Magnificence is a sedative that lulls coastal cities right into a false sense of safety, convincing you that existence is sufficient whereas the tradition slowly atrophies. The storied metropolis of Santa Monica is making an attempt to interrupt this snug habit to its personal reflection, betting its financial future on a plan to convey the organizers of Coachella to the seaside for an bold music pageant.
The proposed occasion would remodel “The Sandbox,” a 550,000-square-foot stretch of sand south of the Santa Monica Pier, into a significant beachfront pageant produced by Goldenvoice. The stay music powerhouse lately nabbed an unique negotiation settlement to judge the feasibility of a one-day pageant in fall 2026, that includes 12 to fifteen artists and accommodating as much as 35,000 attendees.
The plans arrive at an inflection level for the long-lasting Pier, whose concrete columns stand on tenuous financial sands, holding up a monument that should evolve earlier than it fossilizes in Santa Monica’s amber. In different phrases, it’s dangerously near turning into surroundings as an alternative of a scene.
The charming metropolis’s financial unraveling accelerated through the pandemic however started years earlier, when it stopped being important and have become merely handy. The Third Road Promenade hemorrhaged anchor tenants whereas vacant storefronts multiplied, remodeling what was as soon as California’s most profitable pedestrian buying district right into a cautionary story concerning the rot hidden behind premium facades. Tourism figures are down, and the guests who do materialize more and more deal with Santa Monica as an Instagram waypoint quite than a vacation spot warranting in a single day stays.
In response to the 2024 Santa Monica Tourism Financial & Fiscal Impacts and Customer Profile Abstract, an estimated 4.2 million individuals visited the town, a 9% year-over-year decline. Size of keep additionally decreased to simply 1.39 days, leading to 5.39 million whole customer days, a 14% dip.
Taxes generated by guests rose by a measly .3%, too low of a rise to insulate the snowballing lack of native jobs, which noticed a ten% drop as a consequence of much less exercise and spending. So the psychological toll cuts even deeper than the information, which tells a narrative metropolis officers want to border as momentary disruption whereas locals acknowledge one thing nearer to persistent cultural decay.
They’re studying the arduous method that surroundings with out tradition is simply wax fruit, they usually can break their enamel attempting to take a chunk. The bike path’s pavement nonetheless glitters alongside the seaside and the beautiful sunsets nonetheless carry out on schedule, however the animating vitality that made Santa Monica and its Pier really feel singular has dissipated in palpable, plain methods.
“For years, I’ve lived close to Santa Monica and labored out of my studio there,” influential DJ and digital music producer Kaskade tells EDM.com. “I’ve watched it shift from a shared lounge feeling, artistic and alive, to a spot that’s slowed down and is looking for its footing once more.”
Initially constructed in 1909, the Pier nonetheless attracts crowds for Sunday strolls and cotton sweet however it capabilities as an remoted attraction surrounded by a metropolis trying to find its subsequent act, the cynosure of eyes that most likely simply needed to navigate round poop. Its adjoining seaside was lately named the second-most polluted in all of California as a consequence of excessive ranges of “fecal-indicator micro organism,” in accordance with the annual Seashore Bummer listing from the environmental nonprofit Heal The Bay.
But property values stay absurd as a result of that is nonetheless coastal Los Angeles, despite the fact that the premium now buys you proximity to potential quite than participation in a thriving city tradition. Relevance is lease that have to be paid daily and Santa Monica is behind on it, requiring a jolt of electrical energy {that a} easy sundown can not present.
“Music remains to be the quickest option to convey individuals again into an area collectively,” Kaskade provides. “When experiences really feel rooted within the space, particularly the Pier, they create momentum that strikes the town ahead.”
The Pier has moored the town’s identification for 116 years, a wood finger pointing on the horizon as if to say the sting of the map belongs to anybody keen to face on it. That individual is Santa Monica Metropolis Council member Dan Corridor, who first launched the movement to launch the bold pageant.
The gap between municipal governance and real cultural reinvention is often measured in many years of moth-eaten committee agendas, however Corridor, an Military veteran who grew to become one of many navy’s first brazenly homosexual helicopter pilots, seems to be sprinting. He’s framing his main goal as internet hosting a seminal occasion to have a good time the landmark’s historical past, shore up Santa Monica’s native financial system and honor his group’s financial expectations.
By planning a up to date music pageant on the Pier, Corridor and his fellow council members are basically acknowledging they should host the long run as an alternative of hiding from it. In the event that they succeed, Santa Monica will get its comeback second. If the enterprise fails publicly, they’ve doubtlessly burned the bridge for a technology.
Corridor confirms that the car for this sea change is digital dance music.
