Festival season is officially upon us, and lot’s of events this year are looking to expand. This includes Made Event’s annual celebration of all things dance music, Electric Zoo, which has added a third day to their weekend extravaganza that will take Labor Day weekend, September 2-4, 2011. The line-up is as follows:

Friday, September 2

☛ Main Stage: Moby (DJ set), Benny Benassi, Rusko, Tiga, AN21 & Ma Vangeli

☛ Hilltop Arena: Richie Hawtin Presents Plastikman (Live), MSTRKRFT, Felguk, Gareth Emery, Markus Schultz, Robbie Rivera

☛ Carl Cox & Friends Take Over Sunday School: Carl Cox, Loco Dice, Joris Voorn & Nic Fanciulli (B2B), Victor Calderone

☛ Red Bull Music Academy Riverside: Crookers, Martin Solveig, Bart B More, Busy P, Feed Me, SebastiAn

Saturday, September 3

☛ Main Stage: David Guetta, Above & Beyond, Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77, John Digweed, Sander Can Doorn, Sub Focus

☛ Hilltop Arena: Ferry Corsten, ATB, Andy Moor, Dirty South Joachim Garraud, Mat Zo, Sean Tyas & Simon Patterson (B2B), Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano

☛ Sunday School Grove: Luciano, Danny Tenaglia, Carl Craig, Chris Liebing, James Holden, Steve Bug

☛ Red Bull Music Academy Riverside: Skrillex, Super Smash Bros, 12th Planet, Beardyman, Kid Sister, Porter Robinson, Tommy Lee & DJ Aero

Sunday, September 4

☛ Main Stage: Armin Van Buuren, Afrojack, Chromeo, DJ Snoopadelic, Calvin Harris

☛ Hilltop Arena: Boys Noize, Diplo, Big Gigantic, Carte Blanche, Excision & Datsik, Fake Blood, Jack Beats, MiMOSA

☛ Sunday School Grove: Richie Hawtin, Dubfire, Gui Boratto, Guy Gerber, Ida Engberg, Nicolas Jaar (Live)

☛ Red Bull Music Academy Riverside: Infected Mushroom, Gabriel & Dresden, Arty, EDX, Hardwell, Kyau & Albert, Mark Knight

More artists TBA!

Payment Plans

Passes to the festival can be purchased HERE. This year, Electric Zoo is also offering a payment plan for those who would prefer to not pay the full sum all at once. This payment plan contains two options. The first payment option allows you to pay a 50% deposit of your order total upon purchase of the pass, plus service fees, with the remaining 50% automatically deducted from your card on August 1, 2011. The second option allows you to pay 30% of your order total plus service fees as your first payment, with the remaining total automatically deducted in equal payments on July 1st and August 1st 2011.

Dust Reduction

Electric Zoo will also be making efforts to reduce dust this year, as the dancing and frolicking of 25,000 pairs of feet coupled with the unusually dry summer took a toll last year, and by the end of the day, the grass had been trampled and a lot of dirt had been kicked up into the air.

Here’s a list of things they’ve put in place to reduce the dust:

• Flooring will be used in all of the tents. This means that where all that dancing is going on, the grass will be protected and dirt won’t be kicked up.
• Dirt service roads will be covered with flooring. As our crew travels in golf carts and other vehicles to get from place to place around the perimeter of the festival grounds, there’ll be far less dirt stirred up.
• Making use of existing pavement for high traffic areas, including the area directly in front of the main stage. The main stage will be moved back this year in order to create more space. This will mean that a large area directly in front of the main stage will now be situated on pavement rather than grass. So when you “tear up the dancefloor” in front of the main stage, you’ll no longer be tearing up grass and kicking up dirt at the same time

They’ve also hired lawn specialists to consult with and work with Randall’s Island Park to improve on the maintenance of the field and to get it as healthy as possible before Electric Zoo.

Check out our coverage of last year’s Electric Zoo HERE, and stay tuned for more information and updates from us as the event draws closer!

You have roughly six hours left to purchase discounted Electric Zoo tickets at $107, and given the most recent additions to the line-up, you’d have to be out of town, out of cash, or out of your mind to miss New York City’s biggest annual music event.

