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!

Ferry Corsten and John Dahlback kicked off Made Event and A|X Armani Exchange‘s new event series this past Saturday at the 2,100-capacity Nokia Theatre in Times Square. Featuring a massive expensive and expansive sets of lights, the group behind the Electric Zoo Music Festival created a stage that transformed Nokia Theater to a dance music getaway for a night. Poised to please party-goers with a concert-style production, the artists took advantage of the sound,  lighting, and visual effects put in place and shook a packed house with house and trance music.

While John Dahlback may be in his early twenties, the Swedish house music producer exudes experience. At the age of 25, it is easy for Dahlback to look young, but pressing away at knobs, the skills he has honed since starting his career at 16 (the same age Corsten released his first album) gives some of the best in the industry a run for their money. With a commanding body of work, Dahlback’s chart toppers has solidified him and his electro-house productions as a sensation – his most recent “Love Inside” featuring Andy P. Dahlback  played a variety  in a style that has garnered him respect from fans and  DJs alike who praise his countless tracks, remixes and appearances – this writer included. Sweating behind the decks, he pumped sounds that worked-up the audience and set the stage ablaze for Ferry Corsten.

Stepping onto the stage it was apparent that a star was in the house. Ferry Corsten, the Dutch producer and DJ, has the ability to pull audiences in the ten of thousands to his events – the Nokia Theater doesn’t have the capacity, but it was obvious the thousands who were there considered themselves lucky to be in the same room with one of the World’s top DJs and music producers. From screams to coo’s and an ovation at appearance, Ferry’s responded by taking advantage of the full audio-visual production. The lights flooded the room and exploded to the glee of the audience – as if it were the Fourth of July on a stage. With a bit of “je ne sais quoi” about his ways, Ferry makes the connection of music to elements of feelings that are accentuated in trance. As if he were talking to the audience with his choice of song, Ferry infused elements of trance like a ballad – almost as if he were executing a symphony and orchestrating a cinematic score.  From the stage, Ferry was a conductor at a podium illuminated in rays of light that rendered the stage to a floating deck with the DJs at a center of a cloud and haze of lights. The audience erupted in excitement and sang along like a choir when Ferry played “Silence is Loud” by Altitude. He was met with the same fervor when he  played his mix of “Catch” by Kosheen and his original tracks “Forever” and “Beautiful.”

If the first is of any indication of what is to follow, then we anticipate the series to be of experience and surprise  surmounted by a great venue with talent – right in the heart of New York City. Ferry Corsten set the mark – making it clear as he remarked “this is number one.” In any case, the DJs felt their audience, connected with them and delivered what they wanted and left them begging for more. Past four o’clock in the morning, the room was still packed – no one wanted to go home. So, what does a magician do when he’s already pulled many tricks from his sleeves and the audience begs for more? Ferry met the crowd’s demand with “Radio Crash.” But, of all the tracks he played, the song that exemplifies Ferry’s work and hit home for the audience was his original song “Made of Love” featuring Betsie Larkin – Check it out below.

For more on Ferry, tune in to his show on Sirius XM Radio, Corsten’s Countdown every Wednesday at 9pm ET. Upcoming spring dates in the new series at the Nokia Theater will feature, ATB, Eric Prydz and Sébastien Léger at the Rockwell Group-designed Nokia Theatre.

CHECK OUT photos from the illuminating night by Oliver Correa. Click through for a list of Made’s upcoming events and video for Ferry Corsten’s “Made of Love”

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Next Friday, Made Event and Armani Exchange will launch their new electronic music event series at the Nokia Theater in Times Square. Made Event’s Laura De Palma and Mike Bindra are raising the bar on the overall nightlife experience by providing “an authentic club vibe juxtaposed with first-rate big stage production values.”

The series will kick off on February 12 with Ferry Corsten. After seeing the Dutch master at work last summer at the Electric Zoo Festival, we weren’t surprised to learn that Corsten has spent almost a decade as one of DJ Magazine’s Top Ten DJs in the World. This spring, Corsten will launch a new compilation series, “Once Upon A Night”, with an accompanying concert experience.

The inaugural event will also feature music by Swedish electro house DJ John Dahlbäck. His imprint Pickadoll, has released music from some of today’s top DJs and producers, including Sébastien Léger, who will perform at the Nokia Theater next month.

The HiFi Cartel is giving away a pair of tickets to the show… enter the contest after the jump.

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