Electric Daisy Carnival, North America’s largest dance music festival (and arguably the world’s) brought in 185,000+ people over the weekend. Due to the increasing popularity of electronic music in the US and the evolution of the festival, this was 50,000 more people than last year. The aftermath of the event proved that progress had been made on the promotional side, but that the event is still far from being flawlessly planned. When a gathering of this proportion takes place there are bound to be problems, but 226 injuries (114 of which required attention at hospitals) and the death of a 15-year-old girl? That’s unacceptable. The majority of these problems occurred at the main field because of the one-in-one-out policy that security was trying to enforce. People were climbing fences and bum rushing entrances, trampling fellow partygoers along the way. Insomniac had the right idea by enforcing this rule (keep the main field uncrowded), they just simply did not have the manpower to do it in proper fashion. For those who did make it onto the field, they found that there was room to dance and easily navigate through the crowd, even during the most sought-after performances of the night.

I attended the festival Friday and was extremely impressed with what I got out of my VIP ticket. As if the open bar wasn’t enough to pay the extra $75, VIP ticket holders also had a separate main field entrance, allowing them to come and go as they pleased. The VIP area was also infused into the Cabana area, allowing me to walk into Wolfgang Gartner’s private cabana if I wanted to. The only criticism I had with the VIP service was that Dos Equis was the chosen beer sponsor. What happened to Heineken sponsoring every dance music event? Anyways, the three acts I saw that night included Swedish House Mafia, Kaskade, and of course Deadmau5. Swedish House Mafia absolutely killed it. When Axwell’s remix of “In The Air” came on, I was watching down from the top row of the Coliseum… it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. They closed their set with “One” which progressed into the vocal version and concluded with quite the firework show. I’m a huge fan of Kaskade (there isn’t a track off Dynasty that I don’t like) but in my opinion it didn’t fit into the massive big room setup. His vocal-based tracks are great for lounging or driving, but aren’t really songs you want to dance the night away to. Nonetheless, Kaskade had a massive year and he deserved that time slot, hands down, no questions asked. The MVP of the night was without question Deadmau5, putting on the most visually pleasing setup I had ever seen while playing unreleased tracks off of his upcoming album. I don’t think there was one person who wasn’t dancing from the second he came on until the second he ended.

Here are some videos I took of the night.

Swedish House Mafia playing “One”.

Deadmau5 playing “Sophie Needs A Ladder”.

Deadmau5 – Sophie Needs A Ladder preview
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Deadmau5 playing “Cthulhu Sleeps”.

Deadmau5 – Cthulhu Sleeps preview
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Deadmau5 playing a new edit of “The Reward Is Cheese”.

Saturday morning I decided to miss the second day of EDC and jump on a plane to Las Vegas. I should have gone to see Swedish House Mafia spin at Wet Republic, but I needed to rest up for Afrojack, Chuckie, Kaskade, and Groove Armada on Sunday. Kaskade has a residency every Sunday this summer at the Encore Beach Club, but this was the only weekend with special guests. Dutch house masters Afrojack and Chuckie killed it as always, but I was so busy partying that I barely took any videos (which I regret). If anybody has a free weekend, go to Vegas for one of Kaskade’s Sundays. It’s hands down the hottest party in Vegas right now.

Afrojack spinning “Polkadots 2010 (Oliver Twizt Remix)”.

Afrojack – Polkadots 2010 (Oliver Twizt Remix)
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Chuckie spinning a remix of Usher’s “OMG”.

What a weekend…