While last year’s line-up was almost all house, this year, Made Event is expanding the festival to include more sectors of electronic music, adding dubstep, electro, experimental, and more. In addition to the previously announced headliners, Flying Lotus, Bassnectar, Boys Noize, A-Trak, Major Lazer, Rusko, Wolfgang Gartner, Diplo, Steve Aoki, Aeroplane and Afrojack are among those that will grace Randall’s Island with their musical touch this Labor Day Weekend. Keep checking the official website (and The HiFi Cartel, of course) for the latest updates on the line-up – and trust us, there is plenty more to come.

CLICK HERE to purchase your early bird passes, and don’t forget, the prices will go up TONIGHT at midnight. Check out photos of Day 1 and Day 2 of the inaugural Electric Zoo by Oliver Correa and Kenroy George, and check in with us later this summer for your chance to win tickets to this massive blow-out.

Last year, Made Event debuted the Electric Zoo, New York’s first electronic music festival, at Randall’s Island. The Electric Zoo will return this Labor Day weekend (September 4-5) with a line-up that includes Paul van Dyk, Benny Benassi, ATB, Above & Beyond, John Digweed and Fedde Le Grand. The Chemical Brothers and Armin van Buuren will headline.

Click here to purchase early bird tickets, which are just $107 for two-day passes. VIP upgrade options will be added soon.

Last March, attendees from 80 countries flocked to Miami for the annual Winter Music Conference. The legendary five-day event , which goes from March 23-27, will host some of the best parties of the year, informative panels with world-renown DJs, and of course, Ultra Music Festival.

The initial line-up for the music festival, taking place once more at Bicentennial Park, already includes A-Trak, Major Lazer, Steve Aoki, the Bloody Beetroots, and Pretty Lights. The added presence of Rusko, Skream, Bassnectar and Crookers is just another indication of how prolific dubstep has become in the music scene. Tiesto, Carl Cox, Dirty South, Rabbit in the Moon, Infected Mushroom, Deadmau5 and Armin Van Buuren were on the bill last year and will make repeat appearance in 2010.

A ticket to Ultra is included with the purchase of the Winter Music Conference badge, which is $325 if you purchase by January 6. On it’s own, a two-day pass to the festival costs $139.50.

Click through to view the complete list of the initial acts set to perform at Ultra, along with the official festival trailer. If the line-up wasn’t enough to get you psyched, check out photos from Ultra 2009 with Santigold, The Ting Tings, Armin van Buuren and Prodigy.

Stay tuned for our complete coverage of WMC – we’ll be posting info about the week’s best parties, panels, concerts, and more…

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Featuring UK superstar trance DJs Above & Beyond and the Dutch phenom Fedde Le Grand, the Halloween bash at the Roseland Ballroom was one to…wait for it… die for.  In celebration of the release of Above & Beyond’s latest compilation Anjunabeats Vol. 7 and Fedde Le Grand’s debut artist album Output, the event highlighted some world’s premier trance and progressive house, and if ever there were hollows amuck in closets or haunted houses needing much relief, Fedde Le Grande and Above & Beyond certainly know how to cure it.

Throw in a little bit of base, drums, lights,  costumes and you’ve got a temporary haven in New York City to deck the halls of Halloween. If this weren’t a monster mash in the least, then it was certainly fit for a graveyard brought to life with music. With renditions of “Put Your Hands Up for Detroit” for New York, and Prodigy’s “Breathe” over Simian’s “We Are your friends,” there were enough beats for headless horsemen to go on murderous frenzy jousts in a cemetery – yes, peculiar and sick! With beats dropping like they’re lit coal – too hot to handle with bare hands, Fedde Le Grand picks them up and sets them ablaze. This is his technique to work up the crowd – lighting them up and then igniting with a flair of beats and sounds to a technical conundrum – good DJs do this. With ease, they have the ability to take a hold of the crowd’s fate and enjoyment and play with it – swinging them like a pendulum as they go along.

Click through if you dare…

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE PHOTO GALLERY

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With all the options on Halloween, we were very satisfied with our choice to see Boys Noize at Santos Party House. It’s no surprise that the event sold out and was packed by the time we arrived. Boys Noize and Fixed residents JDH and Dave P brought quite the party, giving us 7 hours of pure, pulsating electro.

