Electric Daisy Carnival, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – London

Fans of all things EDM descended upon London from across Western Europe for the London leg of globe trotting festival the Electric Daisy Carnival. Famed for its big name bookings and high level production values Stateside, EDC arrived in London from its home destination on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway under a considerable cloud of hype and it was going to take all of the powers of the festival organizers and performing artists to deliver upon such a wave of expectation.

The desert is known to bring revelers from far and wide to listen to dance music and shake Nevada’s very foundations to the core and the weather in London duly obliged in delivering a similarly scorching temperature amongst bright sunshine as if in fitting tribute to the festivals normal weather pattern. So with the scene set and anticipation in the air for this inaugural event we headed over to East London for a day in the Olympic Park with big effects and even bigger room sounds.

The Site

Having previously visited the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park it is obvious that it is a venue ideally suited for one day festivals to be held in center of a large city such as London. Fans of urban festivals rejoiced as the many transport links to the site, designed to herd the throbbing crowds of the Olympic Games held here just a year before ensured that no route towards the stadium was overly congested and regardless of where you were commuting from within the capital no journey was too much of a burden.

Entering the site itself the sheer scale of the assembly on show made itself apparent with several large tents for of the programming; all less than a stones throw away from each other. This without compromising sound quality, (as the was no cross-pollination of sounds across stages) allowed for easy access to catch a variety of sets by different artists across the festival with minimum of fuss and ensured that little time was wasted in transit time traversing the site.

Food and drink wise the bars were predictably crowded as those in attendance sought refuge in cold drinks from the warm weather but the queues moved quickly and there were a wide variety of food outlets on offer to satisfy hungry festival goers.

The enormity of the site only becomes apparent however when leaving the initial welcoming area and traveling via one of the snaking walkways or bridges over the canal towards the huge main stage area past a miscellany of different walking attractions to enjoy en route to seeing the headliners. These included a plethora of different carnival rides, costumed entertainers, games and roaming circus shows, whilst thrill seekers could embark on a vertigo-inducing zip-line should a bit of high-wire action take their fancy. All of this was dwarfed by the festival’s famous “Electric Daisy” installation by artist Poetic Kinetics, a 100-foot fully lit, articulated and moving flower head which swung around high above the air entrancing the crowd in front of the main stage .

Featuring 30 acts across 5 stages on a single day it would have been easy for getting around to become problematic and cumbersome but due to a strong layout and well organized planning the festival went off without a hitch. So a big thumbs up for the location.

Vibe

The vibe of the entire event was overtly EDM focused but outside of perhaps fellow US electronic dance music giant Ultra Festival this is the definitive EDM event and so anyone heading down shouldn’t have been surprised to see a uniform of brightly coloured snapbacks and vest combinations on the guys in attendance amongst the scantily clad women soaking up the sunshine. Think Venice beach hits East London. That said the atmosphere as are many of the more commercial dance events was warm, welcoming and friendly as strangers excitedly conversed on whichever stadium filling DJ and producer they were most eager to see in the flesh.

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