Marc's Public Blog

This year didn't really have anything too exciting compared to last year, to the point that given the very remote location, I'm not sure I'll go back next year.

All that said, here are the pictures: i01*

The dark room was probably the most fun location for me :)

hi Erin :)

the cuttlefish crew made a new art car this year

bad ass helmet

One thing new this year was the Luminarium, which costs $7 extra. You were supposed to reserve timeslots, but the whole thing didn't seem efficient, and was apparently oversold, so it soon had a long line that didn't move much. Mmmhh....

I had plenty of spare time to see a few talks, not too many caught my eye, but those 3, did:

a talk on wearable LEDs

batteries are often the issue :)

nice one

the talk by Steve Wozniak was excellent

The magician that uses physic properties and adds magic on top, did a great job:

I had a chat with this guy, I was honestly worried about this "plane", given that it was meant to carry a human. The guy is a pilot and did his research. His goal was to fly in ground effect only, which will indeed limit the injuries if anything goes wrong, which it probably will a few times :) If he sticks to that, I wish him luck as long a no one tries to actually fly at altitude with that thing, since if any motor failure happens, this thing is going down and hard (glide ratio of a brick and no rudder to compensate for adverse yaw from a single motor failure):

Other random things:

make your own fireworks

the framework laptop I hope to own one day

Of course I wasn't the only person with costume:

big LED earings need a big battery :)

So there you go. Not sure when I'll go back, but here are the previous ones I went to if you're curious:

After walking through the night club, the pool was outside:

In the end, turns out the actual show was 2H and had a bonus random 1H DJ show at the end, although it wasn't cool that you got no pick on what the DJ would be as that was unannounced until just a few weeks or days before each show happened. That part, was honestly not excellent.
On that topic, the DJ set we got at the end was underwhelming, but the fact that it was house music, probably had something to do with it :)

But let's go back to the show, the sphere itself is of course cool, no matter what, even if it's not the first time:

the doors opened at 22:00 for 23:15 show

Let's get to the mainshow itself: before it started, the waiting music and visuals were quite good:

And then the show started and I have to say it was excellent. There was virtually no trance, but great selection of best of EDM tracks from the last 20 years, which I pretty much all enjoyed. Finding those tracks alone must have been a very tricky job, and they did well:

props to the live orchestra that played for some amount of tracks

plus live performers, but they were super small from the best position to see the screens

bus yes, they were small

the visuals themselves were a great trip in memory lane, very well done

insomniac won over tomorrowland in their visuals even if both were great

Summary of IG videos:

And here is a longer collection of clips from the show:

After the show was done, around 1h40, there was one hour left with 2 DJs, which was nothing in comparison:

even if those were the best visuals any DJ has ever had

More photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/oKJqq34MWan6NRkD9

Final thoughts:

Also random fun birds and animals:

small armadillo, so cute

very well protected

they also had some larger ones

cockatoo

wallabies

And I finished the visit with pretty and friendly Bengal cats:

Then I had a bit of extra time, always fun to visit Area15:

burning man art

Wink World, I had seen before but was fun to do again:

Not even remotely related, but my ticket included axe throwing, so why not? :)

I used the opportunity to go see a few things while I was there, even if there aren't loads of worthwhile things I haven't seen in Veas :)

Ceasar's Buffet was one of the only available at that time, and its price did go way up. Quality was still good, though:

Then, headed over to the MGM for Copperfield I hadn't seen in a long time:

David's show was still very good

Then to the Wynn to go see Awakening:

show was impressive technically

very pretty

Wynn also has cars from Bugatti, Mclaren, and Zonda:

I settled for the Mclaren simulator :)

Then it was time to go to Insomniac & Tomorrowland's UnityX at the Vegas Sphere (clickme) via the Venitian:

The next day, I went to check out the John Wick Experience, which was fun:

And a bit of time at Area15:

More pages:

And after Tiesto pool party at Liv on saturday, it was time to fly back early to get to Maker Faire the next day:

happened to see the Capitol One lounge

got a snack box

huge rain storm north of vegas

I quote:

Honestly, all of these tracks are still really good today and I put a good amount in a new list I just made today:

from the original

but there are so many mixes of this one, README

from the original

A few reference articles:

After dinner, went for a short walk around Paris at night before heading back, maybe my last such walk in a while:

Day 1: Gozo and Camino Island

Malta coastline if of course filled with forts, big and small

After all these years of diving, I finally found Jesus ;)

Camino Island has very cool rocks, caves and holes for sure

it was filled with people indeed, thankfully diving was quite

I got super lucky with water quality on the first day. Outside of caves, we went to see Wrecks like the MV Karwela:

Next was the P31 Wreck, in very clear water:

Last were some nice caves around Camino Island:

Day 2: Gozo via DPV

Eaarly morning ferry to Gozo:

Gozo Island inland sea behind an interesting hole in the rocks:

Blue hole was next and pretty cool:

I surfaced briefly to have a look :)

and back down to see Lewis who was waiting for me

The last dive was back on the main island due to high winds, so we took a ferry back to the main island and there was a great divesite just by the ferry arrival:

entry was a bit rough, but once in the water, it was great

after meeting jesus, I got our lady :)

With the DPVs, we arrived at P29 in no time, and water was clear:

nice machine gun

And that was it, 4 more dives done, and thanks to somewhat better weather and Lewis' expertise, got 8 of the best dives you can get in Malta in 2 days, thanks Lewis.

The only thing that wasn't perfect was the communication, lack of updates for DJ changes/swaps, and afternoon parties that were actually more fun this year given the weather was not as humid, but were only announced on a FB group in a post that FB censored for a while and in my case it only ever showed up 3 days later. Also, not ideal for people who are not interested in using FB, for them there was no way to get the updates. Hopefully they also get sent in a daily Email as needed in the future.

glad to be back :)

Day 1: Thursday, Boat Party and Club tigullio

we got a bigger boat this year

this was the older, smaller one

Thrillseekers and Space Brothers:

Day 1 video summary:

AFter the boat party, we went to club Tigullio

we were ready for Solarstone :)

more shirts :)

Day 2: Friday, Gianpula Village, Club Phoenix

pool party was still open :)

first time meeting Three Drives!

Day 2 Summary:

Day 3: Saturday, Gianpula Village Triple Room Big Party

with wind on th root and in the shade, weather was ok

time to chill while listening to lovely tunes

After the rooftop party was over, time to go back to Gianpula Village.

group picture

big props to Captured for having the vinyl set room

what's better than having Steve play vinyl for us?

and psytrance!

Back to mainstage:

my favorite part again, Emma Hewitt

she sung a lovely set

And then, Gouryella:

And we ended with Craig Connelly

Day 3 Summary:

Day 4: Sunday, Recovery Party at Gianpula Marakesh

By day4 and after 6 festivals, my LED panels were starting to fail, so I had to field replace one, which I engineered to be a bit easier to do than last year :)

all working again, and ready for Orkidea :)

Marakesh was another room I had never been to, Gianpula has 11!

I could see where I was staying ;)

That night was actually a blood moon (moon eclipse), but it was very dim where we were:

Orkidea:

Andy Moor:

And Sam Mitcham closed the night by playing until 04:00:

picture with the man! Thanks Sam

Day 4 Summary:

Final Thoughts/Conclusion

Just like I had to thank the Euphoria folks for all the work and fun we got, I definitely need to thank Sam Mitcham and his crew for all the work that made Captured happen again this year, and the 4 great days of fun.

99 Instagram videos summary:

Links