Who the Hell are "Burners," Anyway?

By Caveat Magister                                                                                              April 2012, Burning Man Journal 

A few months ago I was asked, in one of those email groups where people ask each other things like this:  “what does it mean to be a burner?  What are the core beliefs that unite us?”

I didn’t respond, first and foremost because honest-to-God do I have that kind of time?  No I do not, and it is hugely irresponsible of people to ask me open ended questions.  It’s like offering a hypochondriac free medical advice.  His whole weekend’s shot.

But I also didn’t respond because I’d been wrestling with that question for some time … and had no good answer.

I know that the most common response is “The 10 Principles,” but … I don’t see it.  I bet 90% of the Burners reading this can’t name all 10 without looking them up.  Of that 10% who can, I bet 90% of them didn’t know all the 10 principles … or anything about the 10 principles … back when that magical moment happened and they first decided:  “Oh, I like this.  I want to be a part of this.”

It’s also commonly understood … though not often talked about … that most of us interpret the 10 Principles differently.  Some of us (I’ll raise my hand) believe that “Radical Inclusion” means “everybody can participate in Burning Man,” while others take it to mean “everybody should feel included and accepted by people at Burning Man”:  we’re worlds apart.  Exactly what “Gifting” means is not a matter of settled tort.  How “communal” does “Communal Effort” have to be?  You might as well ask how many Burners can dance on the head of a pin, except that this was settled by 2005’s massive art project “Dance on the Head of a Pin!”  It’s 82, and they light the pin on fire.  Man that really should have been funded.

The 10 Principles are great guides, very useful, and well thought out – but they can’t be the philosophical core that unites Burners if most of us don’t know what they are and those who do don’t agree on what they mean.

They may also be expanding:  several regional groups apparently have added an (unofficial?  semi-official?) “11th principle”:  Gratitude.

So I was stuck, and have been for some time.

What connects the sound camps to the Barbie Death Camp to the Heebie-Geebie Healers?  What connects the Thunderdome to hula-hooper camps to the solo camper way out at the “million dollar view”?

We’re looking for that magic, unifying moment where everything comes together – like the one where Rabbi Hillel is asked to explain the whole of Judaic thought while standing on one foot.  He lifts his left leg up, says “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.  The rest is commentary,” and puts his foot down.  Fuck yeah.

But for Burning Man I had nothing.  And while that used to be an academic question, it has now become one of some urgency: more new burners are coming in, fewer veteran burners can attend, and the nature of our community is at a crossroads.

It seems like we should have an answer.

Last weekend I sat in on Burning Man’s Regional Network Conference in San Francisco, listening to regional network reps compare issues, best practices, and thoughts about Burning Man’s future.  There were also free tacos.

Much of what I heard was inspiring (drama or not, there’s going to be *awesome* stuff happening on the playa), and edifying, and I’ll share some of it with you in future posts – and after processing the experience, two things have become clear.

First, I never want to talk about Burning Man that much ever again.  I mean, come on people:  enough’s enough.  Don’t you also watch Mad Men or something?

Second, I think there’s another approach to understanding what Burners have in common, and I’d like to present a rough draft of it here:  something to hammer to see if it holds up.

Burners are united by common actions and not common ideals:  the reasons we “burn” aren’t consistent, and don’t really matter.  What we think “burning” means isn’t consistent, and doesn’t really matter.  The fact on the ground, that we “burn,” is the only one that counts.

That may have been obvious to some of you, but I think the implications are important.

It’s consistent, first of all, with the way most of us encountered Burning Man and decided to participate:  we didn’t study up on the 10 Principles, or any other philosophy, and then say “Yes, this is for me.”  We came because we heard people were doing amazing shit:  and when we saw it we thought “I could do amazing shit too,” and changed our lives.

It’s also consistent with the way Burning Man actually evolved:  the Man burning came first, the Temporary Autonomous Zones in the desert came first;  art cars and theme camps and fire dancing came first.  It was only after Burning Man formalized and organized that the 10 Principles were developed as a way of trying to explain what the hell this is.  They were supposed to be explanations, but in fact they are aspirations:   the 10 Principles, loosely speaking, are our goals, not our commonality or raison d’etre.  They’re things we strive to be, and admire when we see in others.  They’re where we want to go … they’re our road map … but the Burn came first.  With Burning Man, the experience always comes first.  That’s key.

