MIAMI GROOVE CRUISE 2011 PORTRAIT
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 
After a really incredible party, milestone or achievement comes to a close, one is always left temporarily stunned by the magnitude of energy that one has just experienced. The system is almost in a state of overdrive or shock, as it attempts to process all that it has experienced via the five natural senses. It’s not unlike the calm AFTER the storm or the smoldering debris that remains following a massive earthquake or the sea water that pools gently in foreign spaces following a Tsunami or the dust that floats aimlessly looking to settle after a sandstorm. The Miami Groove Cruise 2011, has truly left me feeling a little unprepared to accurately describe it’s magnitude this year and I feel like I’ve been in state of surreal suspension following our arrival back to the Port of Miami eight days ago.
After having participated in three previous Groove Cruises, the first out of L.A., the second out of San Diego and the most recent being the Miami 2010 Groove Cruise, I felt like I was prepared to handle the new dynamics of the 2011 GC. This year, the owner and operator of Whet Travel and mastermind of The Groove Cruise, Jason Beukema, worked a deal with Norwegian Cruise Line to charter a whole ship to host his bi-annual Electronic Music party. When Jason first announced this massive personal accomplishment to the Groove Cruise Affiliates and alumni via the social networks, the overall reception was shock, awe and euphoria! What had started out 7 years ago as a small party of people throwing together a private party with several DJs on a ship, had now grown to two thousand people gathering on board one ship with 55 DJs. A floating music “festival” was about to be born!
It only seems fitting to use water metaphors in this reflection about the whole GC11 experience. This year more than any year before, every participant truly appeared swept up in a wave of anticipation of the unknown about the upcoming “ground-breaking”event. Even Jason and his fellow GC Team Ryan, Kathy and Kristy didn’t know how their planning was going to turn out, as this year was going to be a massive experiment based upon the learning curve achieved via the 7 years of operating the GC. From learning from past mistakes and successes, the team worked diligently to accommodate for the needs of almost a thousand more participants, twice as many DJs and a whole ship space to organize and a crew to manage!! As a GC vet, many of the changes and customized touches were noted about the level of organization to the outright changes in the registration process, to the personalized Groove Cruise greeting, to the House music being piped throughout the entire ship, to the different Muster Drill protocol, to dining option variations, to customized NCL daily newsletters containing Groove Cruise agendas & info, to tighter security around the stages, to increased media coverage etc etc. In my Fetty Be’s Buzz exclusive “Behind-The-Scenes Look At The Groove Cruise” series, Jason had noted that massive changes were being made to the Groove Cruise program and in looking back now, he certainly was on the money! This was no longer a small gathering of several hundred people. This was an entirely different event.
In my post-GC11 state of awe, I’ve been personally wrestling with HOW to accurately describe the experience in my review. I did want to start with sharing viewpoints from other GC vets. Throughout the cruise, I decided to perform an informal verbal survey with other GC vets at various points, to get a “temperature read” about their developing GC11 response. It was interesting to hear that some felt that the intimacy of a smaller crowd had been lost to the volume of participants, while others loved the fact that having a whole chartered ship gave the group more freedom to party without feeling disrespectful to non-Groove Cruisers. No one was “ruining Grandma and Grandpa’s vacation!”. Although a few mentioned missing the expressions on Non GC peoples’ faces when the groups mixed onboard the ship.
Several vets felt that there was definitely a greater presence of East Coast participants and so that influenced the type of House music played, the DJs selected and how people partied. Almost ALL of the vets confirmed that the GC family had grown exponentially and so the chances of encountering a previous vet was substantially greater and truly enhanced the whole party atmosphere. Facebook most DEFINITELY played a HUGE role this year and helped participants to bond prior to the cruise. Jason’s partner Careli and GC Marketing Director Ryan, both played VITAL ROLES in helping to build the Facebook groups and in creating collective identities prior to the event. Costume planning, music sharing, event planning and networking were all “buzzing” feverishly for months, before the ship departed from Miami. Room maps and lists of people celebrating birthdays on board were also designed. All of this deeply influenced the comfort level that the participants had and the crowd certainly didn’t waste any time gelling.
Yet with all growth, a few growing pains still existed. Despite the Facebook GC groups’ collective efforts to help overcome a lack of Internet access for networking, via the suggested use of walkie talkies, the sheer number of people did present a new dynamic that many vets quietly struggled with. The newcomers wouldn’t know any different, but the returning Groove Cruisers were used to smaller gatherings with the same people all of the time. These same people grew very close and in many ways were like a cast in a theatrical production!! This year it was just not possible with the volume of people. This is not to say it was a negative thing, it was just symptomatic of the new GC dynamics. I like to use analogies to explain my perspective and in analyzing the current state of the Groove Cruise, compared to two or three years ago, it’s not unlike a child that has slowly evolved from infancy through the toddler, youth and adolescent stages to now being an independent adult ready to fly on it’s own.
Through the maturation process, an innocence has been lost, but has been replaced with savvy insight and experience. The Groove Cruise isn’t a child anymore, it’s finally grown up and is now an internationally recognized music “festival”. It’s taken on a life of it’s own and it belongs to the industry, not just a few. It’s respected based on it’s history, artist advocacy & involvement, media coverage, marketing and affiliate testimonies. Jason has noted that he was, “concerned about the GC losing it’s intimacy”. Where one door closes, another door has opened I would now respond, after having fully digested my GC11 experience. Intimacy is still found in this new GC…However, it’s found via Facebook groups, private parties, in the plethora of GC photo galleries that have cropped up afterwards!!! The intimacy is there, but it’s within a shared experience, not within a number of participants. The tidal waves of positive responses following the GC11 from both newcomers and vets is truly a testimony to be taken into account. A few may long for the “old days”, but when the scales are put to the test, an overwhelming majority claim that they had a stellar weekend. It wasn’t the same as in previous years, but it was a fabulous time!
