Reporter Jordan Schneider caught up with Electric Zoo Executive Producers Laura De Palma & Mike Bindra to reflect on their Electric Zoo festival held in New York September 4th and 5th.
What were the greatest challenges/advantages of throwing a festival in New York?
The weather in the Northeast is definitely a challenge, we envy those festivals in locations where rain is never a concern. Hurricane Earl gave us a couple of sleepless nights, that said we cannot complain about the weather in our first two years.
Being New Yorkers, of course we are biased, but let’s face it we are in the greatest city in the world. Seriously, the great thing about New York is that in addition to attending Electric Zoo, festival-goers can experience all that New York City has to offer.
What about Electric Zoo has enabled it to thrive where All Points West faltered?
Not sure if we can really comment on why APW faltered. But in terms of the success of Electric Zoo, we think our biggest advantage is; we know the culture of electronic dance music. We have basically grown up in the scene. We love the music, and know what we personally want to experience when attending a dance music event. The sound and visuals are incredibly important to us, but honestly there isn’t a detail of the festival that we haven’t paid close attention to. It’s very exciting to have the opportunity to hone and perfect EZ moving forward, to give the people more of what we know they want.
How do you see your festival and the festival scene in New York progressing in the following years?
At least in our end of the music industry we feel that bigger events are gaining popularity. People want more bang for their buck, and festivals or multiple artist events are just that. We believe that so long as we continuously improve on Electric Zoo, it will thrive and be around for years to come. See you at Electric Zoo 2011!