Marc's Public Blog - Festivals

2024/06/29 Pride 2024 XOXO Festival at Midway SF With Above and Beyond

π 2024-06-29 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

This was the biggest show and festival that had ever been held at Midway in SF, so that is to say it was an impressive setup. A lot of new things that could have gone not too well, did go well, so kudos to everyone that was involved in the setup and made sure it ran smoothly. Honestly the only thing I noticed was that at some point there were enough people (the most Midway likely has ever had) that all the bathrooms were a bit insufficient for the crowd (and they brought extra), so I will call this a success :)

It was one of the longest days of the year, so we only had 90mn of darkness, and as usual, I made the best of it :)

But let's go back to the beginning, lots of sunlight, and thankfully it was actually quite nice and cool.

huge stage got setup in the street with daytime visible RGB Panels with holes to let the wind through

the inside of Midway got decked out

nice custom poster

a lot of anjunafam came early, and thankfully the weather was actually cool

hahah

Great to run into lots of friends as always:

The event also had multiple dancers and costumed performers:

and yes, this qualified as a festival, 3 rooms going at once:

We got a nice selection of DJs that played lovely trance for us, starting with Blur:

Next was elevven:

Ilan Bluestone was next:

Mor Avrahami came from Israel took over before above and beyond:

I tried to go check out the other rooms too:

And then Jono and Paavo from Above and Beyond finished the day, which hadn't turned into night yet (one of the longest days of the year):

After the regular party, there was an after party from 22:00 to 06:00, so plenty of partying for anyone who had the energy :)

Great job to everyone at midway who got this event running pretty flawlessly, thanks for the event!

Video Summary:

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2024/06/15 My 2nd Transmission at Prague's O2 Arena

π 2024-06-15 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

Transmission Elysium Prague 2024 was simply outstanding again, and even topped my "this was the best show I've seen, ever" from Transmission Prague 2019 (and with that ending from Kobi Blastoyz I will simply never forget, that was hard to top).
While, I did miss the psytrance ending this time around, the show itself was amazing on so many levels, all the way to guide wire led fireworks shot above the crowd and towards VIP/golden VIP (above our heads) during the storyline rocket scenes.

I was a bit worried that after such great memories of transmission prague 2019, I had over hyped those memories. Due to covid shutdowns, and then tranmission losing access to O2 arena for a few years, it had been 5 years since I last went. It's also true that I've seen epic shows like Gareth Emery's Laserface at Bill Graham, San Francisco which was the best laser show I've ever seen, but Transmission still did a better job laying out their lasers plus many other lights, giving an even better show in the end.

So yes, 2024 was just even better than 2019 and 2019 was already the best indoor show I had ever seen, and note that I'm saying this when I just got back from EDC Vegas, and to me (because I prefer night festivals and love lights), EDC is the best festival I've been to in the World, but as an indoor show, Transmission wins.

Transmission 2019 vs 2024:

the lighting looked similar enough, stellar for both

lasers were similarly stellar for both

the between DJ transitions and storyline was equally epic for both

2024 had wire guided pyro rockets that shot just above the crowd, simulating rockets in the storyline, sweet!

golden VIP still has no better viewing than 2019 (VIP was better), see below for more details

both lineups were really enjoyable, although this year used 2 DJ duos maybe to get more names in for the fixed amount of time?

transmix was much longer in 2024 and OMG was it pure joy. Seriously that transmix was fire!

So let's start with the pictures, arrived bright and early, unfortunately tixbase, one of the ticket providers, completely failed and no one was able to get in for over 30mn, which was super disappointing. I'm a bit surprised that no one in the staff said "f'it", and didn't just let people get in with barcodes that couldn't be scanned, that part kind of sucked:

the poor VIP ladies were stuck smiling at us while we were stuck outside, mssing the first DJ :-/

Thankfully security was very nice like last time, and getting in was no issues after the ticket issue was finally fixed. It was great to meet many people I had seen around the world, plus plenty of locals that were happy to take pictures :)

It was also great to find Craig and Daxson after their set, and enjoy some of the show together from the VIP viewing area (the best location in my opinion):

Putting that pretty disappointing part aside, especially since it apparently only affected VIP ticketholders who had paid a lot more to get in, and didn't get to get in while regular ticket holders were already in for 30mn... still got to catch the end of Dusk's warmup set:

Thankfully despite the long delay, we did get to see all of Craig Connelly's set, which I sure didn't want to miss:

After Craig's great set, came Daxson, who also threw a great set:

the AV guys didn't wait long before pushing all the buttons :)

Next, came Cosmic Gate:

Then came Markus Schulz, who amongst other things, played a track spelling out PLUR and its meaning, nice!

The transmix from Driftmoon was pure gold and the visuals were all out at that time:

Driftmoon was so good that it was hard work for Paul Van Dyk to play next, but of course he delivered!

After that, we got Digital Culture, RAM and Richard Durand:

And the night ended with Nilsix, Orjan Nilsen, and Mark Sixma:

But the worst part of the night was when the music ended and all the lights came back on. Oh no, 9H have passed already, the dream is over!

