Under the Electric Sky

With the upbeat rhythm of a music video and a constant soundtrack, Dan Cutforth captures the 2013 edition of the three-day Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. With 345,000 attendees, this dance event is the largest in North America and is celebrating its 15th anniversary. The scenery is as you would expect in a music video: elaborately costumed participants, fireworks, laser beams, giant balloons, stilt walkers, dancers, colors everywhere and a giant animated owl as a main stage. “It must be a religious experience coming here,” says DJ Tiësto. In the words of Armin van Buuren, “It’s almost like Woodstock, reinvented.” Cutforth follows some regular attendees and real dance lovers immediately before and during the festival. They come from all walks of life – there are strippers and nurses, surgeons and firefighters, businessmen, students and parents – but they all speak about the same blissful feeling. “If you want to feel welcome, if you want to feel loved, you want to feel accepted for who you are, this is the place to be.” Interviews with members of the organization also provide insight into the phenomenon of EDC (electronic dance music) and how it’s been able to become so big since the illegal raves of the 1990s.