New York's largest dance music festival Electric Zoo is heading overseas. Today, Dec. 5, the festival organizers have announced that the Made Event festival would set up shop for the first time in Japan on Makuhari Beach right outside Tokyo to be exact. The festival will take place over Goldenweek Holiday, which takes place on April 29 and between May 3-5, though the date on the website says May 6. Electric Zoo made the announcement with a simple post on Twitter - "Hello Tokyo."
No other details have been announced beyond this, but it is an interesting move by Electric Zoo to continue its expansion globally. The festival is entering its second year in Mexico with Electric Zoo in 2015, which saw DJs like Hardwell, Skrillex, Alesso, Sasha, Arty, Martin Garrix, Laidback Luke and others join tens of thousands of revelers in Mexico City.
Goldenweek is a period of public holidays that happen to fall right next to each other and thus much of the country is on vacation during this period. It was a smart move by festival organizers Made Event to out the festival during this time period to maximize the free time that people will have and allow festival goers to potentially make plans to travel from across the island for the event. It will be interesting to see how they position the festival as a beach festival, musically and geographically.
Japan and Asia proper have become a new battle ground for dance music, with major dance music festival conglomerates setting up outposts in these fertile and hungry markets. The Australian companies like Future Entertainment has expanded Future Music Festival beyond Australia to South East Asian festivals in Kuala Lumpur and in 2015, Singapore. Global Gathering, a UK dance music festival brand held several editions in South Korea in the late 2000s, before pulling back. Currently Ultra Music Festival has festivals in Japan and South Korea, while India plays host to a growing number of festivals like Sunburn.
Electric Zoo is currently undergoing a "transformation" with the aid of fellow SFX company ID&T, the promoters of Tomorrowland, TomorrowWorld and Mysteryland. It is not clear whether or not that "transformation" will apply to the Japanese version of Electric Zoo. Stay tuned for lineup announcements any other news for Electric Zoo Japan.
