Summer is here and our sun-kissed surroundings scream to be transformed into sexy dance floors. What we need are sensual cocktails, enticing beats and Thiago Kanan, the man behind the Kinky Disco parties, to organise the whole thing. The season has just started , so we got Kanan to explain how he has managed to satisfy so many Kinky Disco lovers over the past six years and what surprises await us for this year’s series of Kinky Disco – Summer Adventures 2012.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you started to organise events?

My father is a professional jazz drummer, so I grew up playing drums and guitar and by 1997 I had a band. We were playing punk rock and hardcore music. Electronic music came by the end of 1997 – while traveling in Miami I was introduced to breaks and house music. At home besides playing with the band,

I was taking my PC everywhere playing this ‘weird’ 4 x 4 music, unknown to everyone that surrounded me, with a Winamp and a mouse.

In 2002 I moved to London where I touched a real mixer for the first time and had my first paid gig in a club. In 2003 I met Enrico and Ross from the Antiworld Events. At first I asked for a gig, but I ended up distributing flyers all over London. From being a flyer distributor to main promoter and resident DJ, I believe that I learnt the art and tricks of promoting with these guys – they were sharp! In 2004, myself and two other partners started our own events company called Digital Hive. At our second event we gathered 1 500 people. In 2006 I decided to create something new, something more daylight, something fresh. Kinky Disco was born and we’ve been operating since then.

What was your initial motivation behind the Kinky Disco events?

We promoted an event in an old abandoned library in South London. The main room was huge, the ceiling was very high and made out of glass. Sunday morning the sun rose and shone inside the venue, it was a different environment for a dance floor, taking into consideration that for the majority of the time people in London spent their weekend dancing in dark rooms. You could see in everyone’s faces that everyone was cheering up merely because

they could see the sky from the dance floor and there was natural light.

A good friend of mine approached me and said ’I wish we had more venues like this man’. I heard the ’ding’ and saw an imaginary light bulb on the top of my head. Since then I decided to take my dance floors outdoors.

Six years since the first Kinky Disco party – looking back, what have been some of your favourite memories?

A good memory was at the first Kinky Disco rooftop party of last year’s season. By the end of the event (2am) the dance floor was at its best – just like it was six hours before. But our time was over and we had to cut the music off.

The crowd went mental, nobody wanted to leave the dance floor – it was crazy.

And the next moment everyone on the dance floor was singing songs. It was a funny moment because you could feel the high vibrations and it took us about two hours to exit 400 people out of the venue.

Being involved in throwing parties for this long – do you think there are other organisations that are following the Kinky Disco concept nowadays? If so, how do you feel about this?

Sure there are. I feel honoured. It’s great to know that my vision and concept is tight to the point to influence other promoters. As long as newcomer promoters don’t see each other as competitors, but as work mates and walk in the same direction, only great things can come out of it. In the end we are all doing the same thing, we must all look after our guests in the best way possible and keep everybody together.

What is going to make this summer’s Kinky Disco events special?

Great music, great locations and a musically educated crowd. This is a sublime combination and we are very fortunate to have that. Besides that, we want to create a sort of ‘entertainment centre’ whenever possible, where guests have the option to walk onto the dance floor and party, or enjoy external activities like the pool, volley ball, football, slip ‘n’ slide, art and a clothing exhibition by local designers among a few other surprises that we want to keep as a secret for now.

What is the worst thing that could happen when organising an event like that?
Rain.

Tell us what the most important thing is when it comes to choosing the artists to perform at the Kinky Disco events?

It all comes down to music quality. We create a musical journey that starts at 90 BPM and gradually finishes at 120 BPM, in between you can expect down tempo, minimal, electronica, deep house, tech-house and some other weird stuff that you have to hear to understand.

It’s like choosing the right pilots to fly an aircraft.

It sometimes takes me three or four days to plan a line-up.

Is it important to have international acts?

It is and it is not. From the point of view of a promoter, it’s always nice to offer something new. It’s great to have internationals down here broadcasting fresh music, influencing local DJs and party people. However, I’ve seen well respected artists coming down and delivering a terrible performance, where a local DJ could have done way better.

Have you been to the European summer daylight parties? How do they compare to the SA ones?
I’ve spent seven years in Europe so I’ve been to quite a few. The big difference is: everything in Europe is much more affordable, especially technology. With a small budget you can have an amazing set-up and with a big budget you can create a mind blowing city. Another point is,

you can fly artists pretty much all over Europe for under R 1000 and because the market for big names is a bit saturated up there, their set fees are very different than here.

To sum it up: in Europe you can have a high-end production with more super-star DJs on the line-up with the same amount of guests that would attend an SA event. But we are getting there.

Is there a philosophy or mindset that you would want party-goers to take away from the Kinky Disco parties?
Yes… go wild!

Kinky Disco parties go on for 12 hours so you might not be too worried about this – but I’m going to ask anyway – how do you feel about the South African law being so strict about closing clubs/parties at 4 or even 2am? Why can’t we have after-hour clubs like in Berlin, for example?

Good question. Why can’t we? I don’t believe stopping alcohol consumption at 2am or 4am will change the statistics of violence in this country. I’d spend more time and money to find a real solution to fight against real criminals and let people party a bit longer.

The kinkiest experience you’ve ever had is… ?

Hahaha. I take it you’re talking about events… still…. my answer might be inappropriate for an online magazine.

What’s on your summer playlist for 2012?

Lot’s of stuff. At home it ranges from Sublime to Massive Attack.
At the party it would be from Kompakt Records to No.19 or Hypercolour.

When are your next events?
November 10th – Kinky Disco feat. Phonokemi (Berlin) and December 1st – Kinky Disco feat. Jennifer Cardini (France).

Lastly, how exactly does one ‘Take Fun Seriously’?
When you wake up on Monday regretting everything that you have done over the weekend. (laughs)
Hence a Facebook status of a guest and good friend of ours:

‘’ Looking forward to act like a normal human being on the dancefloor, talking sense instead of playing out a victory scene from the movie Brave Heart… was fun though…’’ – Warren Bokwe