“Our Council has given route to employees twice, within the authentic movement and within the approval to enter negotiations with Goldenvoice, that we’re pursuing an EDM pageant,” he tells EDM.com.
We caught up with Corridor to debate the music pageant and its implications. Learn our Q&A beneath.
EDM.com: Why does Santa Monica want an occasion like this proper now?
Dan Corridor: Santa Monica has felt on its heels for a number of years now. On-line buying plus the pandemic plus a sense and notion of normal dysfunction in our downtown plus leaders unwilling to take daring motion have all contributed in varied methods. We’re climbing out of this gap now by way of aggressive motion to draw companies and employees, and showcasing that Santa Monica is clear, protected, and enjoyable.
It feels just like the enjoyable has been missing and as a Metropolis Council, we’re keen to go large and check out new issues to convey “the enjoyable” again, convey new income, and showcase to the world that Santa Monica is a cool place to be.
EDM.com: The pageant market is at present in flux, with main cancellations in 2024 and 2025 as a consequence of rising manufacturing prices and attendee fatigue. What information are you seeing that implies Santa Monica can succeed the place established manufacturers are at present failing?
Dan Corridor: Attendee fatigue? Have been you at EDC final yr? It felt extra crowded than ever! I believe with the appropriate producer, the appropriate DJs, the appropriate security and crowd management measures, and most significantly, the appropriate setting, festivals can thrive.
Enter, Santa Monica. Think about vibing out to Above & Past whereas the solar units over the Santa Monica Mountains within the distance. Cool ocean breezes. Your greatest associates and your rave bae, proper right here on the seaside. It’s the right setting for an unbelievable, memorable expertise.
EDM.com: Goldenvoice efficiently repositioned Coachella from a distinct segment occasion right into a cultural establishment. What, in your thoughts, would make the pageant by the Pier irreplaceable quite than simply one other well-executed seaside occasion?
Dan Corridor: No different seaside on the West Coast is as iconic as proper subsequent to the Santa Monica Pier. Till you’ve seen a sundown into dusk over the Malibu coast, with our ferris wheel lit up at Pacific Park, you wouldn’t perceive how particular this place is. The entire ambiance might actually be next-level for a pageant.
EDM.com: The Santa Monica Pier already carries important historic and emotional weight for locals. What steps would you’re taking to make sure the pageant occurs with the Pier versus one thing that occurs at the Pier?
Dan Corridor: I really like this query. The Pier and the companies, nonprofits, employees, fishermen, and guests who all make up the Pier group are the center of our native tourism business. Once I wrote the movement to direct our Metropolis employees to discover bringing a music pageant to the Pier and Seashore, I labored with these companies to be taught from previous occasions on the Pier and requested employees to co-create a pageant expertise with the Pier group. This must be profitable for everybody, not simply Goldenvoice.
EDM.com: Security logistics for beachfront festivals are notoriously advanced, like sand slowing down emergency response instances and the ocean presenting a novel legal responsibility. How do you propose on reconciling resident security with pageant profitability within the face of your lofty financial targets?
Dan Corridor: Resident and pageant security are firstly in my thoughts and in our employees’s thoughts. If we will’t create a pageant that’s protected for everybody, we received’t do it. Interval. We’re making that very clear with Goldenvoice.
Many Santa Monica residents and Angelenos will keep in mind the Pier Concert events of the Nineteen Nineties-2000s period. Within the later years, they grew to become fairly unsafe with tens of hundreds of holiday makers crowding the Pier and seaside with none crowd management. These occasions had been unticketed, and our police division was accountable for safety. It grew to become overwhelming for our assets.
The town’s imaginative and prescient for this future pageant is that it’s a ticketed, managed occasion with personal safety supplemented by native authorities, such as you’d see at Coachella, EDC, or another main pageant.
EDM.com: Contemplating these targets to turbocharge the native financial system, how are you structuring the unique negotiations with Goldenvoice to make sure The Sandbox doesn’t develop into an financial island? Particularly, what mechanisms will pressure 35,000 every day attendees to flow into into native brick-and-mortar companies quite than simply draining their wallets on the pageant’s partnered distributors?
Dan Corridor: I can’t get into specifics at this level, however what I’ll say is that with main occasions, municipalities usually negotiate group advantages as a part of the deal. As an example, the producer for West Hollywood Satisfaction gives a lottery free of charge one-day tickets for the primary day of the pageant. I’d prefer to see this develop into a two-day pageant or at the very least a night pageant in order that our inns and eating places are visited earlier than and after the pageant. I’d additionally like to see an area merchandising program, just like the way you see many iconic Southern Californian distributors at Coachella.
