Music festival up for award

Elements joins some industry heavyweights

Publication title: Edmonton Journal
First page: D.2
Publication date: Jan 30, 2013
Author: Sperounes, Sandra

An Edmonton electronic music festival which prompted the city to consider banning dance parties has earned international recognition.

Elements Music Festival, which attracted almost 17,000 people over two nights in April, is nominated for Best Music Event at the International Dance Music Awards in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The event is up against such heavyweights as Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif.; Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, Nev.; Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Fla.; and Tomorrow-land in Boom, Belgium.

"If you compare us to some of the nominees, it's quite an honour," says Viet Nguyen of Boodang Music Canada, one of the promoters of Elements.

"Some of those festivals attract hundreds of thousands of people, so I'm happy.

"It's also nice to see something that the city was so hard on get international recognition."

Controversy surrounded the inaugural edition of Elements - even weeks before the two-day event at the Edmonton Expo Centre.

The venue didn't want to serve alcohol, which prompted festival organizers to take the Expo Centre/Northlands to court.

After the event, city police wondered if dance parties should be banned due to drug and alcohol abuse.

Twenty-nine people who attended Elements were treated in hospital for drug or alcohol problems, despite the use of sniffer dogs and pat-downs during the event.

However, Boodang's subsequent parties only reported a handful of problems, thanks to an increase in harm-reduction education, encouraging the city to back away from banning parties.

Nguyen says he's working "around the clock" on this year's Elements, but he thinks it will be held on a different weekend.

The IDMAs will be handed out during the Winter Music Conference, which runs March 15 to 24 in Fort Lauderdale. Winners will be determined by votes via wintermusicconference.com . The online polls close March 1.