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)
The Grounds... and how does it compare with EDCLV, EDCMX, and EDCKR?
I found a hotel not too far from the venue, but the 2 lane road got packed quickly and badly ;)
it was nice of them to warn locals it would be a gridlock
best way to get there was scooter for hire
20+ event in Thailand, but why on earth were small digital cameras not allowed?
security check was thorough, felt a bit over thorough
So far I have been to 10 EDCs in Vegas, EDC Mexico and EDC Korea. EDC Mexico was pretty good but the day hours were brutal (hot, plus high altitude thin air, and on top of that volcano ash in the air with a bad PM2.5 score, that made things hard). EDC Koreak, despite being in April, was literally the coldest festival I had ever been to, the windshield was brutal.
But let's reacp:
EDCMX ran from 14:00 to 02:00, 3 days
EDCKR ran from 15:00 to 03:00, 2 days only
EDCTH ran from 15:00 to 00:00 only (shortest days), but 3 days
I realize it's subjective and my memory is imperfect, but EDCTH / Puket felt the most EDCLV of all 3 events as far as stages and decors were concerned. I'm just genuinely impressed by the amount of gear that Insomniac is shipping to remote countries.
Here is an overview of the grounds:
I even got to meet Geoff, the lucky guy who gets to play with the LED and fire toys (although I'm sure it was a shitload of work to setup):
Kinetic Fields looked very nice once the sun had set:
Stereo Bloom:
Circuit Grounds:
Bionic Jungle:
Downtown EDC was cool:
They brought Kandi Casino!
Karaoke battle!
Plenty of food options, but they did not accept real money sadly
But now let's talk about the fake money BS. Yes, it's apparently the custom to screw people over in Thailand with this, but still.... You had to buy $30 at a time, 3% surcharge for credit cards, and of course non refundable. Why???? This is so petty and literally undid so many great things that this EDC did:
sorry, but this is bullshit. On top of that, they couldn't even process credit cards on phones
at least they are telling you how they are screwing you, minimum $30 top up and no refund
Compared to EDCKR, Insomniac did the right thing and put water stations (thank you), although they were single access (not 10 or 20 in parallel like EDCLV). Still, at least they had some:
Back to the venue, this EDC felt the most like Vegas with its streets of lights and pixel forest:
matching colors ;)
some kids didn't even make it to midnight, haha
Skydeck was well built:
The VIP areas were quite decent. There even was a baby VIP ferris wheel :)
But they tried to put some grass on top of whatever was underneath, but in some places it didn't hold:
it soon turned into that
Thailand/Asia EDM Lovers
of course, also got to meet other friends who came to Thailand just for EDC
and the ever lovely edcentertainers
Still got lucky to meet some DJs:
And m'f'ing Pasqualle!!!
(so, I have around 300 displays on my LED outfit, some are meant to be silly and jokes, and when I saw Pasqualle Rotella walk by, I couldn't help asking him for a picture, which he very nicely agreed to do, and I didn't look at what display came on at the same time the picture was taken, and ended up with this one, ooops :) ).
Now let's look at the festival days:
EDC Day 1
Of course the highlight of Day 1 was Tiesto who played a lovely trance set:
If you stayed until the end, getting back anywhere was a mess, the 2 lane road was gridlocked with cars, scooters that couldn't moved and pedestrians everywhere jut walking back. I did the 20-25mn walk back to the hotel and got back before most people got clear raod to wherever they were actually going. If anyone took shuttles, let me know if somehow they had a magic special route or if they were stuck in the same mess (I think they were):
Video Summary of Day 1:
Day 2
Just like Day 1, Day 2 was not fun during the day, the few people who came were hiding in the shade:
one nice perk of VIP
Iused the time of arriving early to fix my LED panels which sadly are still unreliable but I bring spares
Day 2 was the one mostly trance day at Stereo Bloom (with a few techno sets that were less to my liking):
the set times got a bit weird, Paul started late
then key4050, but not really trance
thankfully Gareth played lovely trance after that
Stayed for the fireworks and drone show:
And then got the hell out to avoid the traffic :)
Video Summary of Day 2:
Day 3
Day 3 was the same thing, I only put my head out around 18:00 just before sunset:
then it got nice ;)
Sadly, a bad conflict between Seven Lions and Armin:
caught the start of 7 lions
And then went to Armin for fireworks and drone show:
with drones shooting fireworks
The fireworks and drone show were really good. Insomniac did not go cheap:
Drone show:
Ending fireworks:
For day 3, I left a bit earlier through a side excit another right and walked to the first scooter I could find and gave them cash for a ride back (only a few minutes when the road isn't blocked):
technically illegal to have 3 people per scooter, but everyone did it
Video Summary of Day 3:
Thought/Impressions/Suggestions/Conclusion
In somewhat random order:
Pricing, like everything in Thailand, was more than reasonable. Hotels nearby were not cheap ($200-ish+), but if you went further away, they were fine. Ironically, with everything being so expensive in Vegas, including local 1H flights to and from Vegas costing sometimes as much or more as a cheap fare to Asia, EDC Thailand ends up being cheaper than EDC Vegas, even if you live in the US West Coast.
The midnight curfew was probably the least ideal part. Given that I could hear EDC from the hotel a mile away, it's understandable that they didn't have a license to keep everyone awake within a large radius until 02:00 or later, but that also meant only 5.5h of night per day, and before sunset at 18:30, the weather was pretty unbearably hot and humid if you aren't in short, tshirt and slippers (i.e. idiots like me wearing full pants, and shirt with long sleeves, haha).
I mentioned midnight is a bit early to end the fun. There was an official after party in Patong Beach at Illuzion Phuket, but that was over an hour away (or more in bad traffic), the venue warned they had very few lockers and they had pretty strict security, making it unlikely that I'd get in with my LED gear. I did even contact them on IG and Whatsapp beforehand and they never replied. Long story short, I don't think it was a suitable after party venue given the distance and limited size. For reference, it took up to 1h to simply get out of EDC at midnight from the standstill traffic to a proper road going somewhere, then maybe 1h to arrive at Illuzion (now 02:00) and the after party ended at 03:00. Obviously totally not worth it to drive up to 3h for spending only 1h there before it closed. Ideally EDC would have some indoor venue close to the actual venue where they could continue to make noise past midnight without keeping all the neighbors awake.
VIP had nice viewing platforms and chill areas plus gifts, felt nice
Security was a bit on the rough (thorough) side
Water stations were great, but having a few more will help with the long lines
Food options were good, but useless to me if they force you to buy fake non refundable money in units of $30. That was the most disappointing for this edition, surprising that Insomniac let that happen when EDC Korea and EDC Vegas don't have this problem. This left such a bad taste in my mouth for an event that was otherwise all joy and happiness.
Having both Tiesto play trance and Armin play mostly trance was great of course, especially with the impressive drone show and fireworks that went with it, but otherwise these 3 days of EDC has less trance than the 2nd day of EDC Korea. That said, I still found enough other music I could enjoy, so that was not a huge deal. It just wasn't a top dreamstate destination.
This EDC felt big without being too big (the walk from circuit grounds to kinetic fields was painful but not as bad as EDC Vegas). After 18:30 when the sun started to set, it got quite busy, but too bad there was only 5:30 worth of festival at that time.
Outside of not being close to being "dusk to dawn", this felt close to a regular EDC Vegas, very much worth going to.
Thanks to everyone who made the event happen!
