Mauritius party: part 1 (chez Agathe)
Click on the picture to listen to the End is Nigh mix
Getting ready for the first Mauritius outdoor session: amazing new promos being downloaded and sorted: God Bless Miami Winter Music Conference! (click HERE for my latest mix)
Sochi Winter Music Conference: Russia Rocks! (Review)
SMWC official site
(pictures courtesy of Nightparty.ru)
“Insane. There’s no other word to describe that country. That expression ‘From Russia with Love’ also now has a totally different meaning for me too.”
Six years after 300 delegates and 1,300 guests attended the very first Sochi Winter Music Conference (SWMC), numbers have swelled to 1 500 delegates, and 7,500 guests including Soundcloud new business manager Nils Westerlund.
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Nils, a Berlin based 20-something Swede whose floppy fringe haircut, designer spectacles and carefully ruffled understated attire apparently means he looks EXACTLY like a Moscow hipster, admits he’s thoroughly enjoyed the 3 day/ 3 night event.
“How much do I think Russians deserve their ‘crazy’ reputation? They do in full,” he says, “Vodka instead of water, I think that should explain most of it,” he laughs.
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Googling ‘Russia, business etiquette and vodka’ suggests he’s right, with one site (suite101.com) advising ‘vodka is properly drunk in one gulp’ and another (worldwide-tax.com) recommending ‘do not under any circumstances present vodka as a gift as this is interpreted as a reflection on the poor quality of the contents of your host’s drinks cabinet’.
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Mike Spirit and DJ Nastia
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SWMC co-producer (and champion vodka drinker) Mike Spirit is not so sure.
“Why do we drink so much vodka? It’s because Russians aren’t allowed to smoke like the Dutch so we drink instead,” he laughs. “If we could smoke legally, then the Sochi conference will become more similar to ADE.”
His reference to ADE (the Amsterdam Dance Event) is appropriate, as both events combine a daytime program of clubbing related panels and seminars and a nighttime smorgasbord of all night parties and each attracts A List DJs, music business types and party mad revelers. Unlike ADE though, SMWC’s clientele is currently mainly domestic though with Nils from Soundcloud and myself and Richard Ziljma from ADE invited along this year, Mike stresses the plan is to become a lot more international in future years.
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ADE chief Richard Zijlma pauses for thought...
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“We’re attracting more delegates and presenting more and more interesting reports, lectures, round-table discussions is increasing too. It’s also funny to see when public discussion can suddenly turn into real business agreements,” he notes.
