The Massive is alive and well - ETD Pop 2007

This weekend in San Francisco (Saturday actually), clubbers, ravers, trendsetters, scensters, teenagers and adults will all come together and converge on the Bill Graham Civic Center for the 10th installment of Electro Techno Disco Pop from the legendary party promoters at Skills. ETD Pop is a party of epic proportions by every definition of the word with 3 giant stages of sound, international superstars like Infected Mushroom, Christopher Lawrence, DJ Dan, Diesel Boy, Mark Farina and Kaskade (to name but a few) and 10,000 people expected in attendance. This is a party that had a budget of more than $250,000 and took 5 months to plan. Needless to say, you need to be at this event.

March 31st will mark the 10 year anniversary for the Skills parties and Skills founder Jason Sperling could not be more excited for it. “Skills has been through the good times and the bad times of the (dance) scene and we feel lucky to have been doing our events for the last 10 years” says Jason about the company he helped start bak in 1997.

Plans for an event of this size start as much as 5 months in advance and begin with securing the venue. Once the venue has been booked, it’s time to go after the talent and which can sometimes be complicated due to the fact that the date and venue have already been established and the artists they are courting are international DJ’s who are constantly playing all over the world. There are tours to think about, album releases that come in to play and exclusivity contracts that only allow performers to play a particular venue in the city or only so many times in a year. It’s a lot of work to have someone come and play records.

Skills hasn’t always had to go through all of this work to bring people in to their shows. In the first years when they started throwing their annual massive, the dance scene was healthy and full of young people who couldn’t get enough of the new sounds that boomed out of the towers of bass. Back then, Skills was able to rely on just their name to draw in the crowds. If it was a Skills party, that was enough. The focus was on the good vibe and music and not so much the big name stars performing. That’s all changed in the last 3-4 years and now it is much more about bringing in the biggest names, having the best sound and over the top lighting and decor. Jason welcomes the change and thinks it has made the energy level rise and the crowd has become more diverse and eclectic. “We now have to think of ourselves as concert promoters creating a top notch experience with the best sound and lighting and world class talent.”

This Saturday, all sounds in electronica will be well represented. Main headliner Infected Mushroom (originally from Israel) have been rockin’ stadium crowds around the world for years and Jason is excited to give them the stage that he says they deserve as the main act in the main room. Christopher Lawerence makes his 3rd consecutive appearance for Skills to add to the massive Trance sound that will be represented. In the house arena, some of the big names include DJ Dan, Kaskade and SF’s very own Mark Farina. Diesel Boy, Ed Rush and Optical headline the Drum and Bass room. According to Jason this is the most diverse line up a Skills party has ever had. For more info visit the site and for presale tickets go to Groove Tickets.

Make sure to check back next week because we are going to be there with our cameras so we will have some great videos.



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