Santos was decked out with toilet paper to celebrate the occasion, and partygoers definitely got in the spirit of Halloween with their creative costumes. Standouts included The Bloody Beetroots, The Ghostbusters, complete with a Gatekeeper and Marshmallow Man, and Alex English donning a wig as Steve Aoki.

Boys Noize took the stage at around 1 AM, and because of the time change, got to spin for four hours, instead of just three. Set highlights included a remix of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean into an electro version of Chromeo’s “Night by Night”. In the spirit of the holiday, he also played the spoken break of “Thriller”, and “Ghostbusters” (which Dave P dropped the previous night when opening for Simian Mobile Disco).

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE PHOTO GALLERY

And be sure to check out photos from the other Halloween parties in NYC:

The HiFi Cartel: Above & Beyond/Fedde Le Grand at Roseland Ballroom
The Culture of Me: Gods & Heroes at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple (coming soon)
Nicky Digital: Fools Gold x Trouble & Bass Halloween

Planning your Halloween can be quite daunting – with so many great events to choose from, where do you begin? Fear not, The HiFi Cartel is here to help you narrow down your options. We’ve already told you about Above & Beyond at Roseland Ballroom, Danny Tenaglia at Pacha and Paco Osuna at Love. Here are some of the other happenings you might want to check out:

We’ll be at the FIXED Halloween Bash at Santos Party House, where German DJ sensation Boys Noize will be gracing the speakers with his signature funky electro. Fixed’s own JDH and Dave P will also be spinning. Boys Noize recently dropped a BBC Essential Mix, which you can check out here to gear up for this weekend’s festivities.

Fool’s Gold and Trouble & Bass are teaming up for what is sure to an epic night at Europa in Brooklyn. Kingdom, XXXChange and Nick Catchdubs from Fool’s Gold will face off against the Trouble & Bass Crew, Supra 1 and 77 Klash. Make sure you RSVP for reduced admission at the door.

After passport issues forced The Very Best to cancel their CMJ appearances, they will surely redeem themselves with a live performance at the Gods and Heroes Party presented by FlavorPill and MeanRed. The party will be held at a secret Brooklyn location. Tickets are well worth the $35 price tag, considering they include an open bar all night. 100% of the proceeds will go to Charity: Water to help bring clean drinking water to a school in Ethiopia.

The Park is also hosting quite the soiree, with a line-up that’s too long to list in its entirety. Headlined by Paul Sevigny, the event will also feature music by The Chainsmokers and B-Roc. Get advance tickets here, and be sure to arrive early to capitalize on the open bar from 9:00 – 10:30 PM.

Finally, Girls & Boys residents Gavin Royce and Stephen Pandolfi (a.k.a. Kids with Snakes) will spin at Dokebi’s Fourth Annual Halloween Party in Brooklyn, which promises to be “an excellent dark and sweaty dance experience”. If you love music but are short on cash, this is a great option since there’s no cover. As an added bonus, they’ll be serving Tacos to help you keep your energy going all night long. In preparation for the revelry, be sure to check out the Futureshock Mix Tape that Gavin Royce and Stephen Pandolfi did for Nicky Digital.

Halloween can be pretty hectic, so we highly recommend that you get advance tickets where available. And if you’re looking to get the party started early, Webster Hall has you covered, with a DJ Set by Justice on Thursday (with Jackson and Disko Dali) and live performances by Simian Mobile Disco and Phenomenal Handclap Band on Friday.

Rest up – it’s going to be a long weekend.

Check out the fliers for the events after the jump…

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This Halloween, there is no shortage of parties, and as HiFi Cartel readers, you can win tickets to three of the best events of the night:

Made Event is bringing Above & Beyond and Fedde Le Grand to Roseland Ballroom for what is sure to be a night of mayhem. The event also celebrates the release of Above & Beyond’s compilation album Anjunabeats Volume 7 and Fedde Le Grand’s debut artist album Output.

New York City native Danny Tenaglia will headline the annual Boo Yourself! Halloween extravaganza at Pacha NYC. Tenaglia will ignite Pacha with his “modern yet classic” grooves, putting a thrilling twist on his legendary “Be Yourself” weekly parties.

At Love, Barcelona’s own Paco Osuna will bring his breathtaking mixdowns to life with a special extended Halloween set. His newest EP, Lemon Juice, will be released on October 26th.

Find out how you can triple your chances of winning after the jump…

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