Life in Color (LIC) is celebrating 10 years of music, dancing, and paint – a huge accomplishment for any annual event, let alone an electronic music festival that quite literally covers its attendees from head to toe in different colors of the rainbow. With the next edition set to hit Seattle on May 20th, featuring acts like RL Grime, What So Not, and 3Lau, we sat down with LIC’s Marketing Manager Paul Reed to get a little inside info on what’s kept the event going around the country, how they’ve managed to pave the way for other successful dance music events, and what the future holds for LIC.
Purchase tickets for Life in Color Seattle HERE
More info on Paul Reed:
– Marketing Manager for LIC
– Started working for LIC in 2013 as Director of Promotions
– In charge of social and digital marketing
– He manages total marketing budget of over $250,000 for the domestic US tour and LIC Festival Miami
– And he helped grow LIC social media accounts on Instagram and Twitter by over 20% to 35k and 88.8k respectively while growing Facebook Likes over 50% to nearly 1 million
MyMusicIsBetterThanYours.com (MMIBTY): Life In Color has been around for over a decade. What’s been the secret sauce to sustaining a successful event like this when the events and festival world, especially with dance and electronic music, has become so saturated?
Life In Color (LIC): We get asked this a lot since so many brands come and go in the EDM event space. For us the secret to keeping the brand relevant over the years has really been switching things up every year. From our tour designs, production, and music styles. EDM is a constantly changing landscape and you have to keep up with the trends to remain relevant
MMIBTY: Over the years what have been a few of the stand-out editions and why?
LIC: LIC Miami… its our flagship event and some of our company’s biggest moments have happened there. From our first festival in 2013 with Calvin Harris to Kaskade, JackU, and more. We always pull out all the stops for the hometown show.
MMIBTY: Who are some of the artists you want to get involved in Life in Color?
LIC: We have worked with all of the big names in the industry at this point, our focus recently has been to really lock in hot up and coming artist along with names fans love. For example LIC Seattle is a little of both with big names like RL Grime, 3lau, and What so Not, but we added Yookie on the lineup since they are making some waves in the bass community.
MMIBTY: Do you think LIC has paved the way for other successful dance music events in the US? Which ones?
LIC: LIC is 100% responsible for spreading EDM across a lot of college campuses and cities across the country and globe. When we first started doing this nobody else was touring to colleges. We would come into a college town like East Lansing, Michigan and nobody had ever seen anything like our shows. We introduced a whole gernation of college students to EDM. We have continued that as our brand has moved to Latin America, Asia, and the rest of the world.
MMIBTY: For years, people have been talking about the “EDM bubble” and more recently the “festival bubble”. Do you think there’s a bubble? Do you think it’s due to burst? How are you making sure your events continue long into the future?
LIC: Music trends come and go, its part of this business. Is there a bubble per se? Yes to a certain extent, the market is pretty saturated with events right now so its’ an interesting time for a lot of companies. The events that are going to stand the test of time are those that offer their fans a unique experience they cant get anywhere else.
MMIBTY: What’s the funniest thing that’s happened at a LIC event?
LIC: Oh man, there have been a lot of funny moments over the years. Some of which I can talk about and some I cant lol. I will say dumping buckets of paint on your staff members never gets old.
MMIBTY: If you had a chance to sit down with Ja Rule and Billy McFarland and offer them some free advice during the months leading up to Fyre Festival, what would you have told them?
LIC: Plan for the worst and hope for the best. This has been quite the week for them, I’m not really sure how things got so bad…events and large-scale festivals take months of careful planning. Double triple check everything and have a black up plan because nothing ever goes as planned lol
MMIBTY: Where did the idea to drench people in paint while some of the world’s best dance music artists DJed come from?
LIC: Depending on who you ask you will get some variation of this story but the founders around 2007 attended a frat party at Florida State University. This was an annual party that involved paint, everyone loved it and the guys thought to themselves why don’t we move this into a club? Few months later they were doing the first Dayglow club shows and as they say the rest is history.
MMIBTY: Over the past 10 years what sorts of trends have you noticed come or go at your events?
LIC: When LIC first started the vast majority of people coming out to our events were college students. Over the years we have really noticed the EDM fan base expanding and we have people from all walks of life attending our shows now. I think the other thing we have seen over the years is the trends in how people dress. At first it was just wear white and that has evolved into full outfits and costumes from kandi to aliens and banana suits. EDM is all about self expression.
MMIBTY: How has technology played a role in your events and how will it play a role in your events moving forward?
LIC: It’s totally changed the way we market shows and communicate with our fans. Social media has blown up in the past 10yrs and is now the main form of communication for young people. I can remember passing out flyers and putting up posters on campus for shows. Now its like omg did you see that snap or this IG video. Its crazy. We always try and stay ahead of the curve on this and innovate. Its one of the things that has really set our marketing apart from other companies over the years and I’m very proud of our team for that.
MMIBTY: Besides loud music, dancing paint-soaked bodies, and smiling faces, what are some of your other passions?
LIC: Outside of the music world I’m huge into fitness and outdoors stuff actually. I find it’s a nice escape from the face paced, high stress world of planning large EDM events. But even in my off time I cant help but listen to new music or checking out other shows and festivals to see what they are doing and how we can be better.
MMIBTY: Why should people go to Life in Color Seattle?
LIC: LIC Seattle is the biggest west coast show we do in the states. This year we stepping it up with 4 monster headliners and some of the biggest production you will see outside of Miami. We love Seattle and our Seattle fans love us. Its going to be an unforgettable night I can promise you that!
MMIBTY: What does the future hold for Life in Color?
LIC: Every year we try and do something a little different and provide our fans with a different variation of the show. Last year with Kingdom and the huge lion stage was cool and more story telling. This year we switched it up again to a more Tron type feel to celebrate 10 years of LIC. For 2018 and beyond we have some things in the works but don’t want to give anything away just yet 😉
CHECK OUT THE LIC SPOTIFY PLAYLIST BELOW!