What you need to know:
Leizer Guss, OCESA Executive Director, joins us in remembering how EDC Mexico was born 10 years after the first edition… and more.
For many, Vive Latino is the event that paved the way for the opening of a wide range of festivals in Mexico. Then, with the help of OCESA, other events were created to diversify the festival offerings in the Mexican capital… And with that in mind The story of EDC México is something very special.
In 2024 the festival will be 10 years old; It is a decade in which it has become a reference for EDM in the Mexican sceneand which has achieved great international importance.
But it has not only become the venue for one of the biggest parties that take place every year at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez… It has also become an event venue a supporter of electronic artists in Mexicoand showed us the value of the Mexican public as a diverse market.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the festival Here we talk to Leizer GussDeputy Director of International Events at OCESA and one of the minds who trusted in the festival’s potential to bring it to the country a few years ago.
We report here how the holiday arrived in Mexico, What was the context of EDM here and about some of the talent that emerged over the course of the festival? over time.
The story of EDC Mexico, told by one of its main supporters
To understand what EDC’s arrival in Mexico was like, we have to go back there Coachella 2012 and the presentation of Swedish House Mafia for this event. The group had announced that this tour would be the last they would do before their split…
This show of the Swedish combo, with the help of other references like Deadmau5 which had received exceptional reception in venues such as the Shrine in Los Angeles, They established the EDM concept at the peak of the music industry’s popularity.
And one of the countries that appeared on the Swedish House Mafia’s radar before their departure was Mexico. They would then come in February 2013, with OCESA in mind, so that they would then be responsible for organizing the concert would take place at Foro Sol as part of the One last tour.
“There was already talk of EDM at the Swedish House Mafia show…Obviously it was a culture that had existed around the world for a long time, and in Mexico there was a very young, very precocious audience that liked to party….”says Leizer Guss, OCESA Managing Director, about the context the organizer found in deciding to host an electronic festival. This is what he tells us:
“As promoters, we started to realize that the value you get from a show where just a DJ raises his hands and nothing else happens could well be temporary. So we saw an opportunity to capture the essence of the scene forever with a festival. At that time we started talking to EDC (a festival originally from Las Vegas)…
“We did the first EDC in March 2014 where Avicii played… It didn’t go well at all because the first EDC lost millions of dollars. But after he did it, he felt different; It felt like we were speaking loudly to the community of precocious kids who had gone to Swedish House Mafia, but on the other hand, the traditional Mexican raver scene also wanted to come.”
The challenges behind EDC Mexico: Insomniac and Pasquale Rotella
As Leizer mentioned, The first EDC Mexico was not easy as it lost several million dollars. He tells us in the interview that the festival was even profitable until the third or fourth edition…
But beyond that, there was an important turning point in the implementation: the approach of the Mexican organizersn Pasquale Rotella, the founder of Insomniac and the concept of EDC Las Vegas.
Sopitas.com: What details did Insomniac and Pascual leave as a lesson for you as an organizer in Mexico?
Lezier casting: “There are many. I’ve really seen Pasquale suffer, haven’t I… There’s the special connection they have with the audience, which can be seen on every EDC poster, which says at the bottom: ‘The most important headliner of them all : You.” This is 100% true of Pasquale’s way of dealing with almost any problem. Before you think about yourself, money or anything else, think about the impact it will have on the public..
In addition, Leizer also mentions that Pasquale Rotella has always done it some ideas that seem simple but are also crazy. Ultimately, it’s about creating a completely different experience, literally from the very entrance to the festival.
“That didn’t work, but at some point Pasquale had a dream of putting slides at the entrance. And it was like, “Man, you’re really crazy.” Apparently, we put some foil at the entrance for a year. In addition to the slides, there was 40 meters of free running space available.
“Suddenly there are a lot of things like that, and the truth is that it adds an interesting layer and also a meaning to the way of doing festivals.”
Leizer Guss in an interview with Sopitas.com.
The Mexican artists who grew up with the festival and the Mexican scene
For Leizer, the growth of the national EDM scene lies in inspiration, in which EDC Mexico undoubtedly plays a key role. And it is he himself who tells us this One of the festival’s goals in curating the lineup is to create spaces for new artists.. But at the same time, they want these emerging artists to look beyond the festival in their careers.
“We continue to inspire new generations and share the dream with them. I think there will continue to be new litters. Suddenly, curating carries a certain amount of risk, as does DJing itself. Yes, there are some DJs who started out in EDC and are now finding ways to reinvent themselves to stay current; Be the superhero everyone wants to be.
“I always tell the kids when they ask me if we can get them to play at EDC. Yes, we can make them play because one of the goals of the committee that curates the festival is to fulfill the dream and prove to other young people that there is a way. But the challenge for new artists has to be not to make playing EDC the highlight of their career.”
And in the midst of all this, Leizer opens a space to remember some of those artists who have grown hand in hand with EDC. Tom & Collins are one of them, as are Mariana Bo, Jessica Audiffred, K1…The story of EDC Mexico definitely would not be understandable without them.
“I remember Tom & Collins. They had a manager that we went out to dinner with one day and she told me that she had the next great Mexican DJs… I thought they were two very cool guys who started almost yesterday when I was a kid have to play… And today I dare to say that they are world stars, and today I have a festival.
“As for Mariana Bo, I still remember the time when her first manager told me that she had to play the festival; that played trance. I brought it to the trance stage, and suddenly someone tells me about Insomniac and says, ‘Hey, dude, that’s not a trance… It’s going well, but you obviously don’t know what a trance is.'”.
There’s also the story of how K1 (real name: Quique Espinosa) became a reference in Mexican hardstylethis after the opening of a concert for Headhunterz.
“If I’m not mistaken, after the first EDC I had a little show with Headhunterz, a hardstyle DJ. Insomniac asked me very carefully to find out if there was a hardstyle scene in Mexico, and the easiest way to check was to have Headhunterz play at Plaza Condesa…
“One day they told me I needed an opener and I was like, ‘Damn, dude, where did you get someone in Mexico that plays hardstyle?’ I can’t remember how the name Kike 1 (now known as K1) came about, I wrote to him on Facebook and he told me that he played that style…
“Already knowing Quique’s history, he liked hardstyle and played it at the end of a sonidero… That’s how we met and from then on he became one of the references for hardstyle in EDC, and I would say that he still does today .” is “At least on a historical level, the greatest hardstyle reference by a Mexican DJ.”
EDC Mexico as a before and after for electronics in Mexico
After 10 years of EDC Mexico, one thing is clear: It is the country’s premier electronic music festival. And in this sense, more than one person certainly sees it as an absolute reference. For Leizer Guss, the event marked a before and after for this national EDM scene…
Sopitas.com: Do you think EDC is the spearhead of the electronic scene in Mexico? What do you attribute this to?
Laser casting: “I don’t know if it’s a tip of the spear, just because I know there was a story before, but I believe that EDC México at least marks a before and after. And I also believe, without wanting to sound conceited, that none of the electronic music festivals that have taken place in our country really have any kind of, I don’t want to say shadow, but it seems to me something completely different from everything else anything else exists..
“Back to the same thing… Pascual has a very special vision to set the festival apart. It’s not just about electronic music, it’s not about DJs, it’s not about owls, it’s not about fireworks… It’s about giving the audience an experience like no other. And when you bring that to the forefront of the vision of the festival, I think you manage to have a product that is different from the rest.”
