Love Festival 101: Your guide to this weekend

Once upon a time in a former Long Beach swap meet, people came to party. The year was 1992 and DJs Keoki, Lewis Lovebump, Ernie Munson, Doc Martin and Barry Weaver. They called it Love Festival, and it was good.

“It was the early generation of what was called the ‘rave scene,’” says Reza Gerami, aka DJ Reza. As the founder/CEO of L.A. based promotion company Go Ventures, he says the original underground warehouse Love Festival party was one of the foundation events for larger warehouse parties with thousands of attendees.

Love Festival’s popularity grew. And electronic music fans no longer fit into a warehouse. Love Festival spread across the country to multiple cities and sold out repeatedly.

Finally, Love Festival has come to Las Vegas. And this is good.

Paul van Dyk. Carl Cox. Eddie Halliwell. Paul Oakenfold. Robbie Rivera. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

While the official Love Festival is on Sunday, the Palms and N9NE Group is gearing up all Memorial weekend for the big event. There’s Soundbar at Ghostbar Thursday night, DJ AM at Rain Friday, and an impressive list of DJs joining Oakenfold for Perfecto on Saturday (complete schedule below).

Though there have been a few attempts to throw massive dance events in Las Vegas, it’s been inconsistent at best. But with the Love Festival joining our expanding EDM scene, referring to Vegas as “the new Ibiza” seems to be spot on.

“I think that’s it’s the first time that a lineup like this has ever hit Vegas in one event and one venue,” says Reza. “I think that for Vegas’ culture to move forward and become an open minded dance music scene, it’s got to embrace events like this.”

As far as Love Festival itself this weekend, expect non-stop partying at the Palms and kick-ass music the likes of which we’ve never seen before in a single weekend.

“I think the key to the Love Festival events [is] the ability to bring together a lot of different artists that usually wouldn’t be on the same bill or in the same club at the same time—their sounds are so different. Having anyone from Mark Farina to Paul van Dyk [and] a large span in between.”

DJ Reza, the original “party rocker” himself will also be taking the stage Sunday night. “Expect me to play for the people, which is what I do… I like to come in and make the party come to life. I don’t play for myself, I play for people on the dance floor.”

Even though Sunday’s events take place at both Rain and the Palms Pool & Bungalows, attendees will be able to move seamlessly between both venues to check out two stages of dance music goodness.

“The way it works is we have a pre pool party, which is more of the bathing suit environment, from 9 o’clock in the morning ‘til 7 o’clock at night,” Reza explains. “Then the pool closes for two hours so they can get it ready for the actual dance party style event and create more areas for people to dance rather than get in the water. We’re actually going to drain some of the little lakes or moats that they have going around the pool in those two hours and kind of prepare the place for an all-out, all night phenomenon.”

Follow Deanna Rilling as she Twitters live from the Love Festival at twitter.com/lasvegasweekly

Love Festival Schedule

Thursday Night at Ghostbar

Soundbar presents Lisa Shaw and JoJo Flores

with residents Carlos Sanchez, Keith Evan and B. Minogue

Doors at 10 p.m.

Ditch Friday at the Palms Pool

Twin

11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

DJ Scotty Boy

3 p.m. to close

Friday Night at Rain

DJ ROB

9 p.m. to 1 a.m.

DJ AM

1 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Greg Lopez

3 a.m. to 4 a.m.

Saturday at the Palms Pool & Bungalows

Twin

11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Sol Shafer and The Funkler

4 p.m. to close

Saturday Night at Rain

Danny Love and The Funkler

9 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Doman + Pettigrew

11 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Paul Oakenfold

1 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Eddie Halliwelll

3 a.m. to 5 a.m.

Sunday at the Palms Pool & Bungalows

Keith Evan

9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Danny Love

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Jordan Stevens

12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Swedish Egil

2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Steve Aoki

3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Mark Farina

5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Sunday Night at the Palms Pool & Bungalows

Mark Lewis

8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Serge Devant

10 p.m. to 12 a.m.

Carl Cox

12 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Sunday at Rain Nightclub

Scotty Boy

9 p.m. to 11 p.m.

DJ Reza

11 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Paul van Dyk

1 a.m. to 4 a.m.

Robbie Rivera

4 a.m. to 6 a.m.