It's been almost a year since TFSF8 for which I had built my matrix shirt.
It was time to try my new beta shirt with 6144 pixels instead of 768 pixels per side. That was a lot more work (months of work to get a new driver working and port my code). It's not perfect yet, but it's a good start.
This was last year, Shirt v3:
And this year with my Shirt v4:
If you are curious, this page that shows how I built my EDM Festival and Burning Man LED Pants and Shirt v4 on ESP32 with RGBPanels and SmartMatrix::GFX.
Back to TFSF9, this year was only 2 rooms/DJs compared to the 4 rooms/DJs in TFSF7 and TFSF8 these last 2 years. There is a case to less is more, too many rooms makes it hard to enjoy much of anything, knowing that you're missing 3 other sets at the same time, but maybe 3 rooms would have been better, or at least using one of the indoors rooms instead of the somewhat chilly outside psytrance patio?
Anyway, I was there bright and early with my friend Triode to make sure I could enjoy the entire night, and got a few pictures during setup;
Kim checking out the VIP menu
The 2 stages started going soon after 20:00 and the main room was more enjoyable than last year where it was overrun with smoke and a bit too packed at times:
Then, soon after 23:00, my I went to check out Triode's custom set he had been working on and telling me about during the week. As we jokingly said, I dedicated it as the "zero fucks given" set :) It was fun to see how it went all over and jumped from tune to tune just enough to tease you and then go in another direction. Quite fun and enjoyable:
After Triode, I went back to the main room for Ferry Corsten who went from midnight to 03:00.
In between, I went arond the rooms to mingle with the crowds and catch up with some friends:
Triode and Afik talking shop
And before long, it was 04:00, end of the evening. Thanks all for the great vibes and the music. See you next time!
Quick, very incomplete video summary:
After a long wait, ATB finally showed up at 00:30. Despite being close to the front, it was hard to take pictures due to lack of lighting and some bad apples in the crowd that were pushing and shoving to try and get closer. 2 out of control girls kept pushing violently and managed to damage my shirt. Too bad security guys were completely unreachable on that side of the room without losing the spot I had spent hours to get...
ATB's set, while on the short side (just 90mn), was good. I did my best to enjoy it despite the crowd and shoving issues that Mezzanine was unable to see or address:
After his set, he nicely came to shake people's hands, which is obviously not something you get at a big festival where you'd usually see him:
