Road to Ultra: Macau's first big electronic dance music festival
Miami's monster EDM event is set to conquer casino city, with day of shows starring 2manydjs, Porter Robinson and Nicky Romero, plus Hong Kong's Janette Slack and Singapore's DJ Ghetto
Not too long ago, we lived in a music world that wasn't dominated by electronic dance music (EDM). Now, along with other millennial-driven aspects of contemporary society, the sub-genre juggernaut is impossible to avoid.
Diplo tweets a picture and the Twitter-verse goes mad; Skrillex's obscure Instagram photos rack up tens of thousands of likes; pages upon pages of Tumblr are dedicated to gifs of Deadmau5.
If it all sounds familiar, here's why: just a few decades ago, rock stars were courting the same frenetic fan hysteria, drawing massive crowds to their overbooked gigs and gleefully celebrating the glamour and decadence of their lifestyles. Now, the enfant terribles of the music industry are officially the EDM babies, spawned from the birth of the internet, social media and the new millennium.
It's been a few years coming — organisers of traditionally rock- and indie-heavy festivals such as Coachella have noticed an unprecedented rise in EDM interest, while demand for traditional instrumental groups and musicians has begun to languish.
This drive has reached Asia at full throttle, with DJs reigning the dance floors and EDM royalty such as Tiesto and David Guetta regularly playing across the region. Not surprisingly, Macau will host its own EDM festival in June, a branch of the popular Ultra music festival that originated in Miami, in the United States.
