Detroiters can party like it's 2000 next July 4 weekend -- the Detroit Electronic Music Festival returns.
“Detroit needs a really big party right now,” says producer Carol Marvin, who staged the pioneering festival from 2000 to 2002 and kept rights to its name.
Adam Graham of The Detroit News was at her announcement about its revival:
Details of two new electronic music events taking place July 4-6 were unveiled Wednesday at Ford Field. The first is a free festival at Campus Martius Park that will fall under the Detroit Electronic Music Festival banner. The second is a new event: the Federation of Electronic Music Technology (or FEMT) will be held at Ford Field. . . .
More than 100 artists and DJs will perform at DEMF, organizers said, while the FEMT event will feature more than 50 “special presentations” on several stages situated throughout the stadium.
This region's array of summer music festivals can be dizzying, so Graham clarifies one potential puzzler:
The returning Detroit Electronic Music Festival is not to be confused with Movement, Hart Plaza’s long-running three-day Memorial Day weekend event.
At her news briefing, Marvin took a good-natured swipe at Movement's dance focus. Her DEMF event, Crain's blogger Nathan Skid quotes her as saying, is "for the nerds."
"Technology is where this genre is going. There won't be any glow sticks, and this is not about EDM [electronic dance music]. In fact, no Detroiter would ever use that word."
