Life in Color makes a splash in Orlando
A novel approach to unity: make people all the same color — or rather, the same set of different colors.
“I don’t care if you’re a millionaire or if you’ve got two dollars to your name; everybody’s getting covered in paint, and they all look the same,” said Paul Reed, marketing director for Life in Color. “It puts everyone on an equal playing field.”
Billed as “The World’s Largest Paint Party,” this annual traveling rave themes itself around dousing concertgoers in neon hues. Electronic music acts get people dancing while paint flows from the stage.
This will be the seventh year the concert has visited Orlando. DJs Zeds Dead, Space Jesus and GG Magree bring the festivities Saturday to the Central Florida Fairgrounds. (Concert starts at 7 p.m. Admission is ages 16 and older. Tickets, $50-$70, are available at lifeincolor.com.)
The event began in Miami in 2006 as Dayglow. Reed, 29, first came across it when it came to his college campus. “It was the wildest, craziest party I had ever seen,” said the Ohio native. “We partied and threw paint on each other and had a good time.”
“It’s a very judgment-free scene,” said Reed. “Acceptance and being really openminded is one of the hallmarks of the dance music community.”
As Life in Color has added international stops in two dozen countries, Reed has seen this unifying trend across borders. “It transcends all these cultures, all these races, all these language barriers,” he said. “The brand has just got this international level of unity and bringing people together no matter where it is.”
Over the course of the last decade, the paint delivery systems at Life in Color have evolved. “We started with squirt guns,” said Reed. Now people can buy one-liter bottles to splash on each other, a hose drenches people and a high-pressure air cannon launches paint from the stage.
“It’s quite a spectacle to watch fluorescent pink and green paint being shot into the air when you’re standing in the crowd,” Reed said.
The paint has been manufactured to be hypoallergenic, non-irritating and completely nontoxic. “It probably wouldn’t taste very good, but you can definitely drink a whole bottle of it and it won’t kill you,” said Reed.
Partiers might want to consider not wearing their finest clothes to this event. The organizers encourage ticketholders to wear white. “It looks the best when you have paint on a white background,” Reed said.
The point, according to Reed, is to give everyone a chance to stop worrying about what they look like and just have fun. “Kids and adults alike are looking for an escape, an opportunity to just cut loose and not be judged by their peers.”