Las Vegas Weekly

The Beatport Beach Party comes to Vegas

Fedde le Grand spins at the Beatport Beach Party in Miami during WMC 2010.

Photo: Deanna Rilling

Should Las Vegas be renamed Miami West? There was Oscar G’s Made in Miami party last week, plus Robbie Rivera’s Miami-based Juicy Beach scheduled for May 23 (both at Wet Republic). Now, leading online electronic music retailer Beatport is bringing its wildly successful Miami event to Vegas to join the roster of fabulous daytime fêtes.

Manufactured Superstars: They make athletic socks and short-shorts look goooood.

The Beatport Beach Party launched April 25 at Tao Beach with guest DJ/producer Chuckie and already has a killer lineup in place for May (May 9: LA Riots; May 23: Bart B More; May 30: Rony Seiklay). On May 16, that includes Beatport’s own Brad Roulier and Shawn Sabo, aka Manufactured Superstars.

“Not that we could ever duplicate what we do in Miami in Vegas because that’s impossible—but it seems Las Vegas is getting much more excited about dance music,” says Roulier. Though there won’t be the massive stage and lighting setup seen at the 2010 Winter Music Conference Beatport Beach Party, regular Beatport partner LA-based dance music event experts Insomniac will help insure the intimate Tao Beach is a great daylife experience.

The Miami Beatport Beach Party was so successful that its large venue reached capacity, so why did company choose Tao Beach, one of the smaller Vegas pools? “We like it small and intimate,” Roulier explains. “A lot of those pools are just massive; that’s not as appealing to us. … The caliber of talent that they want to get to play this event, the detail in the production and the willingness to represent the Beatport brand and the way that we want to be represented, there were many factors as to why we ended up going with Tao Beach.”

When Roulier and Sabo don their Manufactured Superstars duds for their gig at Tao Beach, expect the Beatport Beach Party to get even crazier… especially if they show up in their orange space suits, retro short-shorts or who knows what else. Says Roulier, “We have fun with our outfits because there’s two of us and we’re very different looking… so it looks pretty cool when we coordinate.” Adds Sabo, “We’re there to put on a show; the crowd is there to see a show and I think the more things you can add to it, it’s a visual aspect to the already audio show.”

“The whole mentality behind everything we’re doing is really just to create a fun environment, so everybody from the 50-year-old lawyer to the 23-year-old girl can have a good time,” says Sabo. Space suits, of course, are universal. –Deanna Rilling

For more with Roulier and Sabo about the origination of “Manufactured Superstars,” the new Beatport iPhone app plus their upcoming projects and parties, download the free Nocturnal Admissions podcast here.