Dance party revolution: Silent Frisco’s disco quietly moves out of clubs
By Aidin Vaziri, sfgate.com
One recent fall afternoon, hundreds of clubbers were taking part in a massive dance party on Treasure Island’s Great Lawn. There was a repurposed double-decker bus that opened up onto a stage featuring a rotating lineup of internationally known DJs and live musicians. In the crowd, people jumped up and down, threw their arms in the air and laughed excitedly.
But for anyone passing by, it must have looked like a curious scene because it was impossible to hear anything but the sound of shuffling feet in the grass.
This was a “silent disco” event thrown by San Francisco production company Silent Frisco, where revelers typically gather at unexpected venues, slip on wireless headphones and crank the music as loud as they like without disturbing their surroundings with the thumping beats, booming bass lines and towering speaker stacks.
For the past decade, Silent Frisco’s co-founders, DJ Robbie “Motion Potion” Kowal and John Miles of SunsetSF Promotions, have been throwing similar parties at a variety of left-field spots from Ocean Beach to Golden Gate Park, as well as at some of the Bay Area’s biggest musical happenings, such as the Treasure Island Music Festival and Outside Lands. They have taken the concept on the road, bringing it to subway platforms in New York, museums in Miami and the Santa Monica Pier. They also make regular appearances at corporate functions for companies like Oracle and Yahoo.
