Silent disco

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The concept of a silent disco is having a DJ play music which is then transmitted to headphones worn by audience members. A witness to this type of event would experience the eerie sight of what would appear to be a crowd of people all moving with commonality but without an external stimuli. This would be further amplified at times when audience members sing along in unison to the soundtrack only they can hear.

The idea has been around since the 1990s espoused by eco-activists who found that the easiest way to get large numbers of people to certain areas such as a forest that was being logged was to be put on a party, but this can cause distress to animals that are living in the area, so a compromise solution was needed for particularly sensitive areas.

1 Silent disco occurrences
2 Silent disco/iPod FlashMob
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Silent disco occurrences

To date there have been numerous experiments with groupwise audio-parties with headphones. The Dutch Silent Disco is the most well known of all. The Silent Disco was staged at the Glastonbury Festival in 2005,^[1] allowing the party to continue through the night but without disturbing the local residents with huge soundvolumes typical of such parties.

The Silent Disco was staged again in 2006 at the Big Day Out Festival.^[2] On both occasions the Silent Disco staged two different channels available to dancers who themselves were able to tune into one or the other channel independently while dancing on the very same dance floor!

The Reading and Leeds Festivals incorporated the Silent Disco into the NME/ Radio 1 Tent for the 2006 festivals. They were run after the main acts had finished, so that attendees could dance into the night without causing excess noise to the local community who had previously raised objections about the considerable noise levels produced.

The Electric Picnic also hosted the Dutch Silent Disco.

For more information on the Silent Disco go to: "silentdisco.com"

[edit] Silent disco/iPod FlashMob

A variation on the structured Silent Disco occurred on 11 October 2006 at Liverpool Street station in England when a flash mob danced on the station platform while individuals listened to their separate iPods.^[3]

A similar event occurred on 18 January 2007 in Bristo Square, Edinburgh, with over 300 people congregating at 10:30 pm to dance. Despite the cold weather, a large number of people stayed for several hours, dancing to their music. This event was organised through facebook.

On Saturday 10 February from 6.42pm until around 7.42pm another flashmob occurred but this time at Paddington station in London. About 250 people participated.^[4]