Godskitchen

After a lot of travelling around the world in search of the ultimate dance event experience, it’s about time to share with you the history of Godskitchen. Godskitchen is an international superclub brand associated with dance music and organizes events, particularly in the UK and US. The company runs a club night of the same name at their own nightclub AIR, in Birmingham and has an in-house music label. This label annually releases compilation albums, in addition to supporting new artists whom they believe bring something new to the genre.

While trying to come up with a name for their new house night, promoters observed that the best house parties always seem to gravitate around the kitchen. They soon concluded that the very best parties would be held in God's kitchen, hence the name. This name was also used by the 1980s synthpop group Blancmange who produced a song called "God's Kitchen", although the two may not have been connected.

Godskitchen's roots begin back in the golden era of the UK rave scene back in the early 1990s.They held their first event back in the UK at the Junction Nightclub in Cambridge, launching a series of sell out nights across the UK.

In 1997 Chris and Tyrone staged an event for 4.000 people at the Sanctuary Music Arena in Milton Keynes. The party sold out in advance at a venue that fellow superclubbers Cream had failed to fill only 12 months previously.

Looking for a "somewhere to call home", Godskitchen moved to the 2000 capacity Sanctuary Nightclub (formerly the Digbeth Institute) in Digbeth, Birmingham. Godskitchen filled the Sanctuary week after week and 1999 saw Godskitchen take their clubbing to the Amnesia Nightclub in Ibiza, pulling in 5.500 revelers every Tuesday night. Godskitchen continued to flourish on Ibiza for another three seasons, moving to Eden in San Antonio for one summer in 2002.

In Birmingham, Godskitchen continued to go from strength to strength and began work on a nightclub of their own, the superclub "CODE", which opened its doors in the autumn of 2000. With Friday's Godskitchen fast becoming synonymous with the Trance sound, Godskitchen launched two further clubbing nights at CODE. Expanding into the north of England, the first Godskitchen night was launched at Club Mission in Leeds in 2008.

In 2003 Godskitchen completely transformed their home venue CODE, renaming it to AIR. After another successful year and Global Gathering in 2004, Godskitchen took the party overseas to the Ireland and the US. The final jewel in the Godskitchen crown was to take place in July 2005 when Global Gathering was expanded to cover an entire weekend and the Friday night saw a fresh music policy with more emphasis placed on live acts. The capacity was again increased to 45.000 and the following day saw Godskitchen take Global Gathering to the Republic of Ireland for a 15.000 capacity event in Cork.

Godskitchen released their first compilation in 1999, "Divine" and has since released a further 11 compilations, the most recent being "Godskitchen Underground".

Dance Valley

It is time to tell you about the notorious Dance Valley. Dance Valley is an annual dance music festival held in the summer in Spaarnwoude, Netherlands. The first edition was in 1995 when 8.000 people attended. The festival grew rapidly, both in duration and number of visitors. The first time the event lasted 3 days in the weekend was at 2005 along with camping available at the campsite.

Big changes to the festival came in 2006. Traditionally held the first weekend of August, due to colliding with another festival UDC (Dance Valley management company) brought the festival forward two weeks from the 14th to the 16th of July. Whilst this had little effect in terms of sales it did affect the last two hours of the festival when sun light was still visible on the horizon, this in turn affected the use of lighting with the lasers not being switched on until later.

Dance Valley also played host to BMX, skate boarding and motorcycle competitions sponsored by LG. The back field HQ resided in was not used, instead a large tent towards the entrance was specially erected for the harder side of dance.

Many famous and less famous DJs played music at Dance Valley over time, with big names such as Carl Cox, Derrick May, Paul van Dyk, Tiësto, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Paul Oakenfold, Ferry Corsten and Yoji Biomehanika all having made appearances.

While Dance Valley is a pure dance-music event, it caters to a wide audience by not limiting itself to a specific style though its heart is (as with most Dutch events), in trance. The biggest name DJs on the main stage tend to be Trance DJs. In 2006 Armin Van Buuren, Ferry Corsten, Marco V and Simon Patterson (part of the duo Dogzilla) were the main draws. Even Päivi Vahvelainen, Mona Sahlin and Jo Pullan were seen cutting shapes there. With the main stage reserved for the big names in mainstream dance music, up to a dozen secondary, smaller stages are dedicated to styles such as Electro, Eurodance, Hardstyle and Experimental.

Have a look at this video and try to feel Dance Valley’s unique vibe. I bet you all wished to be there....

CREAMFIELDS

Creamfields has established itself as the “crown jewel” of dance festivals and continues to be in the Top 5 festivals in the UK. It began in Winchester in 1998 and since then it has been the greatest UK festival and one of the biggest in the world. It is the festival organized by the “Cream” brand. After the big success of the club, its people thought to expand their businesses with organizing what later became “the most anticipated dance event in UK”.

It takes place everyAugust in Daresbury, just outside Liverpool and after some years started to grow so big that other cities hosted Creamfields in their land with great success. Some of them are Abu Dhabi, Buenos Aires, Andalucía, Punta Del Este, Istanbul, Rio De Janeiro, Lima, Lisbon and many others.

Famous for bringing together genre breaking pioneers from across the DJ and live music spectrum, the structure of the festival features the enormously successful Live Outdoor Stage and between 8-10 DJ only arenas. The amount of technology equipment used to fulfill the requirements of the festival is enormous and such is the power consumption so as to cover the needs of such a great light and laser show.

The festival’s producers have been very cautious about the facilities for the people and the safety regulations. There is special place where one can camp and along with Camping Shops, First Aid, Bars, Foods and Beverages shops everything you might need is well taken care. There are locker facilities, regular security patrols and CCTV monitoring to make sure that everyone will enjoy the festival without further thoughts or troubles.

Be one of the lucky ones to participate in such a great event and look for the upcoming Creamfields 2012 to have the ultimate dance experience of your lives. 

Dance Events

 

The fast growth of House Music industry gave birth to many dance events in many countries. The leading countries were England, United States and Ibiza. People were asking for big events and many DJs playing in the same stage all night long. This need was quickly covered by the first dance events all around the world where people travelled far from their origins to experience the true party feeling and vibe.

There was also a major help from many big brands in creating the whole events and advertising it worldwide, like Coca-Cola, Adidas, BMW, Nike, Pepsi and many others. This helped the producers of the shows to overcome all the financial costs which were forbidding at that time and led to greater stages, better sound equipment and bigger DJs line-up. The terraces were enormous and each time the parties grew bigger and bigger.

The whole industry flourished in no time and it became a quite profitable and entertaining job to setup and organize Dance Events. Apart from the Dance Clubs people’s “thirst” for this music, made them follow the DJs wherever they performed and became loyal supporters.

The lights, the sound and the show itself made the crowd more demanding year by year. Side by side with the discography companies DJs found themselves with great profits and glory in very short time.

I will later analyze each event separately and tell you the best hints and tips as far how to enjoy and have a good time in such an event. Be prepared and “stay tuned”.