PHOTO: Warming Up for Warped – Behind the Scenes Pics
By: fuse.tv
Published: Thursday, July 19, 2012
Ryan Dowd, owner of Silent Events
After seven years of putting on Silent Discos for Bonnaroo, Silent Events owner Ryan Dowd is bringing the electronic experience to Warped. In case you aren’t familiar, a Silent Disco is a deejayed dance event where the participants can only hear the music by wearing a pair of headphones—so to outsiders, it just looks like a bunch of people dancing to silence. This is Silent Disco’s first year at the mostly punk fest. Dowd thinks that “even the type of kids who come to Warped secretly are getting in to some electronica. It’s so hugely popular how could you not?” He described the Silent Disco experience as “very intimate but also really communal. You can take off the headphones and have a conversation with the DJ, where at any other club you’re just shouting, ‘What? What?'” He noted the “sport of people watching” is part of the fun. “When you’re walking by and watching 300 kids throwing down and you don’t hear what they’re dancing to, it looks really cool.” Wick-It the Instigator—who impressed Big Boi by mashing up one of his songs with the Black Keys—is one of this year’s DJs, so if you’re headed to Warped, you might want to grab one of the 300 pairs of available headphones and learn what it’s all about.