Transmission Prague: The best visuals I've seen on this planet, bar none!

So, you tell me where else you've seen this:

the light columns are one of my favorites

let's mix in a few lasers for good measure

And it takes a "few" people to run all this, the most AV guys I've seen anywhere:

I was able to find this partial picture of the team involved (i.e. it's not everyone who worked on it, but still a good subset). That was more folks than I even imagined...

Should you go? Would I go Back?

So I did put this event in the festival category, but given that it's a single day, single stage event, I'm not sure if it truly qualifies for the festival definition. And yet, I don't actually care, transmission prague is so good that I'm happy to put it in that bucket.

At this point, I do not travel across the world for a single day festival. It just doesn't make sense for me to spend more time travelling across the world than time spent at the festival itself (and that's not even counting about cost). In the case of transmission Bangkok, it was technically a single day eent I flew for, but it was really a 4 day festival with the pre pre, pre and post parties. It's true that Transmission Prague was a bit light on pre/post parties that were trance related, there was techmission the day before. but AV-wise it was nowhere close to transmission itself. I would say it's totally worth going to Prague just to also visit Prague as it's truly a beautiful city that you can visit for multiple days, and in my case I simply enjoyed transmission in 2019 so much that I was happy to brake my own rule and come back for transmission only this year again. That's a lot of words to say the event is definitely unique.

Security was more than reasonable

Bars took regular money (credit cards/phones), no fake festival money wristband BS. Thank you! (transmission BKK required fake money and whatever you loaded was non refundable, which sucked. Also tap water was not drinkable there so you were kind of forced to use the wristband money which makes me unhappy).

You could refill drinkable water in the restrooms if you wished

Suggestions for improvement

I found out too late after asking in way too many places that there was a boat pre-party the day before (with trance), but it was not announced on time, left too early in the afternoon and before my flight arrived that afternoon (long ass trip from san francisco), so I didn't make it. Still, there was techmission, but understandably, for a trance lover, it's not quite the same.

I heard others saying they had issues getting in the past due to ticketing failures, don't have details on this, but tixbase totally failed this year. This is obviously not transmission's direct fault, except an opportunity to choose more reliable ticketing platforms and have heavy fines in the contract if they fail to work the day of. And if they do fail, just let people in without scanning the barcodes that can't be scanned. It's simply not ok to have people wait and miss the show while waiting outside in the sun if they showed up early to be there at the beginning set.

I bought golden VIP instead of VIP last time, and while the food and drinks were great, the vantage point was very disappointing. What happened then and still happened this time around is that some uber uber VIPs had tables taking all the platform space, and you pretty much ogt no middle view, had to stand in the stairs or chairs on the side, after paying all that money. You are not allowed to go to the VIP platform with golden VIP tickets :(

So this year I only bought VIP tickets, and honestly it felt like a much better choice, the viewing platform was great and people with tables did not block our view. I'd have happily paid more for golden though if transmission offers a guaranteed good view from the top or access to the VIP platform.

Definitely have at least a pre-party in a local club the day before and maybe a post party the day after, like Bangkok. By that I mean with trance music (techmission didn't really count). Of course, I'd love for transmission to be a 2 night event, but that's maybe asking too much?

Conclusions and other thoughts

As per the prior point, the visuals are the best I've seen in any indoor show anywhere in the world. I do believe transmission prague has better visuals than all other editions. I'm told the Dutch one was good but not quite on par, and the one I saw in Bangkok, at the end of the day was a very good show in one room of a convention center, the lineup was great, but the AV was simply "Good". Visuals in Prague were "outstanding". As I'm writing this and asking others for their thoughts, I just heard back that transmission did officially post they had more lights in the NL show, but the venue was a lot bigger, so that's why it felt more impressive in Prague. That makes sense and I'll take "impressive" because it was :)

Part of me is sad that all this AV firepower that likely took days to setup, was really used just one night (most was not used during techmission), and that transmission is a single day event.

I personally enjoyed the lineup. Of course some DJs were more to my liking than others, but the show was so good that honestly even music I didn't love as much, still felt great.

The driftmoon transmix was 1H long and pure joy!

The Sci-Fi story shown as transitions between DJs, was still a lot of fun and unique to this event. If you want to see the preview to the show:

Needless to say that putting aside a couple of unfortunate things that happened, I had a great time and the show was still as good as I remembered it, youtube doesn't quite do it justice, you have to see it in person.

Here is my video Summary:

bestof pictures are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/a3WwtGPSKaheRTo19

and summary of IG stories from that night: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18008728796525779

or concatenated here:

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2024/06/05 The Issues with Festivals That Require Use of Fake Festival Money

π 2024-06-05 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

This post is about festivals that require you to use their wristbands to pay for just about everything. I will not count festivals that allow paying with your wristband if you wish to (like TX eclipse festival), since that's adding choice and you can ignore that if you wish. I will count festivals like boom that were a bit of a mess when I went and required wristband money for some vendors (drinks) while other vendors were allowed to use cards or even cash in addition to wristband money.

