Gary Richards has successfully brought electronic dance music back to the heart of Los Angeles. This past weekend, the inaugural two day event, All My Friends Music Festival made huge waves in downtown LA. With a mixture of a wide-ranging hip-hop, dance, and r&b fused line-up, a crowd of over 10,000 fans each day, and impressive stage layouts and locations, the first year of All My Friends was definitely a huge success in our eyes.
With a crowd of 10,000 fans each day, this definitely felt like a smaller festival than what we’re used to experiencing from Hard Founder, Gary Richards. But honestly, it felt more enjoyable since the experience was more intimate and every area felt a lot more accessible. A smaller scale festival for people to come together to truly enjoy the music is what Los Angeles needed. And with an amazing line-up mixed with good weather, that’s exactly what Los Angeles received.
The location, which was near Arts District in downtown Los Angeles, was a perfect central location for LA natives. If it seemed familiar, it’s because it was located where the old American Apparel factory was. It’s also where popular farmer’s market, Smorgasburg, houses their events every Sunday. The venue included 3 separate stages, which featured beautiful displays and were only a short distance walk apart. When we walked in on day 1, we were welcomed by the bass thumping sounds of Thee Mike B on the rectangular box stage, called the BFF stage. At night, this stage lit up with amazing neon visuals that kept the crowd groovin’ all night. The BFF stage housed deep and underground sound artists like Jason Bentley, Little Boots, DJ Nu-Mark, and many more.
As we moved closer into the festival, we looked to our left and saw a narrow pathway to the next stage, called the Friendzone Stage which was hosted by Los Angeles music collective, Space Yacht. This stage housed big name DJ’s, such as Pete Tong, Destructo, Anna Lunoe, Chris Lake, and so many other reputable names. As you can see from the picture, the stage set-up was incredibly gorgeous and the crowd was filled with smiles and good vibes. Gary has been notorious for unique stage set-ups and this was definitely one of our favorites.
Last but not least, in the middle of the venue was the monumental main stage, also called the AMFAMFAMF stage. The set-up for this stage was reminiscent of any festival main stage but it didn’t have a middle divider to split the left side apart from the right side. Instead, it was just a huge open space for the whole crowd to get down together. This staged housed all the headliners including Jhene Aiko, Gucci Mane, RL Grime, M.I.A, and Jamie XX. This stage showed the most diversity because apart from all the dance music DJ’s, we also received sets from up and coming rappers and singers such as Sheck Wes, Smokepurpp, and Ravyn Lenae. With 10,000 fans across 3 stages, the main stage never felt too cramped. Honestly sometimes it felt a little too empty, however, it was nice to have enough open space to dance and move around the crowd. The smaller capacity made the music that much more enjoyable.
From the all around good vibes to the amazing sound and stage set-up, the inaugural All My Friends Music Festival was definitely a great time. The event started at 4pm and ended at 12AM so even with the summer heat, it never felt unbearably hot since the sun came down rather quickly. Security at the front of the stage were handing out free water to festival goers and the love and smiles from the crowd brought us back to the friendlier old days of music festivals. The food vendors and alcohol sections were all easily accessible and for the first time ever, the parking was not a mess and felt safe, even though it was a little pricey.
We hope to see this beautiful festival continue within the next years and we are very excited to see what Gary has cooking up next!
All Photo Credit: Willy Song
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