The bass carries for miles across flat ground, especially in winter when sound travels further through cold air. The abandoned grain elevator outside Salina, Kansas, has hosted electronic music events since at least 2018, according to posts in regional Facebook groups and Reddit threads.
Similar gatherings happen in empty barns near Williston, North Dakota, where the oil boom left behind infrastructure but fewer people, and in fields outside Brandon, Manitoba, where the distance from Winnipeg provides both isolation and accessibility. These events operate in legal gray zones, organized through encrypted messaging apps and word of mouth, drawing crowds that understand how to find parties that don’t want to be found.
The demographic surprises outsiders who associate electronic music with urban centers. At a documented 2023 event near Fargo, local news reported attendees included farmers’ children, oil field workers, university students from regional colleges, and Indigenous youth from nearby reservations.
The organizers, when they can be identified at all, often grew up in these communities. They learned production software through online tutorials, built speaker systems in high school agriculture shops originally intended for welding projects, and understand the acoustics of metal grain bins and wooden barn structures.
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