Electronic Dance
Ever After music festival enters its fourth year
It was an iconic Canadian mouse-headed electronic DJ/music producer from Niagara Falls that first cast his spell over a young Gabriel Mattacchione drawing him into the hypnotic pulse of EDM or Electronic Dance Music.
As a kid, the organizer of the Ever After Music Festival and President of Beyond Oz Productions was into all sorts of music.
“I was actually a rock fan due to my parents and it went to anything from ’80s music to a little bit of dance music and that is what broke me into this scene,” notes Mattacchione. “I attribute much to an artist called Deadmau5,” he notes.
“Growing up in high school I was always into the electronic scene. I started promoting shows and getting into clubs. I would go and check out the music and deejays I loved,” says Mattacchione.
“I came under my father’s wing and he brought me in the family business of Beyond Oz,” says Mattacchione. “One of the endeavours I dove into was the music scene and the first festival property which was Ever After,” he says, adding that this is the fourth year for the EDM festival.
He says EDM or Electronic Dance Music combines and build bridges across music genres and platforms.
“There are many artists in the scene that were into rock music and have been in rock bands or have come from boy bands and hip-hop groups. To put it simply, it is a conglomerate of many genres.”
Beyond Oz works on Ever After “360” taking between 10 months and a year to fully plan the event.
“We spend hours and hours hitting music trends. We analyze music as a whole, where the direction of music is going and the sound,” he adds.
Another key aspect of Ever After is the listener’s choice.
“We listen to our fans and we try and give them what they want,” notes Mattacchione. “We all have our own interests and that plays a factor in it, too. There are quite a few moving parts to the selection of artists.”
One of this years’ headliners is Canadian DJ Excision, creator of the Lost Lands Music Festival. Excision is a producer of dubstep, drum, bass and breakbeat. He is known for his dark, bass-heavy sound by using the sounds of bass and drums, the aggressiveness of metal while exuding a hip-hop vibe.
“Excision is a personal interest of mine so I have been following him pretty much since the first time he played in Toronto,” notes Mattacchione. “He is blowing up and took over North America in the last couple of years. He is shifting from the States into Canada now and we have always had good luck with him. The relationship is pretty strong, so having him back is a pleasure,” he adds.
Other headliners include English DJs Flux Pavilion, Doctor P, plus American DJs Illenium and Claude Von-Stroke.
“Every artist uses something different so the amount of equipment on stage is
tremendous. It is a lot about them expressing themselves and figuring out what the crowd is feeling at that moment,” says Mattacchione, adding that many veterans bounce their sets off the crowd as they tweak the music — an interesting improvisational piece alongside phantasmagorical visuals and memorizing sound.
This year’s festival includes local DJs Highbred and True North.
“I know how hard it can be for a lot of these local artists and how many of us take advantage of them,” he adds. “I have an Ontario Stage, a smaller setup to highlight all of the locals that make the lineup. From there, we have something almost like a competition. The most reputable ones actually make it to the open main stage. There is the opportunity to make it there every year. We pick two of them and they get to represent the local community and hit the big stage with the big boys. The rest of the DJs get to showcase on that smaller stage and show people what they have been working on all year. It is really nice to see and we like to give back to those guys,” says Mattacchione.
He says Ever After is part of Bingemans new live entertainment outdoor venue On the Grand, but the entire venue will not be open for this event. The new outdoor venue will hold 16,000 with seating for 2,500 and will feature events from festivals to concerts.
Mattacchione envisions Ever After as a utopian wonderland. The economic impact spinoff of the festival is estimated to be in the millions for the weekend, with thousands coming into town for the festival, including 4,000 people who are camping.
“We pretty much take over the whole park, so we build out a midway with carnival games and a whole inflatable section that has different obstacle courses, different interactive games and chill out zones,” says Mattacchione. “Something new this year is a whole extreme sports section with zip-lining, bungee-jumping and rock climbing.”