Fun Adult-Oriented Street & Beach Parties Should Not Suffer More Alcohol Crackdowns and DJ Kaskade’s Post Shows Twitter Users Should Use Caution
The popular Electric Daisy Carnival, which had a hugely successful event in Las Vegas earlier this year, sought to take advantage of its product by hosting a movie premier at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood at the end of July.
The problem is, the premier for “Electric Daisy Carnival Experience” – a movie to be released nationwide on Aug. 4 about the techno music festival – was a private event. So, too, was a post-screening party at Supper Club by one of the Electric Daisy Carnival’s performers, DJ Kaskade.
Yet when DJ Kaskade put out on his Twitter account “ME+BIG SPEAKERS+MUSIC=BLOCK PARTY!!!” it helped to create a crush that brought out the Los Angeles Police Department’s riot squad. (Lesson to Twitter’ers: Be careful of how you use social media; if you broadcast you’re at a private event, specific that as the case to avoid thousands of people showing up expecting, well, a free and open block party).
Some in the crowd, realizing that they could not get into the screening or the Supper Club and that there was no block party, then turned a bit violent, throwing bottles, getting into fights, “planking” in the street and taunting police.
And you know what’s coming next – city politicians and police chiefs (particularly in party nerdy California) are going to use this an excuse to further restrict fun events that have nothing to do with Electric Daisy Carnival, raves and techno music festivals. They are going to declare further “alcohol crackdowns” at adult events and use this an example of what can go wrong when people get out of control.
And that would be a shame. They are already putting the squeeze on harmless events such as Bay to Breakers, the Mooning of the Amtrak and the Manhattan Beach 6-man because City Council members and panic-pushing police chiefs relate those events to teenage raves. Which they are not, and not by a long shot.
The Electric Daisy Carnival crowd is comprised primarily of teenagers not yet of legal drinking age, and lacks the overall mental maturity of people who populate the likes of Bay to Breakers. (And, it must be noted, the Electric Daisy Carnival in Vegas went off without a hitch in 2011.)
So the next time one of them raises this as an example, speak up against its inaccuracy. Our party events demand it!
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