It’s not often the biggest DJ in the World comes to London to play his own festival and it’s not often you get asked to host the 2500+ big top Mixmag Tent. Well for House Rules this happened last Friday as we supported DJ Tiesto at his Victoria Park festival.

Located at the back of the site next door to the DSI and Last.FM tents our tent resembled that of a big top circus tent, circular in dimension, spanning roughly 60m x 50m (About ¾ of a football pitch) and kitted out with a ear piecing Funktion One sound system it was perfect for the House Rules sound and our debut at a festival.

Haran De Lucas was first up as the gates opened and 25’000 people started to flood through. We constantly get bombarded with DJs who want to play at our nights, the majority of whom claim they can “smash a crowd” or “would destroy the dance floor” but ask any DJ / promoter worth their weight what’s the most important set and they’ll say warm up – it sets the tone for the night or day in our case and De Lucas delivers this for House Rules every time. A combination of dance floor classics and cutting edge new music brought hundreds over to see what was going on.

Next up was resident David Griffiths, taking over to an already excitable crowd David delivered another electrifying set, something he’s been doing on a regular basis down at Plan for us and across the UK Festivals in the Nokia and Strongbow tents. Hands were well and truly in the air to the sound of “Leave the World Behind, Chakalaka and Kidsos (Seb Ingrosso’s latest rework of MGMT’s Kids and his own Laktos”. By this time the tent sides were splitting, people were dancing outside in the blazing sunshine and a quick look round found everywhere outside of the main stage extremely bare - we were the busiest tent by a mile and we would be lying if a rye smile didn’t cross our faces.

Two headliners had been booked by the festival organisers for the day and first on following David was Sophie Lloyd. Sophie has been making waves on the dance music scene playing regularly for Uber trendy night Horse Meat Disco however her style of music was very different to what had been rocking the tent for the previous 3 hours. Housey disco proved not to be what the masses wanted and consequently the tent cleared over the next 30 minutes – a harsh lesson for any DJ and just goes to show that despite what people think they’re capable of, in reality keeping and rocking a large festival crowd is a very fine art.

This prompted a more swifter than scheduled slot for someone House Rules has a huge amount of respect for having seen him numerous times at Space in Ibzia. Serge Santiago took over from Sophie and set about building back up the atmosphere to the levels it had reached previously. Serge’s musical taste is impeccable and it was great to see him at work – for anyone flying out to Ibiza this year seeing him at Space is a must.

Next on to the decks was our third resident Umberto Giannini. Taking over from Serge, the tent was back towards to its rocking best as The Godfather (internal House Rules name) took over and delivered a set packed full of quality house music – we and everyone else loves to hear Umberto DJ.

London favourites Rob and Dave Marchant were next up and had arguably the most difficult set of the day. There set overlapped Tiesto coming on stage and after what they’d seen earlier I’m pretty sure they’d had a few nerves as they approached their first track. Thankfully they’re talent shone through and people stayed routed to the spot for their 2 hour set. In fact after a quick reccie every other tent, toilet and bar was empty as the thousands flocked to see Tiesto perform on the main stage.

So our first festival was over and to say we “smashed it” was an understatement. A big thanks to Tiesto and everyone at Loud Sound, the Dutch Master goes from strength to strength and it was a real privilege to be asked to be involved in what will no doubt go down as a ground breaking event. And not forgetting a massive thank you to all the thousands who passed through our tent during the day, the messages and links you’ve been posted are all awesome and we’re glad you enjoyed it as much as we did. In typical social networking style HOUSE RULES: is chuffed!

The House Rules Team x

Keep up to date with the latest from House Rules as we plan our come back to our monthly nights at Plan B Brixton announce our involvement in another massive dance event to hit London in the Autumn.

TWITTER

FACEBOOK

:0)

A pleasure playing for House Rules, our biggest gig to date.

SMASHED IT - i heard!!!

Good work Rob - can't have been easy to keep some of Tiesto's fans away from him.

Thanks :0)