Trader Joe\u2019s vs. Aldi rave<\/a> was announced for July 10.<\/p>\nBut to fully understand how we got here, we need to back up a little. Probably all the way to the Shrek raves (yes, you read that correctly) and actually, maybe even a little further back, to the underlying reason why the concept of a rave celebrating the cult followings of two grocery stores really isn\u2019t too over the top, especially for the mid-20s-through-late-30s demographic hitting up the various dance floors controlled by First Avenue Productions. Glance at First Ave\u2019s big calendar any given month, and you\u2019ll find raves and dance parties tied to nostalgic time periods or artists: There are the 2000s-era \u201crecession pop\u201d parties and the \u201cMiss Jackson If You\u2019re Nasty\u201d Janet Jackson dance night on July 17 and even dance nights connected to pop culture touchstones like HBO\u2019s closeted-hockey hit Heated Rivalry. And yes, there\u2019s one for everyone\u2019s favorite green Scottish ogre. All have proven to be the catnip for millennial ravers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing is, First Ave used to have dance nights all the time,\u201d Kranz reminds me. \u201cWhen I started in the \u201990s, there were five dance nights a week. People of a certain vintage will remember that even on weekends, the concerts got done at 10, and we turned things around to these themed disco nights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, First Ave uses dance parties strategically to fill open slots on the calendar and get creative with its audiences, marketing them with a little bit of FOMO induction and scarcity mindset\u2014attendees never really know when or if a theme will return. These hyper-niche themes really started taking off about four years ago, right around the time L.A.-based artist Jordan Craig, also known as Ka5sh, brought the first Shrek raves to L.A. and Brooklyn with massive success. Craig proved that attendees were more than willing to go along with the theme: They would wear green face paint and even style their hair into Lord Farquaad\u2013esque micro-fringed bobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first saw the Shrek rave on our calendar, I said, \u2018What the hell is that?\u2019\u201d Kranz admits. \u201cImagine my surprise when we sold it out.\u201d First Ave considers a sellout around 1,500 tickets; these dance nights often host upwards of 1,000. Sure, it might be a marketing gimmick, but it\u2019s a marketing gimmick that works, people!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you lean into a niche that\u2019s kind of weird and fun and quirky, it just brings out the best in people,\u201d says DJ Hampster Dance (government name: Jeff Atchison), the local DJ mastermind behind many of these themed nights, including the upcoming Trader Joe\u2019s vs. Aldi set. And he would know: \u201cWeird and fun and quirky\u201d is his raison d\u2019\u00eatre. In addition to DJing theme dance nights, Twins games, and other events, he built his massive social media following on his unexpected mash-ups (think \u201cThe Bare Necessities\u201d from The Jungle Book crossed with Afroman\u2019s \u201cCrazy Rap,\u201d or Wicked\u2019s \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d with The Killers\u2019 \u201cMr. Brightside\u201d).<\/p>\n
He got the gig essentially the same way the gig was born: right place, right time, right energy. When he hosted a 2010s night at First Ave on April 3, the team was already asking if he\u2019d host what will clearly be the party of the century. He was, to no one\u2019s surprise, immediately down for the admittedly nebulous grocery store rivalry concept.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing is, Aldi doesn\u2019t really play music, so I\u2019m still trying to figure that out,\u201d Atchison muses. \u201cBut the Trader Joe\u2019s vibe\u2014that\u2019s \u201980s and \u201990s, indie alts, but also some electronic, some Daft Punk. Very fluid.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s hoping that, in addition to raising a solid chunk of change for food shelves (part of ticket sales), attendees will go all out with costuming, like they do for other shows: the TJ\u2019s-employee-chic Hawaiian shirts and red oval name tags; bespoke reusable bag couture (the kind I\u2019ve been mentally envisioning for months!). He\u2019s hoping people use the TJ\u2019s vs. Aldi rave as a chance to be silly and weird, to have a little fun without taking any of it too seriously, to let inhibitions hit the (dairy aisle) floor. And the instigators at First Ave hope the same thing: for whimsical and unabashed fun, for creativity, for a positive return on the strangest proof of concept they\u2019ve had in ages. \u201cYou just can\u2019t let that kind of momentum go unchecked,\u201d Kranz says.<\/p>\n
Perhaps a Trader Joe\u2019s vs. Aldi rave is the happy accident we need right now. A reminder that sometimes, April fools like us just need to give in, don a Hawaiian shirt, and bust out the shopping cart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It started as a prank\u2014a flippant yet innocent April Fool\u2019s Day post on First Avenue\u2019s Instagram: Tickets for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21128],"tags":[21143,5096,40711,41,42,21144,5503],"class_list":["post-49240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aldi","tag-aldi","tag-concerts","tag-madison-bloomquist","tag-music","tag-news","tag-sud-nord","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}