So, what is wristband money, even? Yeah, let's define that first. I've heard of at least one festival (ultra in mexico city) that was even worse and required using some plastic card with a loaded value, and the vendors would scam you by giving you another card back with less money than you had, OMG. Wristband money is some festivals that figured out they could use a complex and often unreliable computer system to keep track of your rfid number and assign some stored money value to it. They have various ways to recharge it, with various levels of reliability. A few require physical money to recharge (definitely run away from those), while others accept credit cards online on their website, and usually some machines or humans around the festival. Some claim they are a good thing because "they are cashless" which of course is utter BS since credit cards are almost all tap to pay, so is your android or apple phone, and all of this is similarly cashless (I very much understand they don't want you to pay with actual money anymore since it's slow and there is a risk of theft for them) but in real life the only plus I've seen is that they are usually a few seconds faster than your credit card or your phone and they can technically work in locations where there is no wifi or cell to authorize a credit card transaction, but obviously this is fixable by adding wifi for vendors, like most festivals do.

Oh yeah, one alternate scheme, that is just as bad, or maybe even a bit worse, are festivals that make you buy some plastic money tokens (like multiple festivals in holland used to, including lumi, but they thankfully stopped), or some like unkonscious that literally made you buy some worthless "someone just printed it in the back room" paper money that you had to buy, pay with, and leftovers were lost. Worse, leftovers were not even usable the next day as the next venue had their own incompatible fake paper money. I'll let you decide if you should say no to this and buy nothing out of protest, but you know my answer.

Parookaville didn't get the memo, they literally print their own fake plastic money

Unkonscious prints their own paper money, and it's not even compatible between days :(

So, why do I dislike required pay by festival wristband so much, and why do I encourage you to contact every festival that requires this and tell them to stop?

this is mostly solving a non problem. In most countries most of us have pay by phone or pay by contactless credit card. Lumi is actually one festival doing the right thing and selling plastic cards you can load up if you don't have any credit card or phone to pay with. Yes, such schemes plastic card, or wristband money, are ok if they are the fallback for people without tap to pay (in some countries many people don't have credit cards even)

multiple festivals have lost my money I tried to put online before the festival, it was never sent to my wristband. I had to lose many hours over many days to dispute the charges and get my money back

multiple festivals lost the money I loaded at the festival on my wristband, including boom that literally lost 100 euros. I went to see their help, they wasted a lot of my time saying they'd fix it, they never did. I had to fight them through my credit card to get my money back when I got home. Why so much wasted time, bad energy and bad feelings needlessly created by trying to be a bank, which festivals are not qualified or rated to do. Untold, 2 years in a row, also screwed up, wasted an hour of my festival time trying to fix their incompetence at being a bank, which indeed they are not. I love untold, but they spoiled it with that. Why am I wasting my time dealing with this?

festivals refuse to understand that they become banks by storing money for you and promising to give it back when you want to use it. Being a bank is hard, full of corners cases, race conditions, auditing requirements for the customer, required paper receipts for full transparency, and many more things. Every single festival I've seen failed at multiple of those points, including the multiple that lost my money in various ways

festivals that refuse to give you your money back, or only over a certain amount, almost always through some procedure that is often error prone and may not work for people in other countries, are adding to the problem. Almost all of them get it wrong, and the ones that completely refuse to even refund you are literally thieves. EDC Mexico that forced you to load your wristband and then gave you a new wristband every day, losing the money you had on the previous wristband the previous day, OMG, really?

What can you do?

contact the organizers and complain. Tell them you will do your best to consume as little as possible if this does not change and consider other festivals instead in protest. Make sure they understand that wristband money is unreliable, unsafe to you, obviously unnecessary in almost all cases, and spoil the festival giving vibes of unnecessary greed and very bad experiences when they do lost your money or fail to refund what's left over, or even flat out refuse to.

buy nothing, or as little to nothing as you can.

if there is no potable water offered inside, and you must use one of those wristband schemes, see if you can sneak some water in, or find other solutions although #1 should be your first move although in real life should you even go to a festival that disregards their customers so badly?

contact festivals before you go if you are not sure of their policy

So what do you think? Am I being too harsh? Am I incorrect? Did you also have bad experiences with this?
To the people who somehow still prefer to use that fake money, I'm ok with it as long as the festival does accept legal tender, in the form of credit cards and pay by phone.

This was my full post about it where I asked for comments: https://www.facebook.com/ledtranceguy/posts/pfbid02o5MCiKeWwBJ2j9kJhBfqMng6zRnbaQe3XZcKjj7SKVspMcQDkzVjETAUCAUFbHNDl Main answers:

"It's convenient not to have to carry money/credit cards" (well, not really since you need a credit card to recharge/buy the fake money)

"The main issue I have with it is when the festival makes up their own currency which is always some weird conversion rate designed to make it hard for you to compare prices at a glance."

"They all do it to take a cut of the food sales. That's the only reason."

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