My Journey: The Making of My First Festival

[FatKidWitAJetPak]

Wow, it has been a while! I have not been on this site in a few months, sorry to say. I use to come on here and review albums, but in recent weeks I have been focusing on something different. I have been working on festivals. I thought I would go ahead and share my journey with you all.

Ever since I discovered electronic music when I was 13, I have been studying it. I have searched the corners of the internet, exploring the boundaries of sound and discovering new horizons. Sometime in 2012, I discovered Psytrance. It was very... different. It engulfed me in a way music had not done before. Sure, I had jammed out to Pink Floyd, cried to Steve Roach, and raged all night to Wub Wobble.. err.. Dubstep, but I felt Psytrance was on an entirely different spectrum. It was, indeed, psychedelic.

This word intrigued me, almost to a point to where I was more obsessed with the phrase than the music. To be clear, I don't do drugs. This "pscyahdelic trance," however, put me into a state of thought that I can only describe as euphoria, and, quite frankly, purely psychadelic... As I continued down the road, I jumped into a pool of other emotions. At one point, during the listening of a psycore album by CinderVOMIT, I even felt terror. This psytrance was taking me into a different part of my mind I hadn't explored for some time. I was perplexed, bewildered, and dazzled. I kept looking for more.

Darkpsy, Full-On, Goa, Psydub, Suomi, Progressive, Zenoesque, Psycore, and much, much more followed. By early 2013, I had discovered more music than I had dreamed of on a website known as Ektoplazm. I downloaded tens of albums, talked to many of the artists, and reviewed as many works as I could. By diving deep into this world, I was able to understand it more. Listening to all that music, understanding the perspectives of the hands behind the synthesizers, and becoming a part of a culture I had only dreamed of was only the beginning. One day, I woke up and decided it was time to show this to the people of Arkansas, where I have lived for 21 years. Let me take you to July, 2013.

All my life, I had dreamed of taking people into another reality of diversity, artistic creation, and passionate sound. The barren tastes of country and rock had become monotonous for me. It was time for something different. I made a lot of calls, sat down for many conversations, and banded together my collection of connections to form a wonderful and talented group of sound architects, expressive dancers, and passionate artists known as "Flux". After meeting with my business partner Cat, all of the strings were finally coming together. We were going to throw a festival in the middle of the woods, psytrance style. With her experience and my visions, we partnered up with this team to plan our first festival, "Quantum Flux" for late August.

This is where my life changed. That night, I saw something wonderful. Behind the smiling faces of the fire twirlers, guitar players, hulu-hoopers, sound engineers, painters, dancers, and the entire crowd, there was a profoundly beautiful picture. I saw a culture forming right in front of me, as if time didn't exist. It was our own world, and we loved it. It ended around 9am the next day, and we went back to the drawing board to craft another environment. Soon afterwards, our second festival, "Haunted Flux" was born inside an indoor skate park. We added delicious, organic food, silk dancers, louder sound, more visuals, and more people. Now, we are focusing on a smaller event with the same quality for New Years Eve inside a mansion. We are calling it "Arctic Flux". I can't wait to see what sort of event unfold that night.

 

As these festivals explode, I gain more experience. I meet more people. I see more visions. People laugh. People cry. We all come together to express a wonderful thing. This psyculture, as I like to call it, is full of many, many varieties. Recently, Flux has created a Facebook page and I wrote our credo.

"Interested in the magical, addicted to the phenomenal, and curious for difference, Quantum Flux is a group of passionate artists and musicians aiming to take you into a new reality. By combing the visions of professional sound architects, innovative painters, and constantly moving crowds, our world will take you on a journey through space and time. Expect the unexpected and leave everything you knew about clubs or parties behind the door. It's time for something different, and your going to love it. Come express everything with us and escape into another dimension."

I would like to thank Psynews for peaking my interest on psycommunity. This site was the first psytrance community I was involved in. Suntrip records introduced me to Goa. Reviews by Trance2MoveU always caught my curiosity. I even met a user on here who took me to my first festival, Atrium Obscurum: New Era Transmission. In fact, my first psytrance festival was the only one I have been to so far, besides my own of course. I took a video around June. Here it is:

I really should go on here more often, I love you guys! This is only the beginning... I can't wait to see where the future takes us. You should come out to Arkansas sometime and breath in the fresh, mountain air under the full moon. Come be a part of the flux!

"To fathom Hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic." - Humphry Osmond

James McCarthy, a local supporter on the site, paints posters for me. I edit text in Pages
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[FatKidWitAJetPak]

Also, here is my mix for Haunted Flux if you want to listen!

 

https://soundcloud.com/fatkidwitajetpak/quantum-flux

[IronSun]

Cool story, I love how you discovered the music and already put so much work into the scene You're clearly someone who not only talks the talk but also walks the walk, contrary to some other members here. Kudos to you and thanks for the interesting read

 

Btw: I love those posters, especially the one for quantum flux! Reminds me a bit of Jeronimus Bosch

[Ormion]

That's awesome.

[Rotwang]

Cool story, I love how you discovered the music and already put so much work into the scene You're clearly someone who not only talks the talk but also walks the walk, contrary to some other members here. Kudos to you and thanks for the interesting read

+1

[Shpongled247]

Nice one mate. Was wondering where u got to. Glad it was something positive

[FatKidWitAJetPak]

Thanks for the support guys! Ive been wanting to throw festivals for quote some time now. Honestly,

If it werent for discovering this site, that may have never happened.

[K-BAN]

dude! fly that jetpack high! this was a heart warming read 8) I hope we can meet somewhere, someday. I'll forward your page to a friend in Tennessee incase she is up to the drive for such parties. 8)

 

edit: I cant find the Flux FB page ;p got a linky?

[FatKidWitAJetPak]

For sure! If you want to like our Facebook page, here is the link to do so.

 

https://www.facebook.com/QuantumFluxExperience

[Panoptes]

I'd love to visit Arkansas. I'm glad to see more psy festivals in the states. Very exciting