Photo by Stephen Bondio
The Best Electronic Music Festival In Detroit To Attend While High
Breaking down the history of Detroit's first electronic music festival and its importance to the state's techno scene.
Just over 20 years ago, the Detroit Electronic Music Festival launched and changed the game for electronic concerts in the nation.
The festival has experienced a turbulent history with finances, and examining its past helps us better understand where it might be headed in the future. The first electronic music festival in Detroit was the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (DEMF) in 2000. The festival was produced and curated by Carl Craig, Carol Marvin, and her company Pop Culture Media.
The festival was the nation’s first major electronic music festival, and it was impressively one of the world’s largest at the time. In 2000, the DEMF was free of charge and acted as a cultural landmark to Detroit’s underground techno scene. The DEMF hosted a variety of artists in its lineup, consisting of house music, hip-hop, techno, and more.
Photo by Stephen Bondio
Detroit is known as the home of techno, and it was the perfect place to celebrate the genre by taking place at Detroit’s Hard Plaza. The event saw visitors and festival-goers from across the globe. The first DEMF event was one of the first festivals in the country, and it paved the way for other electronic music festivals t follow.
The team’s sole mission at the DEMF was to bring people together through the power of electronic music and Detroit techno. A year or two after the first Detroit Electronic Music Festival, it was renamed the Movement Festival, and it became an annual event of electronic dance music showcases in Detour every Memorial Day weekend.
Photo by EDM
In 2003-2004, the festival renamed itself the Movement Festival, but the name changed again in 2005 to the Fuse-In Detroit. In 2006, the Movement name was reborn and had stood the test of time. In 2006, the second Movement festival took place and saw incredible public success. That said, the festival faced huge financial losses, and its future began to tremble.
The festival has come a long way after organizers Paxahau took over operations when the Movement name was reborn in 2006. The history of the Movement Festival is of complete and utter importance to the electronic music scene, even more so to the long-standing history of techno in Detroit. Although the festival was forced to halt due to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, we’re sure that it will thrive once again.
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