Last weekend, a new high-level musical event was announced in Riga – the “Unreal” electronic dance music festival, which will take place on June 17 for twelve hours at Mežapark’s Great Stage with the participation of world-class DJs.
The names of the festival’s DJs that have already been applied for are impressive, as they really are leaders in the genre of electronic dance music: Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike (Belgium/Greece), Tungevaag (Norway), Plastik Funk (Germany), Sammy Porter (Great Britain), etc. For example , Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike are currently the Top 3 men in the DJ world. Domestic masters of this field DJ Makree, Magnus Eriņš, NF3 & Rexton, Levan & 24k and Bruno Draake will also take the stage. DJ Magnus Eriņš believes that “the performance of Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and DJs of a similar level in Mežapark can bring world-class performers of both this and other music genres to Latvia, helping Riga to develop as a popular open-air scene in Northern Europe.”
“A new electronic dance music festival with elements of augmented reality will present itself on the music scene of Latvia, the Baltics and Northern Europe this summer in Riga, Mežapark’s Great Stage” – the organizers of “Unreal Festival” have no shortage of ambitions.
The festival is organized by AOK – Andrejosta quarter event organizers, who have transformed Andrejsala in a few years into an important city development center and cultural area, attracting a constant flow of visitors. “Andrejosta has become the most popular and stylish open-air recreation and entertainment gathering place in the capital among fans of electronic and dance music, as well as guests of the city, so the accumulated ideas, energy and visitor demand for more and more events will result in an ambitious music festival this summer,” say the organizers. It is also planned to work hard to include “Unreal” in their calendars also for fans of electronic dance music from Lithuania and Estonia.
“The festival is a logical next stage of development and a step in the operation of AOK,” says Dāvis Čīma, organizer of “Unreal Festival”. “When we started organizing AOK events, they quickly became the most attended parties in the city. People come to us because of the special atmosphere and attitude that we have created together with the team. Sometimes people who wanted to relax even waited in lines, so our desire is to offer it to a thousand times wider range of visitors and create the most ambitious electronic dance music festival in Latvia. The goal is to become a top festival in Europe within a few years, bringing foreign visitors to us as well.”
Although Dāvis called the seemingly incompatible words “fast, fast and sustainable” during the presentation of the event, this festival is really conceived as sustainable, but probably in the coming years it will not be held in Mežapark, but also in other places in Riga and even in Latvia. “This is not a one-year project!” Davis expressed with confidence. This belief is strengthened by various supporters, to whom “we have proven the quality of our work with events in Andrejsala”, and therefore it has become possible to attract world-class DJs.
And another novelty – the special distinguishing mark of the “Unreal” festival will be the use of augmented reality or AR technology, which is becoming more and more popular in the music industry. Simply speaking, with the help of a special application on mobile phones, festival visitors will be able to see not only what is happening in reality on the stage and in the festival area, but also various additional visual elements – similar to how it was a few years ago in the very popular “pokemon” catching game.
AR was used for the first time during the “U2” concert in 2018, later also followed the performances of Eminem and “Maroon 5”. The field of AR has developed rapidly in the past few years, and currently Augmented Reality features are being used by Coachella Festival and others to entertain guests. “Augmented reality is no longer the technology of the future, it is today,” emphasizes the creator of AR technology, Tom Greenwald. “To experience the possibilities of AR, you only need a phone and an application that will allow you to see specially created images, objects and visualizations in the virtual environment. In this way, we can provide the visitor with an unprecedented experience and the opportunity to be in an unreal world, which will probably become a part of our everyday life in the future.”
