EDF 2022

For many years now, my friends (the beans), has done a Fourth of July party. In reality, this usually takes place on the 2nd or 3rd as our families always had their own 4th of July parties growing up. Our “2nd of July” parties usually involved shooting each other with Roman candles and other assorted things that go “bang”.

This yearly tradition slowly evolved as we did. It once started out as just a few friends shooting guns at bottles and fireworks at each other; however, it grew to be more and more people. We would play music, have a bonfire, and a barbecue during the event in recent years.

Things really started to change when all of us got into tech and DJing. We started to combine the two more and more. First it started off as a Halloween party that sparked DJ interest in a few of us when Sam brought his DJ board. It later evolved to Daniel building a light panel for DJing sets and experimenting with lasers. The Halloween party went rather well and so did the xmas party.

Now this got me thinking, what if… we rented a ton of concert equipment and did threw that into the mix of “2nd of July” tradition. We have a light board, multiple friends that DJ, and enough fireworks to get arrested three times over in Colorado.

So I made a phone call, and got us linked up with an event rental company in Denver that would rent us two speakers, two huge subs, lights, and microphones for the weekend of July 2nd.

Just like that the ball was rolling for our best “Bean Event” to date. It just needed a name… Electronic Dairy Festival aka EDF.

Since it was taking place at Ian’s dairy, it seemed only fitting to use EDF as a spin on the wildly popular EDC festival in Las Vegas.

The Event 🥳

The day before the event, myself and Ian loaded up our cars in Denver with all the equipment. The subs were quite a struggle to fit because they were rather large.

We drove up to Steamboat Springs, and unloaded all the equipment at the dairy. The next day we got up early to start setting up. Ian had rented a porto-potty to prevent people from using the onion or potato beds as a toilet.

Daniel and Sam showed up shortly after with Daniel’s LED panel for visual effects. We all kind of scratched our heads trying to figure out how to set it up above the DJ(s). So we did the only logical thing while at a dairy and we zip tied it to the bucket of a tractor and raised the bucket up behind the “DJ booth”. It worked quite well but the hydraulics in the tractor aren’t the greatest so every 45 minutes or so we had to start the tractor for quick moment and raise the bucket.

At around 7pm people really started showing up and we began making drinks, barbecuing, and finishing our setup. Since we planned on making drinks (and quite a few) we had our friends all park in the fields and setup tents and campers to spend the night (like a true festival).

At 8pm we started playing music, setting of tons of fireworks, and let the party take form.

Overall, it was an amazing night. It was in one way or another a core memory for all of us as friends. Some of us had less “memory” than others after EDF but regardless, it was still one of the best nights of the entire year for us and one to always remember.