Summer Rewind - Spring Awakening Festival
Sweet Home, Chicago
Winter is coming! We don't need a note from the King of the North, Jon Snow, to know that the temps are dropping and the Ice King is making his approach (he would look great in a Sea Blue Firefly, wouldn't he?) slowly south. In Texas, we have had the first big windy days of December, which means the semi-annual cedar pollen dump has occurred. That leads to the semi-annual trip to the drugstore to get our allergy meds, neti pots and cartons of tissues!
All this leaves us in the mood to reflect on all the good times we had this summer! We will start with our trip back to Jason's hometown of Chicago for the preeminent electronic dance music festival, Spring Awakening Music Festival, with more posts about Austin City Limits and Suwanee Hulaween next.
Getting Woke- But First, Pizza
Every trip back to Chicago is different. New sights, new babies to meet, new jobs and updates from old friends...but one thing is always the same. PIZZA!
After getting properly refueled at Palermo's on the South Side, it was off to visit and get interviewed by an old buddy, Eddie Shafer, on WZRD Chicago.
Ed has been a long time supporter of ABLD, and was curious to find out the genesis of the idea behind the Firefly Cloak, how the business was formed, the reactions to our creations and what is next on the horizon. After a far reaching interview that spanned a full hour and was aired later that week on Ed's radio program, it was off to Addams/Medill park to enjoy Spring Awakening!
Timmmayyy!
First, we had to grab one of our dear friends and ABLD Brand Ambassadors, Tim, for this epic weekend!
Tim has been a friend for over 20 years, and was an early adopter from our Kickstarter campaign for the Firefly Cloak. Having never attended an EDM festival, and itching for an opportunity to wear his cloak for the first time at a festival that was literally in his backyard, Tim jumped at the chance to get more 'wubs in his dubs' and head to his first Awakening.
Meeting the Festi-fam, the ABLD Way
It did not take long for Tim to realize that turning on your lights at a festival not only gets you smiles and stares, but introduces you to your new festival family for the rest of the weekend!
With such amazing talent on stage all weekend, we couldn't help but dance the night away to Alison Wonderland, Tiesto, Borgore, Minnesota, Big Gigantic, Flux Pavilion, Ganja White Night, Bear Grillz, Bleep Bloop, Bro Safari, Slushii and more! Getting stopped about every 10 feet to have folks admire your cloak is also part of the fun. You never know who you are going to catch off guard with your lights, and usually they are the nicest folks around!
The stages were set off at a reasonable distances to reduce the bass bleed that inevitably happens at electronic fests, and we were pleasantly surprised at the range of EDM that was offered at this SAMF. Having a covered pavilion for one of the stages helped a lot, especially on Sunday which had a slight drizzle.
Where are the lights?
One takeaway from the festival that was a bit disappointing was that Chicago definitely needs to get LIT more! While we are used to having LED hoopers, poi spinners, LED glovers, and full on lighted costumes at our fests in Texas, it seems that this trend has not hit our northern friends! For this weekend, however, that turned out to be a plus for us. Nobody had seen anything like our Firefly Cloaks before, and were more than happy to try it out for themselves out in the crowd. We love it when we can spread our light and start the family smiling into the night!
Overall, Spring Awakening was a great trip home! We were glad to see that Chicago is embracing their roots in electronic dance music (they did invent house music!) in a cool venue with a friendly atmosphere. We cannot wait to do this again next year, so bring your Firefly Cloaks and join us!