anyone ever been to WEMF?

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

is it worth checkin out??

[Blane]

which WEMF? The world media forum?

[questcequecest?]

i have nothing good to say about this festival.

[DevO]

world electronic music festival, in toronto.

never been to it. the new deal has played it in the past is all i know! it seems to be one of the big ones for the electronic crowd, along with that one in detroit. i'm sure theres a lot of good stuff going on there, but as far as how it is run and organized and everything, i'm not sure.

[Del]

I guess it depends on how much you like raving... I went in 2000 and had one of the times of my life... Mind you I was raving a lot back then... It was held in Dunnville, ON, with an airplane hangar as the main stage and about 6 or 7 other stages... Each stage hosted a different genre of electronic music: jungle, trance, goa, house, etc. They had some pretty big name DJs there (Paul Oakenfold headlined, and was also a huge disappointment, I might add), and filled out the rest of the timeslots with locals. The music starts at about 2pm and goes until about 8am... Some very cool kids and a whole lot of sketchy ones... Kids is the operative word though - a very young crowd. I believe in successive years they added a beer tent, so there may be some older kids there now... No alcohol is allowed to be brought in though, and you have to hide your drug use (surprisingly). Last I heard they moved the festival to Bobcaygon (sp?) because of troubles with the organizers... It is one hell of a good time if you like raving though... I've always flirted with the idea of going to another one...

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

i've never really been to a rave....

but i always like checking out new scenes....if only for the sights and being able to say "ya, i know what thats like"

i think i'm going to do it.

i've been getting into electronica more and more so we'll see..

[tribalstar]

horrible...too many junkies...oh the demons...they still follow me...

[Alexis]

I went to the same fest Del did in 2000, but didn't know him then. It was my first "big" party. It was awesome, I had an amazing time. Met lots of cool people, and didn't see the sketchiness that these guys are talking about, but mind you my eyes weren't open to it. All I saw was brightly coloured hair, fun fur pants, and lots and lots of plastic bead bracelets and soothers.

The festival itself was really well organized. There was one specific camping area, and airfields all around. You'd walk on the cement and vendors and other stuff like camping and parking was on the grass. There were 7 or 8 different tents of different styles of music and one big hanger for all the trance kids and the really big name DJ's to play. Modrobes sponsored the event and they had a cool chill out tent with space for anyone with a half decent tape of themselves spinning could sign up to play at.

There were big water things with drinkable water inside. There were lots of portopotties, that were clean for the most part. The age of the crowd was 16-mid 20's.

Only bad thing that happened was the morning after the last night, my friends and I slept till 1 and we woke up to security gaurds pouring water into our tent through the windows. We woke up and looked outside, instead of the field of tents we went to bed to, there were 4 other tents left and they were all being packed up. So the security guys were absolute jerks but hey, after spending 3 days with cracked out kids, and listening to what I thought was the bunkiest of bunk music, I'd want to go home too.

After that experience I would recommend going.

I went to the one in 2001, it was in Bobcaygen. The venue was changed less than a week before show time from where it was planned to be held. So the facilities kind of sucked, no where near enough portapotties. Non-drinkable water, and not enough of it. Barely any vendors. The kids there were suddenly aged 13-20. I felt old and I was 20 at the time.

The music and camping areas, which the year before, had been kept seperate were now together, everywhere. It was utter chaos.

Maybe it was the fact that you had to park about 1-2 MILES from where the fest was and carry all your gear down the road, no driving. Maybe it was the fact that the crowd had doubled in size from the previous year and they were completely unprepared staff wise. At one point I heard someone on staff walking back down the line saying there were almost 20, 000 people in line behind me. And i was WAAAAY closer to the front than the back. Maybe it was standing in line for 12 hours, all through the night waiting to get in that killed it for me. Hearing the music, hearing people have fun. Maybe it was the fact that I had my straigt edge friend with me who did nothing but complain the entire time we were in line that killed it. I dunno. The whole weekend was shite. Bad vibes all around. But with 4 days to plan a fest and get an extra 7500 people showing up unexpectedly I don't know if I'd have been able to do a better job.

So, with that experience thrown in, I'd say go. Just look into the amount of planning that's gone on. If they've already announced a location I'd feel pretty secure. I think that every year they hold it somewhere different.

In 2002 theNEWDEAL played there and I heard the set was really good. Edit to add: Coors sponsored that years event, so I'm sure they (the festival people) had to pull their shit together.

I'd say go.

Edited again to add: if you're going to "experience the rave scene", sorry, you kinda missed the boat. I barely caught the end of it in 2000-01, there are those that would argue that I missed it too.

Edited May 14, 2005 by Guest

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

thanks alot!

from reading all that...

i am most likely going to do it.

think phish art would sell???

[Del]

think phish art would sell???

No.