even the smaller vision stage had very nice lighting and lasers:
And vision was cool too:
Thanks to the magicians in the dark who made all the lights, happen
The lineup had more DJs that were lesser known to me, which is not a bad thing per se, although many played too much techno for my taste, with a few hours slots where both Vision and Dream had techno, and that was not my favorite, obviously, but clearly most of the crowd seemed happy with it, so I guess that works out (and as I've written before in my last reports, techno has been creeping in everywhere, even in what used to be a State of Trance).
Day 1
After Blur opened (sadly in the dark, so I don't have any good pictures of him), Anthony from Xijaro and Pitch, was next:
Day 1 Summary:
Day 2
of course, went to support our local boy, Sony ;)
The show (lighting and lasers) for Armin was outstanding:
Ilan proposed on stage, she said yes ;)
Day 2 Summary:
People
This was of course a great time to meet fellow trance lovers:
meetup day 1
meetup day 2
yes to people who brought LEDs!
someone stole my hat :)
Had fun taking pictures with my new and improved LED outfit freshly built for the event :)
I was ready for Anthony, this time :)
ulrich!
Kim, our former TFSF marketing lead
2 for the price of one :)
but we did better later
Triode!
Thoughts/Conclusions
Honestly, for a new venue, even for an experienced team, many things went right. As I said earlier the production value was amazing.
Of course, nothing is ever perfect, especially in a new venue. Things I noticed:
The event was close to selling out (or barely sold out) on saturday, and it was a lot of people. Enough people that the main floor access got closed multiple times, which is understandable, but it was more vexing for people with VIP tickets to also be denied access to the VIP platform, because it filled up multiple times. I guess it was tricky to get the capacity numbers, right, and they oversold VIP somewhat (since any VIP ticket holder should have guaranteed access)
Security at the entrance, was a bit too thorough and too slow, causing long lines to get in for many. Also, they did not allow totems or many things that would have normally been allowed at a festival, including Dreamstate Socal. Transparent backpacks were allowed though, and so were LEDs, at least.
if you knew where to go, there were bathrooms available, but some of the obvious ones got mobbed with very long lines, at times. This was not ideal.
Vision also had good production value for the smaller room, but too many times, the DJ wasn't lit up at all, and you couldn't tell who was playing. A bit unfortunate for them.
Too much techno for me, but some liked it. Pryda/Eric Prydz however did not seem like a fit for the event and I didn't hear anyone say they really enjoyed his set.
On the flipside, Armin who has been playing way too much techno in his sets for my taste, including at a State of Trance, did an actually quite good mostly trance set that I quite enjoyed. Goes to show, you never know ;)
The event was a success and clearly the best one we've had in San Francisco, yet.
