The ‘Dark’ Side: How to lure your friends & family into loving Hard Dance music!

When you’re absolutely hooked on Hard Dance music, it’s easy for your friends and family outside of the movement to find little to no understanding for your biggest infatuation. They probably won’t be able to grasp why you’re more excited for Defqon.1 than your own birthday, why your entire music collection is over 150BPM, or why you are anxiously sitting at your computer waiting for the Qlimax line-up to drop and sporadically yelling “FUCK YEAH” when your favourite artist is announced. Your friends may be the ones sitting beside you as you blast Hardcore boisterously whilst driving and simultaneously co-ordinating dance moves or your parents may be the ones to yell “TURN IT DOWN” as you blast music from your room (mine do it all the time).

Believe it or not, but at some stage of our lives we were without hard music too and if it weren’t for whoever introduced it to you, then you’d probably still be fist pumping along with Martin Garrix’s groupies to big-room House.

Think for a minute; it’s solely YOUR responsibility to spread the sound and lure in friends and family over to the dark side… But how…? How do you transform a non-hard dance listener to a full-blown fanatic? We’ve taken a look at some of the most effective methods (yep, they’re tried and tested) to get your friends and family hooked on 150BPM and above!

Get them started on the more ‘easy-going’ stuff

It’s important to take baby steps when introducing a friend or family member to hard dance music and starting them off at 300BPM Speedcore ain’t the way to do it!

I propose to lure your subjects in with melodic and easy-going music, such as Early Hardstyle or Euphoric Hardstyle. Once they’ve become comfortable with the high tempo and intensity, you can probably move them up to listening to some UK Hardcore!

For those with the sole mission to make their parents Radical Redemption’s biggest fan, it’s not going to happen overnight, so the only thing I can suggest is to slowly introduce them to accessible raw Hardstyle tracks or remixes of House tracks before moving them onto the heavy shit!

One act I can highly recommend is Da Tweekaz; their music is super catchy, melodic and they also have remixed a lot of well-known tracks outside of Hardstyle. If your test subject can’t get into their music, then well, you’re doomed!

Take them out partying! 

This mission was accomplished when I brought one of my best friends Rachel to Q-BASE with me and guess what?! We captured it all on camera as part of our ‘Into The Wild’ concept! Yep, we broke my friends rave virginity at one of the most intense raves and we showed her all there is to know about Hardstyle and Hardcore and she loved it! A little hesitant at first with a lot of misconceptions in her mind, once Rachel met the crazy partygoers and experienced the good vibes she was sold!

Your friends or family may have misconceptions about Hard Dance music and the atmosphere of the events; they may think that hard and aggressive music equals aggressive and unfriendly people, thus making them hesitant to attend a festival. It’s important to let them see and be surprised for themselves but the event that you choose to take them to will play a huge role in their judgements.

I recommend taking your ‘test subject’ to a festival that not only has Hard Dance music, but other styles too, so they can take a break and also compare the vibe between the stages. Great festivals for first-timers are Mysteryland, Intents Festival, WiSH Outdoor, Dance Valley, Electric Love Festival, Emporium and Dreamfields!

Education is key!

They say that with the right education, any soul can flourish and this is no exception to the rule when it comes to Hard Dance music. As I mentioned earlier, many of your friends and family will have misconceptions about the music, the people who listen to it and the general atmosphere at events, so it’s important to bust these myths through educating them with the facts!

Show them first-hand what it’s like at a festival, show them photos of the stages or educate them about the many, many sub-genres. Soon enough they’ll be able to pick out which artists and sounds they like most.

Another thing you should educate them on is the history of hard dance, how the different genres arose and of course, some of the most classic event concepts and the stories around them.

Show them aftermovies from various events

One thing I can’t help but notice is that aftermovies and live-streams from festivals and indoor events are filled with vibrant partygoers who are genuinely having an amazing time! As opposed to a basic EDM event, hard dance festivals have intricate stage designs, are heavily based on a theme and also boast sensational light and pyrotechnic shows.

By showing your family and friends these aftermovies it allows them to step into the world, see that it’s light-hearted and fun and will give them a good taste of what they can expect when they visit an event themselves!

Play it during road trips

Listening to Hard Dance music in the car can actually be quite soothing, unless you’re blasting Drokz in a traffic jam – that shit is more appropriate when you’re flying down the highway! Regardless, there’s plenty of great music that you can throw on in the background whilst driving and eventually your friends and family will get so used to it that they will actually recognise the tracks!

To make things better, this method has been tried and tested! I constantly played Hardstyle in the car with my best friend who’s a non-hardstyle listener and in a matter of months she actually began somewhat enjoying it! Letting an album or podcast run through is probably the easiest and most effective way to get your friends hooked or you can also compose a bangin’ playlist for car-time!

Have a story about how you introduced your friends or family to Hard Dance music and watched them fall in love with it? Let us know in the comments below!