The idea that we’re united by our actions, rather than our motives, ideals, or thoughts, means that when we try to communicate Burning Man to the rest of the world, we do it by doing.  In many ways this is already happening:   Burning Man’s policy to the press has always been “come and participate” – never “come and watch and we’ll explain it.”  The Los Angeles area Burners have a brilliant tactic of explaining Burning Man to newcomers by having them join in the creation of a community garden … it’s much easier to get Burning Man across when you’re creating something special with others.

Perhaps most importantly, this means that there’s no restriction on our potential diversity.  While Burning Man is, as I’ve argued before, fairly homogenous compared to much of the country it pulls from, the fact that it’s about “doing” rather than “believing” means that we don’t need to ask people to leave their beliefs and principles at the door.  You can be a Christian Burner, a Hindu Burner, a Marxist Burner, a Neo-Conservative Burner (shut up, people:  yes you can).  How smart you are, or how well you parrot a few key phrases are irrelevant:  your “conversion experience” is about lending a hand, not changing your mind.

But if “Burning Man” is about verbs, not nouns:  what is that verb?  What does it mean “to burn?”  A convincing case could have once been made that it was to attend Burning Man, but that hasn’t really been true for a decade, if it ever was, and it’s certainly not true now as the Regionals pick up steam.

So:  “to Burn” can be defined as?

It comes in two parts.

Part the first:  here’s what happens.  Most of our lives are spent as agents of social control.  I don’t care how non-conformist you are, it’s generally true.  We spend our days and our nights implicitly saying “no” to one another in order to keep society functioning.  But then, for some period of time … at the burn, or a regional, or just on a good night out, we stop saying “No.”  We say “Yes.”   We stop acting as agents of social control and instead become agents of possibility:  we create possibilities that society does not normally allow, and then we participate in them – and open them up for others to participate in too.

To “Burn” is to become an agent of open possibility, creating a liminal space where something amazing can happen and anyone can join.  It doesn’t matter why you do it, what you think is happening, or what you want to get out of it.  You may not even get what you expect out of it, because you’ve given up acting as an agent of social control and have instead invited everyone to play:  you created the game but it’s not your game.  It’s a gift.

(Note that many of the principles are implied here, such as Immediacy, Gifting, Radical Self-Expression, and Radical Inclusion – but the precise meaning and exact ratio are irrelevant:  what matters is that people are doing stuff.  The principles are a road map rather than an explanation or reason.)

Part the second:  Possibility is messy.  But however messy the liminal space has gotten, you keep it from messing up the world around you.  You clean up after your possibility.  You … say it with me now … “leave no trace.”  Again, it doesn’t matter why:  whether you’re an environmentalist or a neat freak or a law-abiding citizen at heart.  What matters isn’t what you think:  it’s what you do.

So, what is a Burner?  It’s someone who Burns.  And what is to Burn, told while standing on one foot?  To Burn is to act as an agent of possibility:  creating a space where something amazing can happen, letting anyone join, and then cleaning up after it when it’s done.

The rest is commentary.

It doesn’t matter why you do it, what it means, or what you get out of it.  What matters is that you participate.

What's All the Fuss About "Leaving No Trace?"

To some, LNT stands for something very specific. For others, there mere thought that you would pay hundreds of dollars to attend an event of some sort and then you still need to clean up all your own trash, cigarette butts and all -- and (many times) no trash cans to be seen anywhere in the scene. So, before I say it all wrong, we begin our mini-series on "LEAVE NO TRACE," starting with the following from Burn.Life ...


LEAVE NO TRACE

You've heard this already, no doubt, but do you understand what it really means and why it's so important? What does it mean? "Leave no trace" literally means that - leave no discernible trace behind after the event, to all extents possible (sometimes nearly impossible). The only way this works is if each camp and each camper in that camp is responsible, completely, for their own waste, right down to that pistachio shell on the ground or that bit of clothing lint....or god forbid a feather. (Seriously - they're cautiously allowed out there these days but you're risking your life if certain Burners catch you molting onto the playa.) Why is it so important?

LNT is perhaps the most important of the principles Burners are roughly guided by because failure to follow it has a very formal and defined consequence: our inability to continue holding the event on federal land. The Black Rock Desert is federal, and is managed by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), to whom the Burning Man organization must provide satisfaction that it has indeed left no trace after the city shuts down for the year and disappears. If we fail that test, we will fail to get a permit to build the city. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. The Black Rock desert is a blank canvas, with nothing to hide or obscure trash besides the ground itself, and yet 70,000 people manage to collectively gather and clean up after themselves like civilized adults. After we all leave, a group of hardcore volunteers stay and literally search every single inch of ground that we touched to find whatever we left behind. So, not only do we need to LNT in order to keep having Burning Man there, but if we don't, volunteers have to clean up after us. That would make us assholes. Let's not be assholes!

Tips and Tricks for Leaving No Trace

1. Don't drop things on the ground. Simple as that. Control your shit.
2. When you leave your personal campsite, sweep every square inch of it, picking up everything that wasn't there, down to the splinter size. If it's visible, get rid of it. (Now you see why glitter is the mortal enemy of the playa!)
3. When your camp leaves its campsite, do a line sweep, meaning you walk through it while walking close to each other in a line, to make sure you miss nothing. Do it twice!
4. Remember, no grey water - water you've washed with, cleaned with, showered with, etc - should touch the playa. There are a bunch of options for getting rid of grey water.

Garbage Minimization
Because you need to pack out your trash, it behooves you to consider how you're going to manage your trash during the week - cans, paper towels, baby wipes (for you to clean dust off yourself), bottles, water jugs, and so on can really start to take up space and there are no garbage bins to put them in.

Burner ShiftyFox has some great recommendations:

 "If you do the trash system the right way, you can go home with almost nothing left and make a little money in the process. So here I am going to share with you beautiful people, my ideal form of a Burning Man trash system that works really great.

• Have a container for burnable trash such as paper and food scraps, etc.
• Have a container for recyclables such as glass and plastic.
• Have a separate container for recyclable aluminum cans.
• Have a container for non burnables such as plastic items, wrappers, plates, utensils etc.
• Another tip: Burner Matt Smalley recommends color-coding your bins and putting signs on them so you spend less time digging through your trash later to separate stuff that went into the wrong bin/bag.  Collapsible laundry baskets work well.
• Unwrap everything at home. The less packaging you bring, the less you have to deal with while there.

---

Now toward the end of the week you can take your burnable garbage to a number of burn barrels and dispose of it there. Or you can do like we do and have your own fire pit in camp and just continuously put your burnable refuse and food scraps here, and burn it nightly throughout the week.

Now also at the end of the week you take your recyclable aluminum cans to this lovely camp here: http://burningman.org/.../infrastructure/recycle-camp/and that takes care of that. Maybe even volunteer to can crush for an hour if you feel so inclined.

Now all that is left to take back with you is non burnable garbage and your glass and plastic recyclables. When you get to Reno there are a number of places that will pay you good money for your glass and plastic recyclables. Boom! Money for the gas tank.

Now all you are really left with is the non burnable garbage, which really amounts to almost nothing if you did this system correctly.

I hope this helps."

-ShiftyFox

---

Thanks ShiftyFox! That does help! You're not nearly as sketchy as your name suggests, despite my previous bad experiences with vulpine con men.

(origionally posted at http://www.burn.life/leave-no-trace.html)

If a Cop Stops You at a Festival -- KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!!

Well, here is another tidbit of knowledge that EVERYONE who goes to, or ever plans on going to, a music show or festival of ANY kind (rap/hip hop/country/indie...it can all go terribly wrong at ANY of these types of fests if you are in the "wrong place" at the "wrong time"...and maybe with the "wrong people"... Read on to know more!!

By The Festival Lawyer
(re-posted)

SHARE THIS KNOWLEDGE WITH OTHERS
People often suggest to me that either 1) It’s somehow “Un-American” to talk about your rights when dealing with the police or that 2) Somehow only someone who is intending to break the law would need to understand their legal rights.

As to 1) This is really some dangerous nonsense. In fact this honestly might be one of the craziest ideas that has ever taken root in our Country and as to 2) As I always say “It’s better to know your rights and not need them, than to need your rights and not know them.”

The accompanying article goes into an overview of some 4th Amendment law in more detail. But really the infographic is meant to be shared even without the article. Feel free to share this infographic on Twitter and Facebook. Tag family members or friends who might be going to a music festival. Share your experiences and insights. Do more reading of your own and share that too.

As the very last part of the infographic says:
You have rights. Know them

Ed. Note: The Following breaks down the Festival Lawyer’s infographic in more detail:

The “Know Your Rights” infographic – A Police encounter “Flow Chart”

A lot of people write me asking how they should have handled a negative encounter they 

had with the police at a music festival or rave.

I keep hearing phrases like, “I wish I had known that I didn’t have to make a statement” or “I didn’t know I could say no” or “I wasn’t sure if I had a right to leave or if the cop was detaining me.”

The fact is that you DO have rights in dealing with the police. The “Know Your Rights” infographic is meant to be used as a practical flowchart of what your rights are at every stage of a police encounter.

A COP “STOPS YOU” AT A MUSIC FESTIVAL

The 4th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits “unreasonable” searches and seizures. 

That means you are supposed to have a right as a citizen to freely go about your business without being randomly detained or investigated. In order to “stop” you, an officer first has to have a belief that you were engaged in criminal activity.

There are 3 levels of police “stops”. At each higher level of police encounter, the police officer has to show more justification as to why he stopped you.

Consensual Encounter – A police encounter where you are not the subject of a police investigation and are free to leave. Officers don’t have to legally justify a consensual encounter because you can leave at any time.

Detention – A police encounter where you are temporarily stopped while the police investigate you for a crime. Officers must have a “reasonable suspicion” that you were involved in criminal activity to detain you.

Arrest – Permanently stopped and on your way to jail. An officer must have “Probable Cause” to believe you committed a crime to arrest you.

You know how H20 can be in three different physical states? (Steam, water and ice if you don’t have your 4th grade science notes handy) Well, the 3 levels of police stops are similar. Each of these levels is sort of a different legal “state” of being. And your rights are different in each of these “states”.

There are some big differences of course. In the H20 example you end up with an ice cube. In the police stop final state you end with a cell mate named “Bubba”.

One of the main goals of the infographic is to give you the right questions to ask so that you will know at any time which level of police “state” you are in. (Get it? police state? See what I did there?).

AM I FREE TO LEAVE?

If you are stopped by a police officer, the first question out of your mouth should be, “Am I free to leave?”

Asking this question gets you an immediate answer as to whether you are legally “detained” or free to leave. It also puts you in the best legal position possible should you later want to challenge the legality of the police stopping you. If you challenge your detention, the officer will have to show a “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity basedonly on the facts existing at the moment you said the phrase and he detained you. 

Nothing AFTER that moment can be used to justify the stop.

Here is a practical example of the use of the “Am I Free to leave” phrase.

“YES” = LEAVE

As you can see from the decision tool, if you get a “YES” after you ask “Am I free to leave? The only “action item” is to LEAVE.

Again, there is a legal reason for this. If you don’t leave immediately when given the chance, a judge may later rule that you were free to leave but that you chose to stay. (In other words, it was a “Consensual Encounter”). As I mentioned above, an officer never has to legally justify a “Consensual Encounter”.

In other words, once you get a “YES”, the best and only advice is “You got to get out of there.”

“NO” = DETENTION

A “NO” answer means that you are detained and no longer free to leave. You are enough of a suspect that Marge Gunderson would consider you to be, “fleeing the interview” if you left at this point.

It’s important to remember that officers DON’T have to read you your Miranda rights in a detention. Don’t respond to questions like “What is this?” or “Whose backpack is this? or even something innocent like “How long have you been here?” as they can be legally used against you later.

MUST SHOW ID

Some civil libertarians would argue that you legally never have to show a police officer your ID unless you’re driving a vehicle or you are a passenger on a commercial airline. The problem with that is that a number of states have what are called “stop- and-identify” laws. These laws give cops the authority to make you identify yourself if officers have a “reasonable suspicion” to believe criminal activity may be taking place.

As of 2013, 24 states had stop-and-identify laws. Since you already asked to leave and were told “NO”, the officer clearly thinks he has a “reasonable suspicion” to detain you. 

To me, it’s too risky not to show your ID (and give your correct name) once detained. But as with everything in this article, do your own research for your state laws and make your own best decision.

WHY AM I BEING DETAINED?

If you are detained, calmly ask, “Why am I being detained?” This can be valuable if you later want to fight your case in court.The answer the cop gives may limit what he can later claim was the reason for stopping you.

It’s important not to use this question as an excuse to start arguing with the cops. I can’t stress enough the prior advice about not talking to the police. People who talk to the cops end up in a legal situation we call “raptus regaliter” (royally screwed).

“AM I NOW FREE TO GO?”

In an encounter with the police, the courts require you to keep asking to leave or you may be deemed to be in a “Consensual Encounter”. If the answer is “YES” then leave. If the answer is “NO” you will need to determine if you are under arrest by asking the following:

“AM I UNDER ARREST?”

“YES” = ARRESTED

“NO” = “FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT” (COVER BAND ARREST)

Legally, if a detention goes on long enough, it becomes an arrest even if the officer doesn’t say the magic words “You are under arrest”. Basically, if you keep asking to leave and the cop doesn’t let you go the courts say you are in the “functional equivalent” of an arrest. I call this a “Cover Band” arrest. The officer may not be calling it an arrest, but it sure looks, feels and sounds like an actual arrest.

Whether the officer is calling it a “detention” or an “arrest” as a practical matter you should make the two statements listed at the bottom of the infographic to fully protect your legal rights.

“I’M NOT GIVING YOU CONSENT TO SEARCH MY PERSON OR PROPERTY”

Cops always make it seem like you’re some kind of a criminal if you express the slightest hesitation about having your property searched without a warrant. You can expect to hear an “If you have nothing to hide, why can’t we search your stuff?” type of response from the cops.

Know this…If the police are asking you permission to search you or your property, it usually means they know they are making an illegal search.

The police may have a legal right to search you without your consent. (For example, if you are arrested and the officer had probable cause for that arrest) But what you’ve done by making this statement is preserve all your legal rights and force the police to show they are legally entitled to search you.

“I DON’T WANT TO GIVE A STATEMENT. I WANT A LAWYER”

Cops will say that a person invoking their rights in this way has “lawyered up”. In addition to sounding cool, there is a really good legal reason for “lawyering up”.

As I mentioned above, the police only have to read you your Miranda rights if you are under arrest (or a “cover band” equivalent of arrest). The police can legally question you without Miranda rights in a detention.

In Salinas v. Texas (Jun 17, 2013) 133 S. Ct. 2174 the Supreme Court took that rule a step further. The Supreme Court ruled since it’s legal to question you during a detention it’s also fair for a prosecutor to comment on your silence. In other words the prosecutor can say how suspicious it is that you didn’t respond when a cop made a damning accusation to you like, “I know it was you, Fredo!”

The Court ruled that your silence in the fact of an accusation can be used against you unless you make it clear that you were affirmatively exercising your right to remain silent and have a lawyer present for questioning.

In other words, you have to SAY OUT LOUD THAT YOU WISH TO REMAIN 

SILENT…which would make an awesome Newspeak poster in Oceania by the way.

VIDEO TAPE THE ENCOUNTER

Recording a police encounter can be one of the most helpful things a festival buddy can do to help a friend being arrested. However, it’s also one of those areas where you can easily end up in legal trouble yourself from taping.

I strongly suggest you review your state’s laws and have an understanding of what you need to do legally before attempting to video the police. Here is a good starting place.

If you feel you can safely and legally video tape the encounter I suggest that you say the following if cops instruct you to turn off the camera.

“Officer, I’m not interfering with you in any way. I am just documenting this arrest. This is a public place and I’m entitled to record this.”

While making this statement, I would make a show of backing up and getting out of the way to prove that you are not interfering but just observing.

(originally posted at http://www.copblock.org/52583/a-cop-stops-you-at-a-festival-the-know-your-rights-infographic/)

The Economics of Electronic Dance Music Festivals

SmartAsset
March 27, 2015
By Thierry Godard 

DJ Shadow stated in late 2012 that “we are livening in a musical renaissance.” In that same year the genre commonly known as electronic dance music was valued at an estimated $4 billion worldwide. 2012 also saw the establishment of The Association For Electronic Music, the first new lobbying group in over 50 years. The last was formed in 1958 for country music. One year later dance music legends Daft Punk, who rose to super stardom by reintroducing Chicago house music to the world, broke Spotify’s streaming record with 27 million plays of their hit single  “Get Lucky.”

The growth of EDM would be virtually impossible without the internet. Similar to book publishing, the web has completely and thoroughly disrupted the music industry. Anyone and everyone with a fairly decent internet connection is only milliseconds away from a millenia’s  worth of musical knowledge.

Through Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, Twitter and Facebook we’ve all become  DJ’s; discovering, curating, mixing a set list to carry us through the splendid banality of our technology driven lives. It’s during this great moment of musical re-exploration that everyone seems to have fallen in love with electronic music, dance music, or EDM. Ask anyone and they can tell you at least one electronic music producer, or DJ  that they love, or love to hate.

EDM is, unapologetically, the music of the millenial generation. A generation which has witnessed the greatest technological upheaval since the industrial revolution. A generation that is simultaneously more connected to each other, and seemingly more detached from reality than ever before. It’s the music of 20-30 years old’s who’ve been focused on the rapidly approaching future, while remaining conscious of their past. And despite being more educated than any generation that preceded them, millennials are more than likely to earn less over the course of their professional careers than their parents.

Where baby boomers had rock and roll, and Gen X’ers had hip hop and punk to work out their longing for rebellion and personal freedom, millenials have EDM.  It’s a somewhat ironic mass revolt against modern society, where subtlety  is exchanged for a sense of community that Facebook and Twitter have only dreamed of replicating.

The acceptance of EDM into the cultural mainstream allowed the 10 highest paid DJs to command a combined $115 million in  2012 according to Forbes. The highest paid DJ on the Forbes list, Tiesto who brought in a whopping $22 million last year, attributes the much of electronic music’s growth to social media.

It’s a match made in heaven where unknown DJs and producers are able to share their tracks, remixes and sets across social media, forums, and blogs. This exposure can often lead to paid gigs which have the potential to catapult obscure producers into international super-stardom. Though electronic music has grown popular, its roots still remain deeply entrenched in underground culture.

The rising popularity of electronic music has led to it transforming seemingly overnight from a fringe genre generally associated with LSD, ecstasy, abandoned warehouse parties, and homosexuality, to over the top spectaculars brimming with sensory overload of every kind. 

In the process week long festivals like Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival and Coachella have become household mega-brands. Their economic viability is very real; just one weekend can generate hundreds of millions of dollars for local economies and promoters. Although some events and promoters have close to 20 years of experience, the real acceleration only occurred in the last half decade.

What is even more peculiar is that electronic dance music is nothing new. What we commonly identify as EDM has been around for nearly 45 years, yet it has only recently been acknowledged as the way forward for the struggling music industry.

The rise of electronic dance music

The simplest definition of electronic dance music is music produced primarily, or solely, through synthesizers, drum machines and computers for consumption by party-goers. The earliest elements of electronic dance music began to take shape in the late 1950’s with primitive synthesizers built by the Electronic Music Studios London. Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s many musicians and bands experimented with various forms of synthesizers like the Moog. But the synthesizer didn’t get its first real moment until 1973 when an Electronic Music Studios VCS 3 appeared on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” Electronic dance music as we know it today didn’t really begin to take form until the late 1970’s.

If you said electronic dance music began on  July 12, 1979 during “Disco Demolition Night” at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, you wouldn’t be wrong.  In center field, in between  the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox’s doubleheader is where disco had a very public death.

That night Chicago radio DJ Steve Dahl had rallied his listeners to blow up disco records in a publicity stunt to “kill disco once and for all.” The seemingly harmless promotional stunt, quickly escalated into a full blown riot leading to the cancellation of the second game. The event is viewed to this day as a backlash against inner city homosexuals,  Latin Americans and blacks by most historians and sociologists.

Following the public display of hatred, disco went underground, and into the warehouses of Chicago, and New York. There on the converted dance floors legendary DJs Larry Levan, and Frankie Knuckles played for hours on end mixing together rock, funk, r&b and disco. As the parties grew, DJs quickly began to create their own edits and remixes of classic records to keep warehouse crowds going all night.

By 1984 DJs like Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence had begun to create their very own productions like “On and On” to spice up their routines. Eventually record store owners would dub this new style of music “warehouse music” (named after Chicago’s “The Warehouse” where Frankie Knuckles was the resident DJ)  and later shortened to simply “house music.” There in the sweaty inner-city underbelly, people came together as one to dance away the social ills, writhing and twisting until sunrise to house music.

Though house music (Chicago and New York) and techno (Detroit) were born in the United States, it wasn’t until it was exported to the U.K. club scene that it began to become more than just music played in clubs. In Europe it found an audience receptive to forward thinking DJs and their addictive baslines. But when London club nights quickly grew out of control, they were shut down.

Undeterred by law enforcement,  the parties didn’t stop. They simply moved to a empty fields off of the M25, the 117 mile loop of highway that circles London, and quadrupled in size. These open air events quickly gave rise to rave culture, and a series of festivals.  All of which came to a head in 1988’s, and 1989’s “Second Summer of Love.”

From the late 1980’s through the 1990’s the U.K rave scene exploded as parties grew in attendance from4,000,  to anywhere between 25,000and 40,000. Though police and public official tried desperately to shut down the events, it only forced the parties further underground. As such organizers and party goers would rely on increasingly sophisticated methods of communication to relay information on parties. Initially relying on pay phones, and later internet chat rooms and forums.

The birth, and rapid expansion of electronic dance music, and all of its various sub-genres can not be summarized in a few short paragraphs. That’s what books are for. 

Electronic dance music and the internet

With its underground parties, secret locations and word of mouth communication, EDM and the internet were made for each other. It would be the internet that would serve as the catalyst for the explosion to come.   As internet speeds increased, MP3 players proliferated school yards and file sharing networks sprung up like weeds, dance music slowly  began to reintroduce itself to Americans.

These advancements were further compounded by the establishment of digital radio stations like DI.FM (founded in a Binghampton University dorm room), Napster (founded in a Michigan University dorm room) and the emergence of social networks like Myspace (founded by Tom). This perfect storm allowed artists and DJs to instantly distribute their creations. In fact Los Angeles based electronic music Flying Lotus credits the growth of his own career to Myspace.

For Americans, who were continuously subjected to the monochromatic sounds of popular radio, the internet provided an escape. Streaming through computer speakers, often at appallingly low quality, was an endless sea of new sounds, textures and beats played in steady 4/4 time. Anything and everything was game as long as the tempo ranged from 118 to 160 Beats Per Minute.

What came along with the rising interest in electronic music was an interest in DJ’s who hosted internet radio shows. Legends like Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold, and John Digweed all hosted their own radio shows for traditional radio. However for the first time they made their sets available for streaming or download via the internet.  They had effectively created podcasts before there was an iPod, or iTunes. This new distribution channel helped grow Armin Van Buuren’s A State of Trance into a massive franchise. On March 30th 2013 the weekly radio show celebrated its600th episode to a sold out crowd of 13,500 fans at Madison Square Garden.

The internet and EDM remain joined at the hip, today social media is the primary ticket sales for electronic dance music festivals, concerts and club nights. According to a report by TicketFly, social media ticket sales for EDM events are six times higher than “traditional events” like plays, sporting and other music events.

What is more interesting is that 58% of ticket buyers are usually males purchasing just one ticket. TicketFly speculates that the sense of community among EDM fans decreases desires to pair up prior to purchasing a ticket. This has the effect of increased ticket sales relative to the overall popularity of the performers.

The rise of electronic dance music festivals

North America has had an on-again off-again relationship with music festivals. The latest chapter began in 1999 with Woodstock 99. That summer also hosted the very first Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. In the time since, numerous music festivals have sprung up in New York, Chicago, LA, Florida, Oregon and Tennessee. The growth in popularity of music festivals is no doubt helped by the internet. A network of blogs, media outlets, promoters and retailers helps facilitates the sale of tickets, and spread awareness (aka hype) about festivals and performing artists.

Like any business, Coachella fought hard to stay alive in its first years, and was cancelled in 2000 due to financial problems. Yet it remains one of the premier music festivals in North America. In 2012 and 2013 the festival generated over  $47 million in revenue. Electronic and dance music acts were the major attractions, with over 50 electronic musicians playing to the pulsating  California desert crowd.

Coachella remains incredibly popular, and is likely the greatest coalescence of current music tastes in the United States. But Coachella is more than just a cultural haven, it generated some very real economic benefits for its hosts. In 2013 the festival generated roughly $500,000 in cold hard cash, or roughly $2.33 per pass sold, for the city of Indio, California. The economic impact of Coachella on the surrounding local economy is an estimated $254 million and is projected to grow for 2014.

The growth of music festivals isn’t limited to Coachella, Bonaroo or Lollapalooza. LiveNation, the largest concert promoter in the world,  views electronic dance music festivals as it’s greatest growth opportunity. In 2012 the promotion powerhouse raked in $3.9 billion and acquired a 90% stake in two EDM festival organizers: U.K. based Cream Holdings Ltd, and Los Angeles’  HARD Events.

Though LiveNation did not reveal the details of these acquisitions, Cream Holdings Ltd had an estimated $7.8 million in assets in 2011 according to the New York Times. This pales in comparison to the estimated $50 million paid by LiveNation to Insomniac Events for a 50% stake in the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) organizer. Both Cream Holdings Ltd (which organizes the famed Creamfields Festival in the U.K.) and Insomniac Events are established players in the electronic music scene, having staged events since 1993 and 1998 respectively.

In 2011 Insomniac Events commissioned Beacon Economics to measure its impact on the cities who so graciously hosted their non-stop dance festivals. Beacon estimated that EDC 2010, held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, generated roughly $42 million for the local economy over the course of two days. In 2011 the festival moved to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and expanded its line up to three days. There the festival supported an estimated 1,400 full-time jobs and  generated $136.4 million for the Las Vegas economy.

As impressive as those numbers are, EDC 2012 was even more profitable. Over the course of three days the festival generated $207.048 million for the Las Vegas metro area, an increase of 57% from 2011. It also helped to support the equivalent of 2,018 full time jobs and over $84 million in labor income. EDC is a very big deal for Clark County, in the two years it has played host to EDC the unemployment rate has hovered around 11.8%.

Where is all of that cash coming from? Beacon says 108,000 of the festival’s 115,000 attendees  arrived from other parts of the world and spent millions eating, dancing, drinking and occasionally sleeping in the surrounding area. To date Insomniac claims that they’ve generated $344.246 million for the local economy, which excludes EDC 2013. We estimate that the economic impact of the festival will be in excess of $500 million for 2013.

