Reaction NYE kicked off 2016 by bringing heavy hitters such as deadmau5 and Skrillex to the Donald E Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. Without mincing words the event played out like going to a no frills underground rave.

Which would have been cool were it 2010 and you were going to an underground rave that your friend told you about and Green Velvet was playing. Except it’s 2015 and you just shelled out roughly $200* to be patted down and eat shitty food in a box factory.

*Cost of both nights the day before the event.

What happened??

Oh yea…

Everybody put your hands up for the commercialization of rave culture!

Reaction NYE 2015 | Photo by Viraj DeSai

Cherub’s high-energy set showed off their ability to sound great live and entertain an audience.

T-shirt and baseball hat version of deadmau5 playing straight techno.

45% of the reason people bought a ticket.

Cashmere Cat doing what Cashmere Cat does best. Looking bored as fuck while crushing it.

This one practically cleared out the other 2 stages.

The other 45% came to see this.

By far the best set of both nights.

Pretty much the extent of the interior decor. It seems like not much effort was put into the placing of these installations because they looked great for about two hours. Then they were sat on, slept on, and smashed in typical rave fashion. Probably not a good idea to put boxes in a warehouse. Felt like we were throwing a rave at a UPS facility.

If you spent all your production money on the artists then put the rest of it into the stages, half-assing the interior decor by hiring some artist isn’t going to help. Instead put some damn tables and benches in so people can sit down and rest from dancing and enjoying themselves. Yes, you heard me, there were no places to sit or even place your drink down. People were sitting all across the floor which is nice at a park but here it just felt like 5th grade gym class.

Final thoughts: Great lineup, no production.

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