To: Hilda L. Solis, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Sheila Kuehl, Don Knabe, Michael D. Antonovich, and L.A. County Channel
Keep Raves in L.A. County!
We believe "raves" offer positive benefits to society, encouraging creativity, providing jobs to local artists and cultivating the values of empathy, peace and unity amongst event attendees who then carry those values back into our local communities. We believe working with the Electronic Music Alliance, L.A. can help make these events the most positive experience by using our expertise and best practices to develop better ways to protect and encourage responsible behavior amongst patrons
Why is this important?
In two weeks the L.A. County Board of Supervisors will meet to discuss a possible moratorium or ban on electronic dance music events, for which they are using the term "raves". L.A. Banning raves does not fix the problem as the events will move elsewhere with possibly less stringent guidelines. We should keep the events, which house both cultural and economic benefits to L.A., within our own county and not jeopardize jobs or condemn county residents who patronize these events to further safety risks by making them drive outside of our county.
L.A. City and County has some of the strictest guidelines for event production and has the opportunity to take the lead on a holistic approach to event safety. We, the Electronic Music Alliance (EMA), welcome the participation of our city and county agencies and officials in the development of festival standards EMA has been working on for the past 6 months specific to "raves". EMA is happy to work with L.A. City and County to share expertise and best practices.
EMA is a non-profit and global membership alliance of dance music fans, artists and industry idealists encouraging our community to be the "Sound of Change."
We organize around issues important to the community like health, safety, greening and giving back to our local communities through charitable works.
Save Our Raves --Keep Raves in L.A.
Thank you.