Silent

Went with Marijn, who finally could detach himself from his girlfriend, to the Parade, a theatre festival in tents that travels in the Netherlands during the summer. We saw two short plays, one bad and one okay-ish and then went to the Silent Disco.

The Silent Disco is a tent were every visitor is given a good quality wireless headphone and can listen to music played by an old fashioned DJ. Old fashioned in the sense that he talks in between the songs and not only wants to create his own music. The music is a mix of everything, from old-ballroom, to seventies, eighties and modern drum and bass. And I have to admit: It works. I danced for more than an hour and unfortunately had to stop because the laws in Amsterdam required so. Which is rather stupid, because this disco is silent. You could have it in a shopping mall, in a train, in a park. You could have it everywhere, without disturbing other people. It sounds all very gimmicky, but after the gimmick wears of is still very nice. In some venues they program more than one channel so you have a dance-floor with a mixed crowd: Some people are dancing to one tune, and others are listening to another. Another benefit is that you can easily converse with someone, just by removing your headphone. Ideal to make contact to new people, which is very hard in a ‘normal’ disco.

The Silent Disco was started by a friend of mine, so I might be a bit biased. I even wrote some software for him, to facilitate the DJ. But this was my first time experiencing the show myself, and I liked it a lot.

<plug>Interesting parties can book the Silent Disco at 433fm.com. They can handle crowds of up to 1000 people, so it’d be very nice for one of Montréal’s many festivals.</plug>