Just ran my first event!!!!

[ChrisHynds]

So Ill give you guys a little background on the scene here first and explain what/why we have started to do our own thing.

Im guessing most of you can relate to this pretty well, (well the purists of the group anyway) Perth is a pretty small place and the "real" Trance scene is pretty much dead, we have 1 promoter in town that holds 2 one hour spots open every 1 to 2 months for Trance, he runs a Trance, Hard Trance, Hard Style, Hard Techno etc night, I usual play the 138-140 section of the night at the 10-11pm spot, just when the club is starting to fill up.

Apart form these 2 hours of Trance per month, we have no other real scene. There is another promoter in town, that is clearly only in it for the money side of things, he puts on what the "kids" and "cool crew" wanna hear, pop style Trance/Trouse, really not my thing as most of you know, I would rather not spin than have to bastardize my style just to get a live gig.

Anyway, I belong to a small tight community of guys that we call, Perth Trance Enthusiasts / PTE. We have a group of bout 50 guys and out of that 50 we have a pretty tight group of about 10, 8 of which including myself are Dj's.

The guy that runs the 2 hour Trance spots each month has decided to pack it in for a few months as he was running a loss on his gigs due to lack of interest.

So we started to brain storm and came up with the idea of putting on a series of exclusive invite only, Forrest Rave's. Bringing back the oldskool illegal rave scene :P

We rented a PA System (which turned out to be epic) bought a Marquee, some of the lads had their own lighting rigs, I brought my Decks and we all pretty much chipped in to cover cost of rental equipment etc. All up it only cost 8 of us $75 each to get everything we needed for the event. $75 is very cheap here as a usual night out in town would cost anywhere between $250-500 depending on how big a night you are having.

We then created a Facebook event page and sent selective invites to people that we knew in the local club scene that were into their Trance. We charged a $10 bank deposit and would send them the location of the gig 1 day before it was on. We wanted to keep it very exclusive as it was our first event and we needed to make sure we could control as much of it as possible.

The spot we picked was way out in the bush/forrest area about 45 minutes from civilization, we were able to crank the PA system to the max, have the lighting gear light up the forrest and go from 4pm Saturday through to 7am Sunday morning without anyone even knowing we where there. It was truly awesome.

The night was a massive success, we had a proper progression through the day/night, starting with 122 House/deep house/techno and running through multiple genre's withing Trance always keeping it pure. We peaked around 3am with 140+ Tech Trance and winded it back down to some deeper stuff to close the night out.

Pretty much everyone that attended the event has been messaging me and the guys, asking when we are doing it again and can they bring more people with them next time.

We really couldn't have been happier with the outcome of this and being that it was our first event, we pretty much nailed it.

I think the whole thing was so good because its so hard to find an event these days that has a proper progression from start to finish, so many festivals are all of the shop, 1 hour sets that have no thought or care placed on what the following act is going to be playing.

I dont really know why but I just thought it would be cool to share this with you guys as we are all pretty much like minded in this group and I though you guys could appreciate this kinda thing.

Ive attached a few videos and pix from the night (y)

Im hoping that you guys might be keen on making a flight over for a gig some day? :P



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmBJJ8ir8Mg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMq5LUOKwLg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYd7jaH0Pn4

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/chrishynds_dj/1658452_10152185883702733_2093659230_o_zpsb9b175ce .jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/chrishynds_dj/1512113_10152185883347733_1805320993_o_zpsd23038a2 .jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/chrishynds_dj/1486115_10153765029725175_1515928598_o_zpsefab8ee3 .jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/chrishynds_dj/1075350_10152185883852733_529906400_o_zpsdcf26055. jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/chrishynds_dj/1039745_10152185883067733_141910634_o_zpsb857d1a4. jpg

[Jimanee]

Nicely done dude! Do be careful on how you grow this thing though, invite only the right type of people and keep security in mind.

[Gareth]

Heh, that looks epic. Reminds me of the sort of events I used to go to as a teenager in the UK in the early 90s, round about the time of the now infamous Castle Moreton festival which resulted in the very shitty the Criminal Justice Act being passed (with the legendary wording "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats." :lol: )

[mr_ragz]

At first I'm like - Oh its another "my first event" thread....... :facepalm:

Then I'm like - Oh its under the trance forum, by a reputable member who happens to be an Aussie. Lets see what this is about. :music:

I gotta say, this party looks really sweet. I remember playing a party that looked very much like this in one of my first years DJ'ing. Sounds like quite the renegade party (at least thats what we call those "illegal" parties in the states.") Its nice to know that people are still doing proper trance parties.

I'm surprised to hear that you are having a struggling trance scene, especially after Andrew Bayer recently named a song after your town. I guess maybe that is what you were referring to about "the cool kid" scene.


On a side note, yes!!!! I absolutely want to come play a show in Australia!!!

[diceallion]

All I have to say is +1....... Awesome.

I second the security suggestion

[Irrational_Fear]

That looks like a quality night Chris, very jealous! I love the more intimate events like that, you get such a different atmosphere.

Top work on getting it all up & running so smoothly. I would definitely echo the security point if you do it again- when people start bringing friends who then bring their friends it can quickly get out of hand...

If I wasn't stuck here in the grey & wet UK right now I'd already be badgering you for an invite to the next one :D

[Buszaj]

Awesome! It's great to see passionate trance fans taking things into their own hands. There will always be a good sized group of people who want to hear proper trance. The great thing is that it's really not that difficult in the end. You just need some dedicated friends, and some basic knowledge for gear setup.

I've done something similar in Toronto last year, and this years event is happening next weekend. I'll be sure to post afterwards.

[ksound]

Was never a fan of massives, outlaw warehouse parties is where it's at (never been to an outdoor one, same principal)

Props for bringing it back to the roots, it's the way to go especially if your local scene is lame and about the $$$

[mr_ragz]

Don't you guys have poisonous snakes and spiders and any number of other things that could kill you running around all over that place?

[ChrisHynds]

Hey lads thanks for all the feedback, I posted this thread ages ago and tbh I forgot all about it

We've managed to go onto set up quiet a few more of these events and they have all went really well, numbers of the events seem to be growing nicely and at the same time not too quickly which is good as we haven't had any douchebags join the crew. its now coming into Winter so we have to back it off a little until the weather picks up again but really looking forward to next summer now that we have our name out there.

Thanks again lads :tup: