I just attended and performed at the Electro-Music 2010 festival in NY. It was my first time at this festival and I thought I’d share a “show report”.
The marketing copy from the Electro-Music site describes the Electro-Music festival as follows:
Dubbed the "Woodstock of Electronic Music" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, it features three full days of musical performances, video art, seminars, workshops, demonstrations, and jam sessions…These events have been noted for their incredibly diverse assembly of talent, enthusiastic support for innovative and unique artists, and overall positive, cooperative and fun atmosphere.”
Did the festival live up to this description? Absolutely! It was just fantastic and I’ll definitely try and get back there next year. Before I go into detail I’ll just say up front that if you are passionate about electronic music in any way, you’ll find something at this festival for you.
Location
The festival started in 2005 in is an outgrowth of the world-wide electro-music.com community. The festival has rotated through various locations throughout the years. The first few years were in Cheltenham PA, then it moved to Kingsport TN in 2008, Bloomingdale NJ in 2009, and this year was at the remote Greenhill YMCA retreat in Huguenot, NY. This site is also a sleep away camp for kids.
All the events were in one building the main lodge which was really convenient.
As you can see from the next picture, the site was simply gorgeous. Of course being electronic musicians we spent a lot of time all our time inside :^).
Tickets
Ticket options were a 1 day pass for $35 a day, or a 3 Day pass for $350 which included lodging and meals. I’m really glad I opted for the 3-day pass as this allowed more time to get to know other artists as well as share meals.
Lodging and Meals
For those who opted for lodging, it was a fun flashback to summer camp. When we checked in we received sheets, wool blankets, pillow, pillow case, washcloth, towels and soap and were assigned a building and a room mate. Each room had it’s own bathroom and shower. The room was plenty decent enough considering I was up till like 1:00 a.m. every night and just used the room for sleeping. There was too much going on to be hanging out in the room.
Three meals a day were served out of the camp kitchen. The food was good camp food. This ended up being a great place to catch up with folks you met throughout the festival.
Venue and Format
As you can see from the image below, the format staggered concerts and ran parallel to lectures in the library. There was a jam room in the basement and Stage 2 was used for jams in the mornings as well.
In addition to these events there were DIY projects, laptop battles (the winner got to play Sunday night on the main stage) and more.
Basically, I got up at 8:00 a.m. and was busy till 1:00 a.m. every day!