If you have been to a music festival in recent years, you and your friends may have danced in an area of the grounds reserved for patrons to listen to a DJ perform through headphones. This direct connection to music and artist is commonly known as the Silent Disco and it has been providing listeners with this experience since early 2010. Created out of necessity, the Silent Disco allowed music to exist where it previously could not, due to volume restriction. Festivals are often plagued with limited space for sound; while a stage may provide ample space for people to dance, it also requires space for the sound to travel without crossing over to another stage. This is known as sound bleed and it can cause some serious discontent. Music Festivals in big cities also often face big sound restrictions, forcing the festivities to halt as early as 10 p.m. The Silent Disco not only solved both these issues, but became so much more as it developed.

In early 2006, Robbie Kowal became one of the first faces of the Silent Disco. When Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment brought Silent Disco to Bonnaroo in 2006, Kowal was the first DJ. It was received well but needed more exposure to really captivate. To do so, Kowal worked with Madison House,introduced the ability of having two DJs playing at the same time and letting the listener decide who they wanted to dance to using a switch on the headphones. Some initial shows were packed with enthused fans while others were completely ignored. But the early exposure helped grow the idea and was the spark to start a fire…

Kowal aka Motion Potion & Tipper

What would you do if you could throw a party ANYWHERE? With no sound constraints or time restrictions? Somewhere where no one would ever even try to bother you. On Mother’s Day 2010, Kowal decided he was going to throw an unannounced Tipper show on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach using the Silent Disco as an invisibility cloak. The show was a huge success and attendees quickly surpassed the five hundred headphones they had in stock and those five hundred accounts of what had happened reverberated to thousands. Shortly after this, a watershed of support rained down paving the way for a national tour with Fiat and a series of shows on the water during sunset. Soon after, the initial brand Silent Frisco became HUSHconcerts. Now they produce over 100 silent discos a year (or HUSHcasts as they call them) including a monthly party on the West end of Santa Monica Pier.

Hush Concert Series at The Ocean Beach Seawall

Now you can find a Silent Disco or variation at almost every festival in the United States. It provides a safe area for you to experience the music you choose at a comfortable volume. You can escape the masses and really focus on the artist and the gift he or she is giving. Alternatively, you can enjoy as a group while each enjoys their own personal experience. Some festivals will even allow for a set number of headphones to be provided at the main stage, routed directly from the soundboard for a pure uninhibited, unpolluted connection. All this success has not come without any opposition, however. There are groups of people who do not like the ability for one to give many a message, at least without any control. This is why we have sound level restrictions in the middle of the day without a permit. Amazingly, Silent Discos still get noise complaints from the excessive sound of people cheering and dancing. For me, this is only an indicator of success as the complaints are correlated with the joy of others.