Hi everyone,
I’m sitting back at home right now, recovering from what may have been one of the best weekends in my career as a DJ. The reactions to the celebrations for the 400th edition of A State of Trance were bigger than in my wildest dreams.
It seemed like everything came together and I’m deeply touched by all the support from fans all over the world. What started out as an idea for an intimate party in a club, grew out to three massive events in three countries with actually creating an online radio station for 72 hours only. It was fantastic to see how massive the response was to the video and audio feed.
It really showed me once again how big the love for trance is around the world. It creates a special atmosphere in the clubs that club owners and bouncers describe as “the easiest crowd to work it”. Everyone seems to be there for the music, which is the same vibe I got from the people who turned their living rooms into clubs, just for these three days. The forums, Twitter (#1 topic for a few days) and chat rooms showed us a little of what was going on.
Thanks to the internet you were able to view this special broadcast via the video stream. Although Internet doesn’t seem 100% ready yet everywhere for such a big stream of data, most people were able to see us. We had our problems too, which indicates that even though Internet is now part of our daily lives, it’s still developing. Sometimes I did get a slight feeling of ‘pioneering’ because of this. It’s great to be able to give the worldwide audience a good impression of the vibe in the clubs and backstage and I absolutely think this is the future.
One thing I really noticed is how cool all the DJ’s were that I invited. Nobody had a big ego or demanded just blue M&M’s backstage. Everyone was just hanging out with huge respect for each other, listening to each other’s sets, discussing gigs, software and music. It made me feel incredibly happy and proud to be part of this world we call electronic dance music. It was truly special!
I really owe a massive thanks to the huge team of people that made all of this possible. First of all our sponsor SEAT, all the clubs (Butan, Godskitchen and Maassilo), Alda Events, DLP, Dancefoundation (Lennart, Paul & crew), Gavin Kingsley from the Radio Department, Raymond Garnier & crew (Cross Media Ventures), everyone at Armada (especially Ruben de Ronde), Gijs Alkemade & crew, all the radio stations that joined us, all the DJ’s for their fantastic guest sets and mixes, all clubbers, websites and forums (Trance.Nu, Tranceaddict, Trancefix, avb.forum, irc chatroom #Armind & #ASOT400 etc etc), and everyone I may have forgotten. You know who you are.
See you at ASOT450!!
Love,
Armin
