Where's Molly?

Being Sold the Essential EDM Experience

     This past weekend over 150,000 EDM fans gathered in Chattahoochee Hills, GA for one of the most spectacular music festivals to ever take place in North America. Tomorrowworld, which is a spin-off of Tomorrowland (which takes place in Belgium annually), is an experience like non-other offered in the United States.

     The three-day festival brings together hundreds of producers and DJs from all around the globe to live mix and perform in front of thousands of adoring fans. Sounds all good and dandy right? As with Ultra Music Festival (UMF) and Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) before it, Tomorrowworld is built around lavish sets, live performers and visual spectacles, things that are completely unrelated to the actual reason to be there, to hear and enjoy the music. While the sets and visuals accompany the music and do add to the experience, I fear too much emphasis is being placed on the “image” of going to an EDM festival.     

     The festivals of today are live broadcasted to the entire world as they are happening, but the broadcasts are nothing but selected sets from only the Main Stages and nothing from the more underground stages that feature lesser known artists. This smaller sets feature much less lavish displays and stages, and focus mainly on the artists and their craft. Due to this, the viewer is given only the most lavish and over the top performances by the biggest and most commercial names in EDM.

               

Ravers at Electric Zoo in New York

     The problem here is not the artists (despite my personal opinions on their "mixing"), but rather the image that is portrayed. The home viewer sees thousands of decked out EDM fans going wild at sets by the biggest names in EDM such as: Tiesto, Alesso, David Guetta, and Hardwell. The camera crew tends to focus on the most eclectic fans in the audience, many of which are obviously on the rave drug, MDMA or Molly (also known as Ecstasy). This only helps perpetuate the exact image the scene is trying so hard to distance itself from, that these are nothing more than drug infused raves.

     Fans and observers who have never been to the festivals then view the drugs as an accessory to the actual event, that Molly is completely fine because everyone else is doing it. It removes the seriousness of taking hard drugs to have fun, espcially when taken into account the amount of highly lethal drugs MDMA is usually cut with. After two deaths at Electric Zoo last month, which caused the festival to shut down on it's third and final day, Tomorrowworld took extreme precautions to prevent another happening. Fortunately, the festival only had 17 hospital visits of the 150,000+ fans, a record achievement, many of which from dehydration and alcohol consumption.

                   
                                                    Scene from the Main Stage at Tomorrowworld

     However, as long as the image being sent out to the public is that of drug infused raves, nothing will change, and we will continue to see deaths resulting from careless drug use. EDM songs revolving around Molly, and the general acceptance of hard drug use is going to do nothing but cripple and bring more criticism to the events and their place in society. This combined with impressionable youths being drilled with "Molly+EDM=being cool," is a recipe for further disaster and loss of life.

     I'm not writing an anti-drug post, as I have little care in the actual use of drugs at festivals, because lets be real, it happens, and happens often. What I do care about however is the idea that a scene I've grown up with is being commercialized into nothing more than a lavish, over the top, drug rave, something that any longtime electronic music fan knows is not true, and is insulting to the art.
                         

Perfect example of being "Sold The EDM Image"

Fun Facts:

Tomorrowland was originally founded in 2005, and has been held annually in Belgium since. Tomorrowworld was the first foray into international waters, taking place in Georgia.
The reason Tomorrowworld was not called Tomorrowland in the USA was over a dispute caused by Disney over the naming rights trademarked for their "Tomorrowland" in the Magic Kingdom park.


Images From:
-https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wY-pgCiVBI39MkS6h80arFR83Lm7soNAX3mLSiNTtj3QM-VNwsbntq77sCJQSeetyFNuPuThgBEjMMYIR4xQnB9GbgefoqM9nHT-yfHxWWohJgi5FtR4ieR2
-http://www.smashtheclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tomorrowworld-460x250.jpeg

Articles used within:
-http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/molly-overdose-caused-electric-zoo-deaths-city-article-1.1454517