It’s 9:45pm on the third and final night of Electric Daisy Carnival, and while an army of staff and volunteers are on the ground ensuring that the festival’s Headliners are healthy, hydrated, and generally stoked, a smaller crew posted up in a sprawling office at the Speedway is making it possible for the rest of the world to experience the power, majesty and pure volume of EDC’s 20th anniversary.
In 2016, EDC was livestreamed online for the third consecutive year. Pulling off this technically ambitious feat required miles of cables, dozens of computer screens, eight roving camera crews, and a 140-person team using technology and artistry to broadcast the world’s biggest dance music festival to thousands of fans in more than 200 countries.
In the makeshift office, a room that usually functions as a kitchen is loaded wall-to-wall with servers and wires, a configuration that sends the stream to Facebook and YouTube, where it is garnering thousands of comments on each platform. Upstairs, editors in four dark, closet-sized offices take live footage from around the festival and edit it in real time, many of them chair dancing along with the sets they’re working on.
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This refined footage is then sent downstairs, where another team assembled behind a mission control-style bank of flashing monitors edits the images into a single feed incorporating music, crowd shots, fireworks and short Headliner-centric videos shot on-site each night. One crewmember DJs the DJs, adding footage from the crowd and creating smooth transitions as the feed cuts from techno, to trance, to bass, to hardstyle, and more.
While the Insomniac team has a general sense of what they’ll be broadcasting each night, there is no set schedule. Artists appearing on the stream aren’t even announced ahead of time, a fluidity that allows the crew to capture the nightly vibe of the fest. There is no host, as Insomniac wanted viewers to have an unfiltered experience as close to the real thing as possible.
“We’re trying to give people the best of EDC has to offer, “ says livestream Producer Atilla Meijs. “We’re out there looking for special moments.”
Such moments included the minute of silence that happened on kineticFIELD in commemoration of Orlando on Friday night. (“It was amazing to have 100,000 people go silent,” Meijs says. “It shows how spirited people are here and how much they believe in the message of EDC—that we’re all okay the way we are.”) There was also a wedding, loads of music (more underground genres including hardstyle and psytrance were both included this year), dancing performers, and all of the thrilling, intimate, funny moments happening out in the crowd.
It was important for everyone involved that the stream accurately reflect the audience, rather than just broadcasting the most scantily clad members in the crowd.
“Everyone here is equal,” says Creative Director Hans Pannecouke, who goes by the name Pancake. “I want to see boys; I want to see girls. I want to see thick; I want to see thin. I want to see all colors. I want to see gay, lesbian and straight. I want to see friends. I want to see couples. I want to see everything.”
While the livestream is a powerful way to spread the EDC brand to new audiences, the endeavor is more than just marketing; it’s a method of sharing Insomniac’s core message of love, positivity, unity and self-expression with as many people as possible, and especially with those watching from places where such self-expression might not be as socially acceptable. In that way, the stream is showing these people that there is a place for them, even if they can only access it via the internet.
“EDC isn’t just something that you see and hear; it’s something that you feel,” says Insomniac Founder and CEO Pasquale Rotella. “It’s important for that magic to translate to the livestream. Everyone involved in the broadcast—from the film crew in the field to the team in the control room—takes an immense amount of pride in bringing the best possible experience to everyone tuning in around the world.”
Photos by Roger Kisby.