To get a better sense of the immense growth of electronic dance music festivals, we’ll have to go to Canada for the The Monster Center of Gravity Festival (COG). COG is a music and extreme sports festival hosted in British Columbia with humble beginnings similar to those of Coachella. However it only began to book electronic acts in 2009. Their growth over the last four years is hard evidence of EDM’s acceleration into a business powerhouse capable of producing real financial returns for event producers of all sizes.

The Monster Center of Gravity Festival, organized by WetApe and hosted on Lake Okanagan, is a three day sports and music event/summer camp. Though dwarfed in size by American music festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival and Ultra Music Festival, COG still lists big name DJs like Kaskade and Tiesto as headliners for its 72 hour party.

“Wet Ape was founded in 2007 when some friends and I put together VolleyFest, all we had was a budget of $50,000 and the desire to have fun. Things sort of grew organically from there.”  Said Center of Gravity Event Director Scott Emslie. In 2009 Center of Gravity began to invite EDM DJ’s to the lakeside venue and hasn’t looked back.

Over the last four years the festival has grown in tandem with the electronic music scene. The budget for the 2013 Monster Center of Gravity Festival is an estimated $1.5 million which will go towards hosting 50 artists and six sporting events. It’s a massive logistical undertaking with over500 individuals working behind the scenes.

The Center of Gravity Festival really began to take its current form three years ago. And since then its ticket prices have increased by 81% for a three day pass. That increase, says Emslie “is largely attributed to an increase in the size of the festival.COG simply offers more to attendees than it did three years ago.” With that comes an increased need for security and emergency respondents.  This year COG will  spend roughly $70,000 in contracting local law enforcement to maintain order.

The increased ticket prices also help to fund significantly improved stages, lighting and sound. Emslie added “People just want more, and the greater number of festivals has increased competition to provide bigger and better shows each year. For example we booked Calvin Harris, Deadmau5 and Skrillex for our 2010 festival. Back then Skrillex was basically unknown and we paid him a couple thousand to show up.  When we tried to book him again five months later [for 2011] he had become so in demand that it didn’t make financial sense [for us] to have him play” said Emslie.  Despite the festival’s impressive growth, it still cannot match the ferocious demand of fans to see big name DJs play at huge festivals.

Future music: mo’ money mo’ problems

It doesn’t take much math to see that the costs of staging a festivals like COG and New York’s Electronic Zoo are immense. Yet its ticket prices are less than half of Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, which offers multiple day passes for $399 and VIP access starting at $850. What Scott Emslie was quick to reiterate was that rising costs are attributed directly to the rising costs of booking in demand DJs, producing fantastic visual shows, and making sure the sound is impeccable.

The promoters at Ultra Music Festival are conscious of the rising costs, and have introduced a payment plan for it’s pricey tickets. So even if you can’t afford to buy your tickets today, you can put your desire to rage on layaway. Which isn’t as terrible of an idea as it sounds.

Miami is another struggling city that has reaped the benefits of the EDM festival boom. The south Florida city  has hosted the Winter Music Conference for 28 years, of which Ultra Music Festival is one of the 500 events underway over the course of ten day days. In just one weekend Ultra, and its165,000 attendees, generated $79 million in revenue for the Miame-Dade county economy. It also put $10 million in taxes into the coffers of  state and local governments.

As a recent lawsuit filed against Insomniac Events CEO Pasqual Rotell highlighted, not all of revenue generated passes on to the state through legal means. For Rotell, some of it goes towards greasing the palms of a Los Angeles coliseum officials to the tune of $1.8 million. The case was dismissed, but it does illustrate the very grown up problems festival producers are dealing with as pressure to put on more expensive and more impressive shows increases.

Though EDM, and EDM festivals have proven to be as economically viable as any other form of music, it still has many detractors.  There are many within its own ranks who dismiss the sudden popularity as a trend, or passing fad. Though they aren’t wrong, the insane salaries commanded by superstar DJs is nothing more than the market responding to years of pent up demand. People have always loved dance music, and for the first time it seems like it’s acceptable for Americans to be upfront about it.

It’s entirely possible that electronic dance music won’t remain as popular as it is today. But for an industry determined to not be forgotten by history, continued growth remains the only option. For a a country (and a generation) still coming to terms with its penchant for racism, homophobia, sexism and rabid consumerism, there couldn’t be a more appropriate time for America to pop the EDM pill.

Are you fan of EDM? Share the growth with your friends!

(originally posted at https://smartasset.com/insights/the-economics-of-electronic-dance-music-festivals)