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)
Why EDC Korea? No, no, it's not quite a case of "collect them all", although, is it? :) The actual answer is that I enjoy travelling the world through festivals and getting to meet fellow EDM and Trance lovers around the world. Every country has their own customs and flair, and it's nice to see PLUR around the world indeed.
so glad to see the ever cheerful and colorful insomniac entertainers
and we had a meetup with the international EDC crew :)
The Grounds... How was EDC in Asia and how does it compare with EDCLV, EDCMX, and EDC Orlando?
So let's get this out of the way first in case that wasn't already obvious: nothing in the world compares with EDC Las Vegas, as far as "wow" factor goes, and that includes the other EDC editions, that are lovely, but simply not as big. I haven't been to every EDC location, but I do believe EDC Mexico, which I did go to, is the 2nd largest, and this one probably ranks 3rd in size, just a bit ahead of EDC Orlando. No idea about EDC China since I'm still not sure about going there, and if anyone has been to EDC Thailand this year, I'd also be curious to know.
Footprint-wise, the event was pretty big, but it also had some dead space in the middle and hills that were a bit of a pain to navigate. The ground was also uneven and somehow wet in places despite no rain, that was a bit weird. But we got the stages we are used to, and they were top notch.
Kinetic field looked a lot like EDCLV!
beautiful
Stereo Bloom:
Circuit Grounds:
Bionic Jungle:
Boom Box:
It wasn't the plan, but this ended up not only being the coldest EDC I've been to, but flat out the coldest festival I've been to, and that includes some cold EDC Vegas nights as well as cold Dreamstate San Bernardino nights. It was around 10C, but the wind was relentless and windchill made it feel freezing or below freezing. On day 2, I came with a full sweater and basically 3 layers on the top and I was still kind of cold. I was also wearing a ski hat below my dreamstate LED hat, and gloves. It was that cold, really.
The painful cold did not ruin our party spirits though, people soldiered on :) And double thumbs up to all the insomniac entertainers wearing those colorful outfits that did not seem that warm, and somehow surviving through those cold nights. That was some serious dedication!
how on earth did they survive, wearing this?
The Merch store lost an opportunity to sell over a thousand sweatshirts. They ran out quickly :)
that was the shortest the line ever was, it got much much longer later
There was one combined beauty/kandi station:
felt a bit weird that they were combined :)
And then there was this. Lost in translation? haha :)
There was a pretty big skydeck, I'm not sure how occupied it got, but it looked fairly nice. It was only for mainstage:
Of course a big plus of EDC is all the pretty lights. and the insomniac crew did a good job bringing a nice pixel forest to the venue:
the fire from the statue was a good place to be a big warmer in the siberia-like cold :)
And of course the were more lights:
The nearby Inspire hotel had its own:
And the fun thing was that we were a stone's throw (almost) from Seoul/Incheon International Airport, where I flew out of the next day back to SFO, but the planes were not landing over the festival, so you could not hear them and they were barely noticeable. except maybe to the pilot geeks like me :)
EDM Lovers in Korea and Asia
So I need to admit that the event wasn't packed. It ran from 17:00 to 03:00 and few people were there before sunset despite the weather not being vegas like and already cold during the day (for Vegas, you don't really want to go before sunset). I have no idea if enough people came to cover the costs the of the event, but if so, it was close, at best.
But the crowds that did come were dedicated. There were a good amount of professional kandi traders who made the event even more fun, and enough people who came with cool costumes despite the cold. Thanks to all of you.
Some professional Kandi traders :)
Plus a few pictures with friends:
Blaztoyz!
PvD!
G.O.
Marlo
The 2 days of festival
The first day, I opened the window of the hotel and thought "mmmmh, it's a bit cold, I'll put an extra layer between my t-shirt and my LED shirt (in blue in this picture):
Kataklops!
OMG, what a mistake in planning. Yeah, 10C is already cold but that not account for the siberian wind that brought the wind chill level to below freezing. I'm not going to lie, I was cold and uncomfortable the entire first day. So on Day #2, I came with a full sweater as my 3rd in between layer, a ski hat below my LED hat, and gloves. Well, even with all of that I was still kind of cold, but less uncomfortable at least:
Anyway, here are some pictures from both days:
Day 2 was trance day at Stereo Bloom:
great trance from Casepeat
and my friend Kataploks
Giuseppe Ottaviani
Paul Van Dyk
Marlo
A bit of bass at Circuit Grounds:
And what's a better way to end the night than with Blastoyz?
