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March 19, 2024

EDC Night 2: Who are these people, and what are they doing here?

2015 EDC: Night 1

Tom Donoghue / DonoghuePhotography.com

Kaskade arrives at Night 1 of the 2015 Electric Daisy Carnival on Friday, June 19, 2015, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

2015 EDC: Night 1

Night 1 of the 2015 Electric Daisy Carnival on Friday, June 19, 2015, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Launch slideshow »

2015 EDC: First Night

Fans wait as the beat picks up while taking in Arty at the Circuit Grounds during the first night of EDC at the Las Vegas Speedway on Saturday, June 20, 2015. Launch slideshow »

You never know who or what you’ll encounter at Electric Daisy Carnival. Just moments ago, I ran into a gal wearing a green sequined bikini, furry boots and matching pasties shaped like marijuana leaves.

And that was in the media room.

On the way out, driving north on Las Vegas Boulevard, I found myself motoring next to two guys on a scooter. They were not scooting so fast but quick enough to signal that they needed to cut into my lane. This is because their lane was about to close.

The guy on the back of this motorbike wore a red cape with a Swiss cross on the back, highlighted by the message “EDC Las Vegas.” I waved the driver over, making full eye contact, and followed them all the way to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This was part of an oddly matched convoy of EDC-bound vehicles; we had a giant Ford F-150 and a black Dodge Charger, a Smart car and a convertible Beetle, all cruising to LVMS.

And right now, the place is hopping, for real, with 130,000 or so energetic fans bounding to electronic dance music, flashing lights and exquisite staging. The arched Kinetic Field entrance, leading tens of thousands of fans to a stage where a massive animatronic owl overlooks the scene, is truly amazing.

EDC has been compared to Disneyland for the EDM crowd, which feels like a cliche until you see this place lit up. Pyrotechnics, thunderous sound from multiple stages calibrated so it will not “bleed” across venues, and fans with uncommon (and in many cases, certainly unnatural) stamina sashaying all over the speedway grounds.

But who are these people, really? I’ve long wondered what they do when they are not at EDC at LVMS.

They sleep, mostly. My entirely unscientific poll of more than a dozen fans at tonight’s EDC spectacle showed that most are here for the festival specifically and exclusively. Enjoying the other trappings of the Strip, or Las Vegas in general (such as playing cards), is not in the cards.

“This is my third time at EDC, and I’ll be here all three nights,” said Kevin Mendoza, who made the trip from Madera, Calif., a San Joaquin Valley town near Fresno. “I’m staying with friends here. In a house.”

Sporting a Batman mask with the superhero’s logo painted across his chest, Mendoza said he has “gambled a little” and seen one show in his three years of attending EDC. Which show?

“The one at Caesars,” he said. “Outside, in the tent. It was great.”

Likely talking of “Absinthe.”

David Gaar and Magen Dement drove 1,600 miles to Las Vegas from Wichita, Kan. It’s 18 hours total, and they arrived at 5:30 p.m. Thursday and partied through the night.

It’s the first visit to Las Vegas for both, and they saved for more than a year to make the trek. They are staying at the Tropicana.

“Nice place,” David said. “We’ve shopped a little and drank a lot.”

The couple works together at a Pizza Hut in Wichita and made the drive with a couple of friends, including that restaurant’s manager. They spent $60 on merchandise during our talk: $30 each on a tank top and EDC hat.

“I spent $60 just on this,” Gaar said, pointing at the EDC hat he was wearing, which pulsated with a built-in light.

I asked if these kids are interested in a return visit.

“We would come again, definitely,” Dement said. “This is so much fun. It’s incredible.”

Pat Czyzewski was uniquely appointed, with his cape-slash-flag, white with two blue stripes and four red stars lined up horizontally.

“Chicago!” he called out.

That’s city flag he was sporting.

Czyzewski made the trip with his brother, his sister-in-law and a cousin from Poland. That crew is roughing it at Signature at MGM Grand — again saving money and splitting costs. They partied a bit at Wet Republic and also spent a couple of hundred dollars on food.

At Vons.

“We also had some chicken tenders at the food court,” said the affable Czyzewski, a full-time student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “You smell those, and you can’t resist. But we’re taking it easy. We got back to our room at 8:30 this morning and slept for a lot of the day.”

Czyzewski is taking part in his fourth EDC.

“Every time I come here, I can’t believe this city. There’s nothing like it,” he said. “I don’t gamble at all. I guess I’m not helping the economy much. But it’s just growing dramatically here.”

As I wound back through the crowd, a guy wearing what appeared to be a Burger King crown shouted, “Hey! Talk to me!” He had noticed me bugging festivalgoers nearby, so I asked his name and where he was from. Mickal Ousseau, from Paris, were the answers.

“I am quite drunk, but I will like to talk to you,” he said, Frenchly, as his buddy looked on. “Me and my friend here are here to travel, we like music and we like sports, we like walking, and we like looking for sex.”

“Well,” I answered, “I can only tell you where you can walk.”

The guys are staying at the Stratosphere, which they say, “Is OK, but it is not like a 5-star hotel. The rooms are good for the price. The pool is good. It’s alright. The view is very good, and we have been walking on the street below and enjoying seeing all the people who are visiting.”

Ousseau then mentioned that he no longer lives in Paris but Switzerland. His friend and he live there, and he added, “When we say we are from France, nobody wants to have sex with us. But when we say we are from Switzerland, they like us more. Right?”

Ousseau also said that the best way to travel to the event, and around town, was on a scooter.

“Like, they should give everyone a Vespa!” he advised. “We are on a scooter.”

“Wait,” I said. “When I was driving out here …”

The friend, who was either unable or uninterested in joining the conversation, then suddenly spun around to show me the cape he wore to the event.

And I am not kidding, it was red, with a Swiss cross, and the message “EDC Las Vegas” written across the back.

The scooter guys!

Then we laughed and hugged and went our separate ways — our merry ways, of course, as this is EDC.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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