The Adriatic Sound Festival reveals a RÜFÜS DU SOL DJ set and details of the additional Hanger Stage for Fano, Italy alongside Armand Van Helden, Sven Väth, Green Velvet, Stephan Bodzin (Live), Nic Fanciulli, Avision, Franky Wah, among others within the two-day techno and house paradise on June 13th and 14th.
Adriatic Sound Festival Lineup [Phase 1]
Tickets
The visionary behind the festival, Luca Lewis, just retired from professional soccer playing for the New York Red Bulls and is on to share a premier class festival designed by blending Roman history with bold innovation along the Adriatic coast. To discover more about the festival we were pleased to get a moment of Luca’s time as he prepares for the inaugural Adriatic Sound Festival with his seasoned collaborative partners.
The first question the internet wants to know is how often do you think of the Roman Empire?
Luca: Pretty often. Probably everyday. I have to. I really studied it. I did a little bit when I was in school, but I didn’t really care for it until I saw Fano and I really understood the city of Fano and the connection between Ancient Rome and Fano, their capital on the Adriatic coast. There’s a reason why they picked Fano, the Romans knew what they were doing. They were so beyond their time. Like our slogan, “Beyond Time.”
That is why the city of Fano is where we’re doing the festival. So there is this arch in Fano called the Arch of Augustus, the portal into the Adriatic Sea from the Roman Empire, from Rome. Now we are basing a stage off that Roman arch where Augustus and Julius Caesar marched from Rome into the Adriatic coast.
Perfect. Well tomorrow is the Ides of March, so there is some significance to this day even. Is there somewhere we can read a little more about this history lesson?
Luca: Yeah I can send you something. Also, the Gladiator movie happened in this time frame of the festival date.
Okay, nice thanks! Luca went on to direct us to this article, Discover Fano: A Historical Gem in Marche, Italy. So where are you at with planning the festival this week?
Luca: We’re about to announce phase two of our headlining artists. So now I was on the call with our marketing team trying to figure out the right dates to announce it and we’re creating all this really cool material to post on social media and then of course speaking to Motif on the press and when to release everything. But yeah, we got a lot of big news next week. We’re gonna have a full lineup announced and one of our headlining artists announced a special guest.
Ok nice! So please tell us a little bit about the stage design.
Luca: Yeah, why we came up with this stage was because I always wanted to go to a festival where the artist was in the middle.
I hate being too far or I hate when everyone is on top of the DJ and like taking pictures and pushing the DJ around. So that’s something I have spoken to my DJ friends about that they hate too. So I was like, okay, let’s try to design something where the DJ is like the emperor of this new city. Like Ancient Rome.
We took reference of a bunch of different Roman structures like the Pantheon. So from a bird’s eye view our stage looks exactly like the Pantheon. We took that and then we took the Arch of Augustus, then we put it upside down to create the infinity sign. So that’s why it’s called the Infinity stage. So then all the people would be around the DJ in the middle. And then you have the DJs in this platform that also rotates slowly in a 360 turn.
How awesome.
Luca: Yeah. I was lucky enough to meet Zarya and Rick from STUFISH, the stage designers. They’re amazing.
I’m sure. How long have you guys been talking about this and how long do you think it’ll take to set up the whole stage?
Luca: Well, the whole project started this summer. This summer I still had my full time job playing soccer. And then we started on this idea. I met STUFISH in September, we announced the festival in October.
The build out is not too long. It’s like 10 days. But I’m sure that the fabricators will take a while to build it. It’s a 9 meter by 6 meter structure.
Okay, nice. Will it take a whole empire of people to set up?
Luca: Well, I was counting yesterday. I think all in, we’re probably at like 400 people between security, fabricators, lighting, food and beverage. Like four or five hundred people working in the festival. Which is nice. It’s something that I really like and the city stressed – to use a lot of local workers. So I’m happy that we are able to give back to them because they are allowing us to do this.
Yeah, that’s great. Let’s see… How was the process of finding each artist for the lineup like?
Luca: Yeah, so the hardest part was convincing them to play it at a “first-year” festival. I reached out to the artist management and they shut me down right away. They were asking me who’s your headliner? I was like “well I contacted you because I want you to be my headliner.” And they were like they couldn’t. It was so hard to get to break through to the first artist.