Because the taxi/rideshare situation, was iffy, at best, I left a tiny bit early right after Blastoyz's set, and barely got a glimpse of the very legit fireworks to close the show at mainstage. They were pretty. Too bad they were so late:
The shuttle situation was not ideal. At the time I bought tickets, or my hotel, there were no shuttles listed on the frontgate website. Maybe the shuttles were on the other korean only website, but I never heard about any until a few days before the event, by which time it was too late to matter. It was unfortunate that there was no shuttle going around the local hotels close to the venue. They were only a 5 to 10mn drive away, but it was a 30 to 45mn walk in frigid cold. Using taxis/ubers did not work well as there were not enough and once the few that were available, drove away to a farther hotel, people left over without one, were kind of screwed. I personally chose to leave early and miss part of the show not to get stuck, which was not ideal either. The fireworks at the end of the last day were really nice, but I only saw them a little bit through the taxi window.
Korea law on tickets is a bit unusual (for instance it's somewhat illegal to resell tickets), so it's probably because of that that EDC had separate ticket selling sites for Koreans (interpark) and foreigners (frontgate). Not an issue, really, just interesting. The one downside is that it was difficult to resell a ticket if you couldn't go since you had to go pick up your bracelet in person and only could resell it to someone else, there, and that was maybe not even legal:
VIP didn't really feel worth it. There were viewing areas for most stages, but they were off center quite a bit, and I didn't really see any other benefits. For instance, it was disappointing that they didn't have a bunch of gas heat lamps in VIP, huge opportunity lost. For the most part there weren't any places to sit either or a VIP concierge with cool trinkets, or nice bathrooms in most VIP areas. This is probably the first insomniac festival I went to where VIP really didn't feel worth it.
Security was reasonable outside of taking people's unopened packs of gum, and a few things like that.
Food options were good and took real money (credit cards). All good on that front. Drinks worked the same, no issues outside of water, see below...
No water refills? This was both surprising and disappointing for an insomniac event, but apparently the only water source was a single plastic bottle vendor, which claims that they are recyclable, but given that we've been lied too about plastic being recycled for the last 20+ years and most of it ends up in landfills or the ocean, I'm not going to take their word for it. More generally, what happened to water refills, especially in a 1st world country where tap water is drinkable?
This next comment is not just for this EDC, but also for EDC Vegas and others. I realize the line is fine in which advertisers and sponsors to allow. This is the same problem google had and eventually settled with Sergey's "don't be evil" motto and google not allowing any advertiser that was considered to sell evil things. I'd like insomniac to consider the same thing, and a quick search returns "No, Google Ads does not allow advertising of vape products, including e-cigarettes and e-liquids. Google classifies these products as "Dangerous Products or Services" and prohibits their promotion on Google Ads and other platforms it owns or controls. This policy also extends to Google Shopping listings." as well as "Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), Facebook Ads, and most other major platforms do not allow electronic cigarettes and vape products to advertise on their site". Now that some vape vendors have even been caught adding even more addictive synthetic chemicals in their vapes to make them even more addictive, does Insomniac really want to be linked to this?
As mentioned above, the entire festival went well, was well layed out, production quality was good and things went well for an event that was first time in that location (the last EDC Korea in 2019 was in another location). The one thing that felt short in my opinion was the VIP experience, but everything else was quite good given again that it was pretty much a "first time" thing.
Now, was this EDC remotely close to EDC Vegas? Of course not, nothing is. Even EDC Mexico definitely felt bigger and better if you wanted to travel to another EDC outside of the Vegas one, but EDC Korea still went well and was lots of fun outside of the cold. If you're in Asia or it's an easy flight, EDC Korea definitely is worth going to. If it's not an easy flight but you wanted an excuse to go visit Korea, which is very much worth visiting (that was my case), it's also a very good reason to go. The koreans at EDC were all lovely and fun to be with (as opposed to my recent report on Ultra Miami where PLUR was somewhat lacking, for instance).
Thanks to everyone who welcomed us (both the local korean trance family and EDM lovers, and the insomniac crews and entertainers)!
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