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and the groove gives us few words
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Statement from Groove204 in Regards to the July 1st Party
Groove204 would like to thank all those who came out to support the lauch of the website.
Groove204.com would like to thank all who came out and supported our first event/launch party for our site. Our goal for this event was to put on an event with high calibre talent and bring awareness to our site. We chose a wide range of talent for this show and brought in some of Canada's most successful dj's and producers to showcase what Canada has to offer for Electronic music, as well as one kick ass Belgian techno dj. We at groove204.com are tryin to bring awareness to our local electronic music and its dance culture by providing a web-based medium for local information on events and music. We'd also would like to thank all those who helped us out last minute with the show.... Namely, Symptomtech, Soundwave, Harry Chan, Balboa, LSD, Jord the Veegz and basically anyone who did some Osborne street fest flyering.
All of our headliners showed up and played just as planned and the dancefloor in the main room was packed almost all night. It was really nice to see both rooms and the patio grooving hard till 6:30-7:00 am. It was almost Epic when the sun started coming through the front windows as the dance floor was still going off to freaky_aliens set.. In our opinion this party was a success and it exceeded our expectations with over 600 people in attendance.
There has been quite a bit of negative traffic on the tvt msg board due to some unforeseen circumstances groove204 ran into while putting this show on. We would now like to address some of the problems we ran into:
First off, our party was set to be 16+ at the Library which is a cabaret, which can be de-licensed to allow for underage events. The liquor inspector agent told the bar that they would have no problems de-licencing the bar for the 1st of July due to the fact that its a holiday and Cabaret's are allowed to de-licence on holdays. 24 hours before the party the city stepped in and said that they would not de-licence due to not having a special event permit which takes 6 weeks to process. Thus, we had to make the party 18+ at the last minute. For those people that said we did not check into this a head of time you are mistaken.
The reason there was alcohol at the party was because everybody would have to be of age. It’s that simple. If it was 16+ there would not have been alcohol. In a great effort and cost to resolve the situation, Groove204 was able to secure a venue and a sound rig during Canada Day so that we at least had a place for the under aged people to go to rather than to just leave them hanging. We tried to work it so that our djs could make it down to this venue as well but with various complications such as flight delays and set time co-ordinations, we were unable to pull this off. John Acquaviva and others had agreed to play the second show and pulled out after their set. It was unfortunate that they did this but it was their decision. Each dj was only under contract to perform one set, and only has obligations to perform at one venue and thusly we were unable to have them play for the people that were under 18 and attended the secondary venue.
It would have been a lot easier to simply refund tickets to those under age but in all fairness we tried to do the right thing and please them by having some of the headliners show up. Our hearts were in the right place but at times things don’t work out the way you hoped. We want to apologize to those under 18 and we will work hard to prevent this situation from happening in the future.
In an effort to try and salvage some of the bad feelings that our underage customers may have over the venue complications, we will be offering 100 free complimentary tickets to any person under 18 with ID for our next show “VERSUS” on July 30th. We will release information on this soon.
Keep in mind, Groove204 consists of three people who worked very hard to try and pull a large scale event off in a short time period. Our aim is to build our crew up with more volunteers so that next time we are not doing everything by ourselves, running ourselves thin, leaving room for imperfections.
Luke Fair, Marco Bailey, and Nuclear Ramjet (especially) all had a great time playing and enjoyed their time here. The mishap that had happened with Aquaviva was quite simple: A couple technical problems with the setup in the main room seemed to make him very unsettled and clearly upset the first 20 mins of his 1.5 hour set.
Also, Acquaviva requested to be at the venue for Luke Fairs set, just before his own set in order to not only prepare for his own set by hooking up his gear but also to simply listen to Fairs tunes. We had one of our crew members go to his hotel 20 minutes before he requested to be picked up just to make sure his request was fulfilled. The hotel told us what room he was in but no one answered the phone or answered the door when we got there. We looked everywhere in the hotel but he was MIA. We even got the hotel staff to open his room and he was not there. We finally got his cell phone number and called him only to find out the hotel had given us the wrong room number. John appeared upset by this whole ordeal but we can only do so much when we are given wrong information ourselves.
In all fairness, we had no complaints from any of the other djs.... Sometimes things go wrong ie.) breakers go, needles break, turntables malfunction,... What happened with our setup is that one of the turntables was unplugged for a cd deck and apparently one of the needles was no good yet all the needles were bought brand new the day before. We totally understand where Acquaviva is coming from though and we will take this as a learning experience since we plan to do more large scale events in the near future. We apologize if this incident ruined a bit of your night or John’s. Once the problem was solved he totally shook the rafters and the people loved it.
I think people have to realize that John has done this for many years and that he likes thing done in a certain way. He is used to walking into clubs with $50, 000 + sound systems where everything is already set up and permanently installed. We don’t have those 5000 person venues in Winnipeg and few bars have the types of setup that we require.
We thank John for playing the show and we wish him well in the future.
As unfortunate as it was to not be able to have shared this party experience with the whole 16+ crowd, we were still very pleased with the turnout for an 18+ party. It was definitely nice to be able to purchase alcohol. It was also nice to see all three rooms going right till the end.
We would like to address some of the other comments that we received over the weekends:
1. We would like to clarify that Groove204 is not about throwing “Raves”. We never said that on any flyer. This was an electronic music event. This was an opportunity to see 4 incredible headliners under one roof. People are really dwelling on the past. If people want to party in a gym or hockey arena then great, that’s your preference and call it whatever you like. Please don’t tell us that that just because this venue was a bar it is a bar night, that is just incorrect. What bar in this city goes to 7am?? What bar plays the type of music that was played here in 3 rooms? What bar night has 20 locals playing? This was definitely not a bar crowd, this was a crowd that appreciates electronic music. This was a unique and very special event and it should be treated as such. We hope to use the venue in the future and will improve upon the groundwork that we have laid. Groove204 is about building awareness for electronic music whether that is in a club, a hockey rink or on the street.
2. Security for this event was absolutely fantastic as far as we are concerned. Great job guys.
3. Our headliners were treated like gold and with the utmost respect at all times. We bent over backwards to accommodate them in any way possible and we appreciate all of the talent we hosted for this event.
4. There seems to be the same couple of people posting negative comment after negative comment. Yes we apologize for letting you down. We tried our best to correct a situation that occurred 24 hours before the party.. We are offering you compensation of free tickets to our next show. We’ve gone to many a show where a headliner failed to show or the party was shut down and never received compensation so we think this a fair resolution. Also, we would like to point out that not one person complaining has contacted us directly.
5. On the plus side we have received such overwhelming praise from the folks at the 18+ events, in person and through e-mail….. its absolutely fantastic. You made our night. It was such a wicked vibe there we hope you realize that wherever we throw a party we want you there with us listening to the music you want to hear.
6. Please contact us at [email protected][/email] is you have any more suggestions and opinions.
7. Promoters please notify us of your upcoming events and we will help you promote them. Send an e-mail to [email][email protected]
8. We once again thank you for your support and we hope to see you all out at our future events. Check the Website, www.groove204.com for more info.
----Groove204 crew -----
Jordan, Doug (Sweetleaf), Chris (The Smooths)
P.S. If you are interested in volunteering with our crew for future events then please visit our website on how to contact us in order to do so. It would be much appreciated if we had some extra help so that we can make our events the best we possibly can.
Upcoming Events:
Versus - Winnipeg Dj Battle - July30th, 2005
Seredipity 2 - Manitobas Outdoor Electronic Music festival - August 27, 2005
© Groove204.com all rights reserved
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Desire to kill is irrelevant
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we need to get together on fridey and do some shit :P
