John Creighton, 46, stands in front of what was to be the "Hobbit House" near the "Dark Forest" stage area of what would have been the event Epic III.
Adam "Flash" Gross lowers a speaker to Scott Mendenhall at what was to be the site for Epic III. Crews spent two weeks preparing for the rave Epic III, then had 24 hours to tear it all down after Lewis County Superior Court granted a temporary restraining order.
John Creighton describes the current electronic dance music scene as the new 1960s. To him, it’s a love-based community that brings positive energy to the world and shares a common love for music. But, as it was in the ‘60s, there’s a significant amount of blowback from a large part of society that just doesn’t understand what the community is about.
“For me, going to a gathering is like coming home to a gathering of 300 or 400 of my best friends,” he said. “The media paints raves as drunken, ecstasy-fueled orgies, but this (event) is so not it.”
Creighton is the owner of Unity Productions. He and fellow Portland resident Alex Santos, the owner of Pulsar Productions, planned to host a rave party Friday through Sunday. Epic III was to be held on private land near Rainbow Falls State Park until Lewis County stopped it with an injunction and a temporary restraining order.
Raves are dance parties that typically skew toward people in their late teens and early 20s who dress in hip hop and cartoon-influenced neon tutus and furry outfits. The venues are often designed around a fantasy or sci-fi theme, equipped with lots of flashing lights and bright colors. The music is bass-heavy electronics with clicks and glitches made by a DJ on a laptop computer and occasionally digital instruments.
Club drugs like ecstasy, nitrous oxide and ketamine are common in the rave community because their euphoric effects are enhanced by the lights, sounds and textures of the environment.
Creighton said he has been in the entertainment industry for almost 20 years. He was planning to have searches at the gate and control for illegal substances as much as he could, but was also going to have medical crews on hand just in case.
Epic III was billed as a wedding celebration. Now in its third incarnation, Santos said, Epic has become the de facto wedding party for the rave community. This was going to be the first one held in Washington. Crews spent two weeks building stages, bathrooms, outbuildings, trails and props around the property — only to have to tear it down in less than a day to avoid conflicting with the restraining order.
“We themed it as an enchanted forest,” Santos said.
Creighton said he was planning a size of wedding party that met or exceeded all the requirements held by Lewis County and was found guilty by association for being a part of the rave community.
Officials from Lewis County say the planners invited almost 19,000 people, skirted the permitting process and are trying to cover themselves after the fact.
According to court documents, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by Thurston County Sheriff’s Patrol Capt. Greg Elwin, who warned that the event might be happening near Chehalis. The documents say it was originally planned for Thurston County but they were able to block it with a court injunction because the last rave Pulsar threw earlier this summer “caused a high amount of citizens’ complaints, police response calls, and a very large grass fire just outside of Tenino, Washington.”
Both Creighton and Santos refute that. They said that they heard the Tenino property was available for raves and inquired about permits with Thurston County, but quickly changed their minds after they saw the damage the other promoters had caused.
“It was scorched earth and there was garbage everywhere. Why would we want to have it there?” Creighton said. “Thurston County was well within their rights, that land was a health and safety risk.”
Nonetheless, Santos thinks that what happened outside Tenino damned Epic from the beginning.
“There’s a stigma against the music we play and who we are; it’s obvious,” he said. “A lot of that though is self-inflicted, look at how the promoters handled (the Tenino rave).
Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said it was later clarified at the restraining order hearing in Superior Court on Thursday that Pulsar had nothing to do with the Tenino party. But that wasn’t the heart of the argument.
The county took issue with the fact that the organizers never applied for the proper permits for the number of people they were inviting and didn’t show were going to meet all the required safety precautions.
The Lewis County Code defines a music festival as “... any outdoor gathering of 500 or more people at which the principal activity is the presentation of music, whether live or recorded, which shall continue for more than four hours in any one day ...”
Any events that meet that definition are required to get a permit that guarantees adequate safety, sanitary and emergency provisions are on site. Creighton said he thought he was following the law and didn’t need to apply for permits because it wasn’t going to allow more than 500 people.
County officials believed otherwise.
“Their Facebook page said over 19,000 people were invited and over 1,000 people agreed to attend,” Meyer said. “I think it’s clear they were trying to play fast and loose trying to get this rave to happen.”
Creighton said the Facebook numbers are not to be taken seriously. He said the promoters did not invite that many people. Rather it was shared by people online who invited friends. He said just because someone clicked something doesn’t mean they’re coming.
He said the promoters and the landowner had an agreement that no more than 500 people would be allowed on site. He was going to sell numbered wristbands and was going to have security counting people at the gate.
“It doesn’t matter what Facebook said, we weren’t expecting more than 500 people,” Creighton said. “Looking back we should have reset the numbers. We never expected it was going to be an issue.”
However, he didn’t communicate any of that to county officials beforehand, nor was that made at all apparent on Facebook, Meyer said.
“I think they only sold 1,000 to Woodstock,” Meyer said. “It’s a concert where any number of tickets can be sold. We recommended to them if they just come talk to the county first they could have the event rather than just posting a free-for-all on Facebook and saying come on down.”
