Sam GreenwoodLast week Celtronic announced a massive catalogue for their upcoming installment in Derry this summer. The party will span across multiple venues in the Northern Irish city and will feature some of the very best that electronic music has to offer, including Roman Flugel and Derry’s own Or:la.
Their full festival lineup announcement will come next weekend when they bring techno selector Dr. Rubinstein over to launch the festival in Glassworks in Derry on the 6th of May. Ahead of the party, representatives of the festival have come out to announce that they will be implementing a ‘No phones on the dancefloor policy’ due to recent controversies across the electronic music community that photography and videography are hampering the atmospheres within clubs and invading the privacy of both club goers and performers alike.
Denis Sulta was recently caught on camera taking someone’s phone straight out of their hand while he was DJing as they began to record him, check it out here:
A spokesperson for the collective expanded on the issue; ‘Since we started Celtronic in 2001, there have been countless memorable moments, sets and performances that will stay with us forever. In this time, there have also been many positive developments in music and technology. However, a development in the scene has been the increased use of camera and phone technology on the dancefloor which can have a negative impact on the atmosphere and can be an invasion of privacy for dancers and performers alike. Following several months of consultation with dancers, artists, musicians and venue owners, we have decided that, in order to protect the privacy of both those that come to dance and those that come to play at Celtronic 2018, we would appreciate if those attending this year’s festival would put their phones away when on the dancefloor.’
The step is definitely one taken with music as the main focus as they went onto explain that the festival’s own photographers and videographers will not be allowed to record the dancefloors either; ‘The dancefloor should be a place for dancing where you can be yourself, where dancers of all backgrounds, genders and sexual orientation are free to connect fully to the music and each other without fear of being captured on camera. While not a relatively new or unique idea (clubs in mainland Europe have been leading the way on this in recent years), we feel the time is right for a phone free dancefloor policy to be introduced at our festival/events. This initiative also applies to ourselves as promoters and event organisers. For the first time our in-house photographer and videographer will not photograph or film the dancefloor and will be tasked with finding alternative methods of documenting the festival.’
You can find out more about Celtronic via their Facebook page here.