Our first artist was Sven Väth who believed in the project he saw. His manager took the time and reviewed it. I showed him all the stage designs and all that and he jumped on board and then everyone followed in a way because you know Sven Väth is an icon.
Some of them I personally liked a lot. Some of the artists that we picked I wasn’t so familiar with but I have other guys on our team who are even more invested than me into techno and house so they suggested various artists and we went that route too. But I think you’ll see our running order makes a lot of sense. It’s very difficult to pick and choose the artist in the running order because some artists don’t want to play before someone who may not have a similar musical tone.
Sure. So how many artists are going to be on the lineup at the end of the day?
Luca: 28. 28 main artists plus four more local acts. The 28 acts start at 2:30 in the afternoon and they go until 2:30 in the morning.
Great that runs pretty late. Are you guys gonna do any hotel takeovers or recommend any hotels to go to or after parties?
Luca: So we have hotels on our website that we’re affiliated with. We have our own pre parties which are gonna be announced soon. We’re doing one Thursday party that i’s gonna be very intimate. And there’s gonna be two. Its gonna be in this really, really cool church that caught on fire like 300, 400 years ago. The roof got blown off so it’s like an outdoor church.
It’s really, really cool. So we’re gonna do a party there and then there’s this renaissance fortress, a massive fortress. So those are the launch parties to the festival and then Sundays there’s beach parties and all of that.
Yeah, exactly. People are going to be inspired. Where are the beach parties going to be located?
Luca: All along the Riviera, the Adriatic coast, so from Pesaro to Fano to Ancona, there will be beach parties. We’re on the water, so you can walk to them.
Very nice. That’ll be fun. What are the best clubs or events in New York?
Luca: I really have a lot of respect for Teksupport here in New York and the events they do in Brooklyn, I usually go to those. Then they really created something unique at the Navy Yard. And this place called Hearsay is nice. They usually have all the better DJs.
Okay good word, who have you been going to see lately?
Luca: I saw Marco Carola a couple weeks ago. Then I saw Adam Beyer and also Guy Gerber recently.
Good choices, Guy Gerber, one of the better sets for sure. So what was the first thing to bring this festival from an idea into a reality?
Luca: Well, I was driving around where I grew up, right next to Fano, driving with my friend and we saw the airport and I was like, this would be perfect for a festival. It is so good for a festival here because the airport is gated in on the beach. Then he’s like, “oh, well, there is new Mayor coming into town, taking over, who’s more open to these kinds of ideas.” And then we presented the project and the Mayor of the city allowed us to do this. That was really big for us, that’s how it started.
Once we had the approval from the city we had to create a brand, find artists, and stage designers in like less than eight months even.
Okay, so how has the city been supporting the festival?
Luca: They’re kind of just helping us all around. They are very supportive and love the project
Okay, yeah I don’t want to get too much into the Italian politics… So let’s keep it light. What was one of your favorite moments while playing soccer? You know, one of those moments that will live with you forever.
I would say probably when I got called up to the U.S. national team. That and when I signed for the New York Red Bull. That was my first professional contract so that was probably one of the best moments.
Any championships that you remember or epic goal saves?
When I was under 18 we won the u18 Serie A Title. I was playing in Italy, it was in Torino, where we played Inter Milan. We were young, we were just 18 but we won the league. That was nice.
And then another game and I was playing in Cesena FC. It was the Derby against Reggiana. That was like probably 20,000 people sold out. I was like this is crazy. Smoke in the air. It’s a pretty cool game. We lost, but it was a cool game.
Haha heck yeahh! Okay, so how can people get involved?
Luca: We actually have a fill out form on our website for whatever you may want to do for the festival. We got hundreds of requests from food trucks to volunteer to work at the festival. So that was nice. We have I believe eight specialty food trucks. Not really food trucks, they are restaurants from Fano. They’re going to be in a food truck set up.
Are you gonna bring your new Piadas from your new restaurant Casa Piada, in NYC?
Luca: Well, funny enough we import the bread from Fano. Our bakery is actually about 1 km from the festival. So we’re going to have a stand at the festival.
Nice! Okay people reading this, let’s show some love by fist pumping those Piadas all weekend long! Alright so as the final word, what’s one track you would like to send people off on their day with?
I would say ‘Kiss From A Rose’ by Green Velvet and Marco Lys