EVERYTHING was bigger this year!! The costumes BLEW UP on a massive level on the GC11. This was mostly because it was organized on Facebook via the groups. I have to confess that I adore this aspect of the cruise, as it nurtures Fetty Be’s theatrical nature!!! Originally, the parties often had just a few outgoing personalities that enjoyed dressing up in fun accessories, costumes and dancing with glow objects. In the past there has been one main theme party such as: Nautical Naughty, Pimps n Ho’s, Pirates, PJ’s just to name a few. As noted, more costume nights were added this year and ALL participants were encouraged to get “into the spirit”, EVEN the DJs!
Speaking of which,the DJ line-up was also mind-blowing and nothing short of PHENOMENAL. A few acts changed due to time and constraints, but most of the performers made the ship. The line-up contained the full range of industry talent from the original Groove Cruise DJ’s like: Greg Bauer, Kalendr, Cato K, Anthony Attalla, Steve Smooth, Boris, Louis Dee, to the incredible Nassau Wyndham beach headliner Dirty South!
The winner of Groove Cruise DJ Contest, Doc Brown, was a huge hit among the list of endless talent that performed throughout the NON-STOP 72 performance hours!!! Massive HOUSE MUSIC names such as: Funkagenda, Oscar G, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Sydney Blu, Max Vangeli, Mind Control, (Darude), George Acosta, Trent Cantrelle, George Morel, Lee Kalt, Dabura, DJ Brienne, Adam Lipson, Cheric, Flynn Nolan, DJ Funk Junkie, Gary G, Greg Schneider, HeavyGrinder, (Jason Vernau) , DJ Mike Ill, Oscar P, Shannon Williams, Zodiac, Val Kolton, Adam Lipson, Christian Falero, Dimitri, Gil Montiel Glenn Kelly, Juan Arenas (Justin Sheppard), (Lazardi), Miami House Project, Tocayo. () = Not able to attend. Outstanding live performances were also given by vocalists Hadley & Jeremy Carr, percussionist Bam Bam Buddha and violinist Dave Damage!! Did I not SAY it was a list of heavy hitters?!!
My personal struggle was in not getting to see them all. I think I would be even MORE strategic with my sleep patterns so that I could get to see even more of the DJs perform next time, than I did during this GC. I was very caught up in the party aspect this year, as I had more friends on board. So keeping business and pleasure separate was more of a challenge for me this year. SO MANY DJs, not enough time!!! I MUST give props though to Groove Cruise Ryan for his scheduling of all of the artists, as I felt he tackled the distribution of the DJs very well. He broke up the schedule in such a way that quite often the participants would have several shots at seeing an artist, except for Dirty South. The only problem is that participants quite often got happily distracted with partying in their rooms or participating in body painting, cat napping, eating, hot tubing, recovering and then missed certain artists altogether. That happened to me and I felt disappointed that I had missed seeing some of the artists perform. In the past, I was able to see everyone, but this year due to the volume and size of the festival, this wasn’t possible and influenced how I felt about my own performance at the GC!!!
Getting back to my analogies, I must wrap up my reflection with the use of a picture from one of the awesome Groove Cruise photo galleries!! Peter Fredriksson is the photographer and I must thank him for the inspiration that the above pic gave to me for writing this article. Actually, I would like to give a MASSIVE SHOUT OUT for all of the amazing photographers and media people on board the Skye this year! You all rock!! However, this particular picture taken by Peter truly gave me the missing piece I was searching for to help me accurately summarize my GC11 encounter. I wanted to find a way to explain my feelings about this years cruise and understand why I wanted to keep projecting my past GC experiences onto my current one, despite the massive differences. The pic was the key in helping me understand “what just happened”!!!
It made me think that instead of reminiscing about what the Groove Cruise used to be and feel unsettled about the changes, the best way to look at the Groove Cruise now is in terms of it’s OWN INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY AND PERSONALITY! This picture reminds me of the MUSIC, the DJs, tutus, the glitz, the feathers, the drinking, and ALL of the amazing people that participated in the GC11. No cruise has ever been or ever WILL be indentical. It’s as diverse as the people who create and participate in it. The GC11 truly had it’s own, unique personality and although I had other amazing experiences in the past, this cruise I walked away with far more personal moments. In the end it was how I customized my own Groove Cruise through my own choices and actions. In the past, the Groove Cruise did the majority of the party and atmosphere shaping for the participants. NOW due to it’s size and even nightclub feel at times, it’s the participant’s choices in what they do with all that is offered by the Groove Cruise agenda, that truly determines if the experience is a success! The ingredients are now provided, it’s up to you to create your own UNIQUE GROOVE CRUISE ADVENTURE!
KEEPING THE GROOVE CRUISE BEAT!!
Reader Comments (1)
The Cruise was Awesome, You were Awesome and this Article summed it up excellently. I think you captured the Essence of The 2011 GC for the Non GC-sers to reconsider this year, and try, I said try, (because it will sell out again!) to get their arrangements in order to lock down a place on the 2012 GC. Can I git a hell Yeah!
P.S. Shout out to Gator Guards that did an excellent job guiding our guests through a safe and enjoyable environment. The Security company that "protects with personality" Or should I say... Emotion Control Technicians. lol
See You All Next Year!