Dennis RomeroWhen he takes office in a few weeks, Eric Garcetti will become L.A.'s first EDM mayor. EDM stands for electronic dance music, for those of you who don't know.
You see, Garcetti is hip. He's the only mayoral candidate in our memory to hold a fund-raiser in a superclub (Avalon Hollywood) with a superstar DJ (Steve Aoki) on the decks. And so it should be no surprise to find out where he stands on the question of bringing raves back to the publicly run Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum near USC. (Warning, possibly NSFW photo after the jump):
He's all for it.
Garcetti told a questioner during last night's AMA (“ask me anything”) on Reddit that he will support having “music festivals” at the L.A. Coliseum, where they were banned following the ecstasy overdose death of a 15-year-old girl who sneaked into Electric Daisy Carnival in 2010.
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The death of Sasha Rodriguez put the appointed officials who run the Coliseum against the ropes. They had to explain why late-night parties with hundreds of drug-related paramedic responses were happening on public property, and soon the four-times-a-year events were toast.
Credit: EDC raver by Nate 'Igor' Smith for LA Weekly.
It didn't help that a Coliseum manager was accused of taking money under the table from rave promoters, allegedly to help keep operations flowing and overseers happy (the manager and the promoters deny the charges).
But it's a new world here in 2013. EDC moved to Las Vegas, taking millions of dollars of financial impact with it, to great success. The fest sees 100,000 people a day at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway each June.
And the Coliseum Commission recently approved a plan that would cut its unwieldy size from 9 down to 3 representatives, though that still has to be approved by the state, the county and the city, the three godfathers of the Coliseum and its sister venue, the Sports Arena.
Garcetti, meanwhile, recognizes a constituency when he sees it. During last month's Avalon fund-raiser he noted that L.A. is the American epicenter of EDM:
If you like electronic music, then L.A. is where the DJ scene is at.
During last night's Reddit forum he was asked, in part, whether he would …
… allow music festivals to happen in LA again, especially at the coliseum. Huge festivals like electric daisy carnival bring in a huge inflow of cash to the city and surrounding neighborhoods.
Credit: Steve Aoki spins for the future mayor at Avalon Hollywood.
Garcetti said hell yes:
YES! I want some signature festivals here in LA, the music capital of the world.
The question is, after it's crazy success in Vegas and popular spin-offs in New York and elsewhere, does EDC — which reportedly sold a 50 percent stake to corporate concert concern Live Nation this spring for $50 million — still want to come back home?
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Send feedback and tips to the author. Follow Dennis Romero on Twitter at @dennisjromero. Follow LA Weekly News on Twitter at @laweeklynews.
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