Decentralized Dance Party Rolls in to Calgary

Decentralized Dance Party YYC

Back on September 17th 2011, an ‘event’ called the decentralized dance party rolled into Calgary and turned our downtown in a mobile safari party. The goal is to simply create a rocking & mobile party, and they did a great job at it. It was so much fun. The whole thing is put on by these rad dudes called Tom and Gary. They travel from city to city making these epic parties happening, injecting music and love into it’s citizens. One of them carries an FM transmitter hooked up to an Ipod, then everyone uses boomboxes and radios to tune in and spread the musical love.

From their page:

What is a Decentralized Dance Party (DDP)?
The DDP is a portable, battery-powered Party System.
It consists of hundreds of Party People, carrying boomboxes, and a DJ who wears a backpack, containing a powerful FM transmitter.
All the boomboxes are tuned into the DJ’s master FM broadcast, resulting in a mobile, synchronized sound system. This Portable Dance Party roams the night, generating complete awesomeness, street by street and block by block, onto buses and subways, into public fountains and beyond! Inevitably interfacing with the public, together we create an infectious epidemic of fun! A Roaming Party Adventure that lasts all night long!

Tom and Gary loaned out a number of boomboxes, and all in all there were over 200 of them. In addition to this, they had a microphone connected to the system so they could communicate with the crowd. It literally is a decentralized dance party.

Tom and Gary aren’t their real names, but who gives a shit? The decentralized dance party is what’s important, and it’ll always have hosts named Tom and Gary. Even if it’s two girls running it, they’re going to call themselves Tom and Gary. It’s part of the prophecy.

Decentralized Dance Party Themes

To keep the parties fresh and sexy, Tom and Gary switch up their party themes at every new location. This time in Calgary, they encouraged everyone to dress up in 80’s business attire, including bringing office chairs and briefcases. It was both hilarious and awesome.

DDP Party Time

The Calgary Police were there too, however no dancing that I saw. They seemed perfectly content just watching, and making sure traffic didn’t run anyone down. It’s likely they were well aware of what was coming and planned accordingly. All in all I didn’t see anyone get arrested or the cops do anything other than stop traffic. Kudos to the Calgary Police! I bet they secretly enjoyed the tunes and being part of something magical.

The party started at Shaw Millennium Park then made it’s way east, ending up inside the University of Calgary parking garage located at 8th street and 8th avenue southwest. At the time there were no doors, so people just partied their way right in. The party stayed here for about half an hour.

A few people brought + slammed some beer, but generally everyone was just high on partying. Andrew W.K would have been so proud. I did see some dudes peeing though. Not cool, dudes.

After exiting the parkade, the party made it’s way down to Century Gardens park, where it stayed for about an hour.

The party stayed at Century Gardens for about an hour as everyone danced and .. swam to the beat. Not something I’ve ever thought of doing, that water looks nice and all but I’ll pass thanks. Everyone seemed to really love it though. Wonder if anyone caught anything from it.

Decentralized Dance Party Video

Here’s a video of some shenanigans. It was so random but fun and stupid. Really hope another decentralized dance party happens in Calgary someday.

Conclusion

Find the rest of my photos of the Decentralized Dance Party on Facebook.

 

We miss you Tom and Gary! Please come back to Calgary soon! You can find them on twitter.