A Winter Party Festival reflection by CircuitCadence.com's John Longo
So, if you follow my messages (which you obviously do, because you're reading this), you'd probably find it surprising to hear that I attended the Peter Rauhofer event at Mansion here in South Beach, last night - during the Winter Party weekend. You'd find this shocking because I've so steadfastly protested the existence of any event which would, on the surface, seem to detract monies from what seems to be such a noble cause. On the basis of this principal, I am entirely steadfast, that it's unfortunate that profiteering exists and that we don't live in a perfect world where charity reigns supreme. The simple fact of the matter is, as it turns out, that there are two possible responses to this type of dilemma, from the standpoint of the charitable organization.
1. Throw a better event, with better talent, more competitive pricing and align yourself with the strongest support network of partners and sponsors so that you are either unaffected by the challenging event or you discourage them from continuing it in the future, or
2. Alienate your strongest supporters, enter into deceptive marketing practices, and guilt people into thinking they have no choice of where to go (which I too was a victim of falling for) and in the end succeed in nothing other than making your own event seem like a haven for negativity and totally distracting from the joys of the circuit, the rewards we seek for our community involvement.
Being a responsible party-goer, having already attended multiple events on the previous four consecutive days, I concertedly decided to come home from the Beach Party (which was a blast by the way! the entire weekend was filled with the greatest crowd and energy and largely made anything else going on secondary to its overpowering happiness) and sleep, knowing I wanted to attend the three remaining parties with sufficient energy and excitement. Since these parties spanned a timeframe of 9PM Sunday to 2AM Tuesday, I consciously decided to arrive at "Orbit" @ 3:30AM Monday Morning, from where I would move over to "Aftermath" @ 6:00AM, and last as long as I could between then and the 4:00PM close. I'd have a chance for a disco nap after that and then finish off the weekend with the closing party on Monday night. Sounds reasonable, even extremely well thought out, right? We're always told to "party safely and responsibly," after all. Well, when I arrived as planned, I was told that "comp admission ended at 3:00AM." In actuality, my pass was not a "comp" pass, it was a Partner pass. It was not something free that I was lucky to have as a privilege, it was their end of a contractual agreement from which they had already collected thousands of dollars worth of value, in the form of advertising, promotional material, giveaways, etc. Additionally, there was never any communication of any type of time restriction, when it comes to arrival time, for any of the events.
Ultimately, despite attempts to escalate and requests for rationale, I was not offered any. When I reminded them of my adamant support of the event in the face of competition and expressed my confusion with the adoption of such a policy, arbitrarily and without notice, they were indifferent. I was told the value of the previously received contributions, was no longer applicable to that event, and that for the remaining 2 hours of that party, I would be admitted for nothing short of the $85 door cost of admission. I asked why they would honestly care to see me walk away to go to another event, and they didn't care to offer any substantial attempt at a response. This is simply one of those unfathomable occurrences in life, that is best to not even attempt to understand or make sense of, because it doesn't make any sense. I don't know very many people that went to the "official" event, even in my own desires to be personally present and report back as media, I am unable. What I can say is that when I arrived at Mansion I was welcomed into an overwhelmingly uplifting and fun, lively, energetic crowd, that filled the entire club, including balcony, and was some of the best music of the weekend, bar-none. It just makes the whole idea of Winter Party being victimized, a lot harder of a notion to swallow. I'll continue to support Winter Party, because just like 24 hours ago before these things took place, I continue to believe in the mission of what they set out to accomplish. However, there can be no greater reminder that just because something is charity, doesn't mean it is unaffected by politics, greed, manipulation and collusion.
At the end of the day, we all need to reach our own conclusions about people and things, and those conclusions might not always be ones we'd have hoped for in a perfect world. This Winter Party weekend was AMAZING and fun and goes down as some of my best life memories to date. As always, music is my key passion and motivator, not distantly followed by the incredible sense of community that the circuit carries. Let's just constantly remind ourselves to challenge ourselves, our beliefs, and the things we know to be right in the world, and stay true and genuine for the good of the community at large, not for the luxuries of the few.
There's a new hodge-podge of tracks available on the home page, which feature remixes of the variety of DJs that performed throughout this weekend. As always, enjoy the music and each other!! See you on a dance floor soon!
XOXO,
John Longo
http://www.circuitcadence.com