EDM.com: Let’s mission to 2028. The pageant has run for 2 years. If Santa Monica creates a tax income surplus and inns are full, however the metropolis’s residents universally dread the weekend it occurs as a consequence of disruption, would you think about {that a} success or a failure of your imaginative and prescient to “honor the wants” of the group?
Dan Corridor: I’m assured we will discover the appropriate steadiness. The reality is, Santa Monicans have very excessive requirements for the companies the town gives. We’re a full service metropolis that’s 8 sq. miles and 93,000 residents that grows to, by some estimates, 300,000+ through the day.
We’ve our personal Police Division, Fireplace Division, bus and library techniques. We’ve a Pier, we now have the Metro, we now have an airport. We offer afterschool packages, senior packages, and tens of millions of public {dollars} to our colleges and in inexpensive housing subsidies for low revenue households and employees. These companies come at a steep price.
We’ve historically relied closely on worldwide tourism and automobile gross sales taxes to fund these companies and each of these income streams are down for the previous few years now. We’ve to pivot to home and regional tourism in an effort to proceed to supply the extent of companies our residents have come to count on.
Touchdown a significant music pageant is a part of that technique. So I’m keen to assist a sure, cheap degree of discomfort round noise or mild, mitigating the place we will in fact, in an effort to diversify our income streams. That mentioned, it’s our job to additionally be certain it doesn’t get “uncontrolled” and will we get this pageant off the bottom, we will likely be monitoring group suggestions, weighing it carefully, and dealing with Goldenvoice to mitigate any issues.
EDM.com: At this time’s festivals more and more face criticism for turning into corporatized Instagram backdrops quite than music experiences. What guardrails would you insist upon to make sure this pageant authentically serves music tradition and never simply influencer tradition?
Dan Corridor: Ha! Nice query, and the rationale my boyfriend and I solely go to weekend two of Coachella after we go. And to be clear, I hope everybody takes an awesome selfie of their crew with our Pier within the background.
With out getting too within the weeds, I’ll personally be making some requests to Goldenvoice across the vibe we’re in search of. Santa Monica has an extended historical past of supporting the humanities, music included, and that is our subsequent chapter of that story.
EDM.com: At this time’s festivals have additionally developed refined hurt discount cultures round substance use and psychological well being assist. Will you champion bringing these greatest practices to The Sandbox even when they make some constituents uncomfortable, and the way do you message that as group care quite than enabling?
Dan Corridor: I consider strongly in hurt discount at festivals. Organizations like DanceSafe and This Should Be The Place save lives. Interval. That doesn’t give anybody a free move to convey unlawful medication into our group.
EDM.com: Are you imagining this as an EDM pageant? And for those who in the end pull off your preferrred pageant, what precisely does that appear to be?
Dan Corridor: Our Council has given route to employees twice, within the authentic movement and within the approval to enter negotiations with Goldenvoice, that we’re pursuing an EDM pageant. In my thoughts, the best pageant is 2 evenings, high DJs, the very best pageant meals, chill vibes, and exquisite sunsets. Prime it off with a sick drone present!
EDM.com: Inform us about your individual private historical past with the EDM style. How did you uncover it, what made you fall in love with it and why do you proceed to fly its flag?
Dan Corridor: My first boyfriend actually launched me to EDM again in 2012, he was an enormous fan of dubstep on the time. I fell in love with the beat, the rhythm, with the tradition of peace, love, unity, and respect.
In reality, the primary live performance we went to collectively was Gaga’s ‘Born this Manner Ball’ in Seoul after I was stationed there within the navy. We didn’t comprehend it on the time, however the opener was an incredible DJ that’s now my all-time favourite. That DJ? Zedd! I’m extra into progressive home now… it jogs my memory of the unbridled optimism of the early 2010s.
EDM.com: If this succeeds, Santa Monica turns into a pageant metropolis. If it fails publicly, you’ve doubtlessly burned the bridge for a technology. In your thoughts, what success metrics have to be hit to keep away from that destiny?
Dan Corridor: At the beginning, this pageant have to be protected. We should set the circumstances so festival-goers are protected, residents are protected, the Pier and seaside are protected. The pageant have to be income producing for the group: for the Metropolis and for our inns and eating places. We should go away the seaside clear when the stage is torn down.
Lastly, I hope this pageant places Santa Monica again on the map. That we’re a clear, protected, and enjoyable place to go to, and that Goldenvoice desires to come back again subsequent yr and so do the festival-goers. If we will do these issues, I’ll think about it a hit.
The submit Contained in the Plan to Deliver a Main Music Pageant to the Santa Monica Pier as Metropolis Faces Cultural Extinction appeared first on EDM.
