Banning Lights Does Not Solve The Root Of Rave Problems
Comments (8)
LED Lights (Creative Commons/Daniel Zana)
USC President Max Nikias supported Insomniac’s statement with one of his own, urging students to be “cognizant of your choices and to make wise decisions during your time at USC,” for raves “present serious risks to all who attend.”
Removing LED lights from Insomniac is like taking Santa Claus out of Christmas because it's not politically correct. Santa will always be a central icon of Christmas and the smörgåsbord of December holidays and LED lights will always be a part of raves.
Insomniac’s owner, Pasquale Rotella, claims, “although there are many who use these lights as an art form, the image that it creates when groups of music fans are sitting or lying on the floor gazing at the designs reflects poorly ” upon Insomniac and raves themselves.
While the implication of drugs in Rotella's statement are done by some people at raves, this does not in any way mean that “all who attend” Insomniac events, as Nikias proposes, need to participate in consuming drugs.
Giving LED light shows via small lights on the finger tips of gloves has become somewhat of a hobby, a sport, or just something fun to do at raves. They are not posing a threat to anybody. LED lights are not drugs. They are not guns. They are lights!
But what about the fire hazard of people sitting on the floor in packed arenas? Well, what about the fire hazard that thousands of people “moshing,” trampling, and socking each other in the face at a metal concert creates? If you are sitting in the middle of the floor in a large arena, you ought to know that there is a chance you might get stepped on or hurt.
While it is laudable that Nikias and Insomniac are making an effort to reach out to students and rave-goers alike, the cries for safety should not be coming from a university president and the founder of Insomniac. Those cries should instead come from parents, teachers and peers.
Preventing people from bringing LED lights into raves will only force ravers to find new and potentially more dangerous methods of bringing them in and using them. Even local vendors outside of the Coliseum, the Shrine, and other popular rave event centers in Los Angeles have caught onto the sensation and rave enhancement that glow sticks and LED lights provide and are trying to cash in on their popularity by pandering to ravers.
The LED lights are not the issue; drugs are the issue, and that stems from something deeper than flashing streaks of purple, blue, red and yellow.
Reach Lauren here.
Comments
wow all concerts are playgrounds for drugs whether it is electronic music or old rock concerts. people are going to do what they want to do . and those are their life choices so if you dont like it then dont pay attention to it. there is nothing you can change about the situation so mind your own damn business. and banning led lights sucks. im a sober raver and they are awesome to look at and fun to learn. and they really have that much of a problem with lights and people laying on the ground then why keep bringing the cubetron to insomniac events? all people do is sit under it in a huge pile. talk about fire hazard. so please juse bring back the led gloves. and if they decide to ban glowsticks next im going to be severely upset. ive been spinning poi now for 4 years and they made me throw away alot of moneys worth of glowsticks at beyond wonderland even though the web site said they were allowed.lights are an art form so please let us share our art with new people.
People are getting worked up over nothing. There will still be LED light shows @ insomniac events. The whole reason for this is that there's going to be vendors that sell glove sets, js
I GOT REALLLLLLLLY STONED AT THIS KENNY G SHOW.....
EDM EVENTS ARE NOT RAVES....they may both play underground/pop electronic dance music but its not the same.....you can still make art with your arms and hands without lights......what happen to glow sticks??
Just a correction. Insomniac does not put on Hard Haunted Mansion. Hard events does.
its not the lights and or drugs...yes drugs have a big part that affect things but its the larg amount of people that go...it gets over crowded and is sufficating in these events...im a raver..a sober one at the..im drug free and smoke free and damn proud of it and love the music and lights and the people...what needs to be done isent ban lights but set an age limit and enforce it and also limit the amount of people going sure it might raise prices but that will weed out avid fans of the art of music and self expression and the trend fallowers..to many trend goers already...dont ban or shut us down just cus of our lights and music
Drugs are banned from these events yet they still make it into the arenas. You really thing banning LED lights will cause them to disappear?
It's irresponsible of the City to allow these events to take place because it's so obvious to everyone that this is a playground for drugs. I can't wait until USC gets ownership of the Collesium so that we can have a say in keeping these vile events far away from our students and our campus.
Fight On!
Yes, banning the lights will not cause them to disappear in the least, thats what I am trying to infer. Except I and many other USC students enjoy these "vile" events. They're AMAZING and its not like going to a frat party on the row and getting hammered off your ass on alcohol is any safer to tell you the truth. Nobody is forcing anybody who goes to take ecstasy and kids are going to do it regardless of the opportunity for huge raves put on at the Collesium. The banning is just stupid and Insomniac VERY WELL knows that they are making tons of money off of kids on drugs raveing. Its purely a PR move to save their ass since too many kids are going (and having health problems) that don't know how to handle themselves because their parents (NOT NIKIAS!) or somebody else hasn't taught or told them how to.
Don't kill the raves for the rest of us