We (Paul and Kitty Antonik Wakfer) missed the New Years Eve desert dance party because of its late venue move to over 100 miles away - just too far to drive for even 6 hours of dancing. We don't camp out, so a reasonable distance for an event we'll be at for only one day and evening is important. Therefore we were looking forward to the long planned "Just Another Desert Party" being produced by Stage6 Pro, Warsaw Pact Ent, SBS and Cosmic Sea Productions. It's taken Kitty several months to finally get the photos together, but that does not reflect on the good time that we had that night east of Queen Valley in the Superstition Mountains.
We like to get to desert dance events sufficiently before sundown so that we can get at least a short hike around the area and check out the arrangements. The roads are often pretty rough and going in by sunlight is a good idea.
This event had 2 outhouses - a must with as many people as attended. The crowd was small at this hour but the crew had already picked up numerous bags of trash left by discourteous previous campers in the area. Paul had just added our 4 bags that we picked up plus parts of an ATV?!?
Even though it wasn't cold, a fire seemed like a cozy atmosphere where many of the attendees and crew were familiar with each other from previous events.
Paul (and Kitty too) was into the first thermos of super tea with hopes that the 3 we brought would be enough. We picked a parking spot away from the crowds so that we would not be hemmed in later. It wasn't long though before there were vehicles on both sides of us.
The overall lighting was really nice at this event.
The visual jockeys (VJs) provided the video imagery on the inside of the DJ tent - far too small a screen in our judgment. The other lighting in the area really added to the atmosphere.
For those who were not dancing the evening cooled down quickly as the sun set - the fire drew them in. For those of us dancing, long sleeves were too much.
Fire dancers always get lots of attention - many are highly skilled.
Spyder was the most popular DJ playing while we there, drawing a lot of attendees out to dance. Unfortunately Nick Synergy - one of our favorites - was scheduled for daybreak, a popular time for those at these events who spend the entire night.
Kitty took a break from dancing to snap Paul, who hadn't taken much of a pause since he'd started. It was too crowded in front of the DJ tent while Spyder was on, but we found space off to the side. The artist could have been better located away from DJ tent itself.
Radia is an excellent hoopster and this time she had LEDs on two, providing a spectacular image.
One young woman asked if she could take our picture - she said we were "awesome!". The event was publicized on various websites including Don'tStayIn.com, which included photos, comments and reviews afterward.
We're looking forward to the Fall, Winter 2009 and early Spring 2010 desert dance events.
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