Chillits

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Chillits is a small, exclusive, annual ambient music festival held every September at a private retreat center in Willits, California, USA. It was started by the Cloud Factory community, but has since expanded and taken on a unique character.

1 Music
2 Attendance
3 Recordings
4 External links

[edit] Music

Most of the DJs and live musicians who play at Chillits would be considered "amateur," in the sense that they do not attmept to make a living from playing music. Some are San Francisco Bay Area geek luminaries, such as Brian Behlendorf. Since 2000, many sets have been recorded and made available for free online (see links below).

A notable participant is Mixmaster Morris, who played in 2003 and mentioned the event in a BBC documentary later that same year. It's likely that Morris's visit spurred additional interest among the Internet community, leading to mentions on Boing Boing and this article here on Wikipedia.

[edit] Attendance

Due to the size of the venue, attendance at Chillits has always been extremely limited. The information sheet distributed with tickets says "Every year, the Chillits organizers agonize for months over how to distribute tickets so that everyone who wants to can attend. And every year, some good folks miss out. It's an obvious quandary: if we sold thousands of tickets then everyone could go, but we'd quickly lose the comfortable, laid-back vibe that makes Chillits so popular."

Ticket distribution is largely word-of-mouth, and now includes a lottery system. Unfortunately, this has led to some stress and bad feelings over the years -- but few similar events have been created, which is odd given the obvious demand.