Luca Lush has the bass bumping as I walk into the main room of the Dallas Market Center and am hit with sensory overload – music and conversations mixing, lights and lasers dancing, and ravers abound making their way to the main stage. This was the Mothership – stage, that is – and the night was just beginning. Lights All Night is a yearly, two-day electronic music festival hosted in Dallas held around New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. An indoor rave experience but with all of the amenities of any festival – vendors selling rave attire on the inside, local food trucks stationed just outside where water spouts and toilets (read: portapotties; there was hardly a wait to use one, if at all, though) could also be found, and two rooms containing a total of three stages. The main room contained the Mothership stage, and the second room just to the right upon entering contained two stages – Satellite and Silent Pyramid (being a location for smaller artists to perform a silent disco). Throughout the entirety of the festival, incredible lights and lasers kept the convention center; the stages for the event were each decorated with three large screens for the display of massive visuals synced up with the music. The color schemes of the lasers and visuals lined up with the mood of the music - bright colors of all kinds for the happier and upbeat songs and sets (EG: the sets performed by San Holo and Luca Lush), darker, fewer colors to add a darker atmosphere for house sets (EG: deadmau5 and REZZ), and flashing strobes and visuals for the dubstep sets (EG: LOUDPVCK and Gladiator in their back-to-back set). The acoustics of the venue were also notable; the Silent Pyramid stage had the sound audible without headphones but there was a node of near complete musical silence going from the Silent Pyramid to the Satellite stage within the same room. Genres for all tastes could be heard throughout the course of the festival. Over at the Silent Pyramid were the smaller DJs mixing their more experimental trap and dubstep sounds (artists include Mad Decent signed Champagne Drip and D/FW local X&G); however, I found the desired effect of the Silent Pyramid to be destroyed as a result of the quality of the headphones distributed. The sounds being projected from the stage was not only a split-second off from what the raver would hear through their headphones, but the headphones themselves were not completely soundproof. These two things coupled together created a dissonant feel in the music and didn’t allow the raver to be completely encapsulated in the experience of the silent disco. I found myself having to use my hands to force the speakers to my ears to cancel out the external sounds of the set. This not only ruined the silent disco experience also the experience of the DJs’ sets – relatively disrespectful of the artists, in my opinion. Throughout the rest of the festival, especially after the future bass sounds kicking off both nights, dubstep dominated the Dallas Market Center alongside other grimier sounds and songs leading up to the current king of trap, RL Grime, on the second night. A sprinkle of house was found through the legend deadmau5, a live set excellently executed by Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and mixed into A-Trak’s and Above & Beyond’s sets. Variety is important to an electronic music festival to keep the sounds fresh, tempos changing from set to set, and just offer relief from the threat of hearing the same genre and sounds. However, the colorfully decorated ravers of the Dallas EDM scene had no patience for anything aside from dubstep. During both Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs beautifully mixed live set and deadmau5’s marvelously manipulated bass, I overheard people complaining about house music and demanding more energy, grime, dubstep, and trap-rap. In addition, I could very often look around during sets and find a great portion of the crowd not dancing; the really doesn’t make sense to me when one is listening to electronic DANCE music. The Dallas EDM scene has proven to be overall obsessed with intense, long build-ups and hard, dubstep drops and seems to refuse to hear anything outside of it. None of these bad vibes interfered with my thorough enjoyment of the festival. Although music taste and artist preference is incredibly subjective, keeping good vibes (internally and with those you surround yourself with) and immersing one’s self in the encompassing experience of the rave will ensure an excellent time. This has been Toni Nittolo; thank you for reading, friends. Written by: Toni Nittolo Top Image: A-Trak at Lights All Night, courtesy of Toni Nittolo Lower Image: RL Grime at Lights All Night, courtesy of Toni Nittolo