Ryan Gawn: Do you feel that the city's measures will deter
international DJs from coming down to Buenos Aires?
Pete Tong: Well, if it's empty tonight I'll be peeved. If it's busy,
then not really. They knew weeks before I got here and they still had
me here, so I expect a good night. Hopefully it'll pass, it's still
only four months ago, but it is a serious thing that happened and you
can't expect it to just blow over. Some venues have got to be made
safer, people have got to adjust the way they run the events, and
there are things to be done. What they're saying to me here is that
one of the ridiculous measures they're talking about concerns the
space available. I think that's going to be the biggest battleground
out of all of this. People are talking about the number of people
allowed per square metre of space. But the problem is that obviously
you can't have a club that in the old days could hold 3000, and now
can suddenly only hold 500 people.
Ryan Gawn: Talking about safety and security, what happened at Red Bull Mansion during this year's Miami Winter Music Conference?
Pete Tong: I think it's quite simple. What happened was that during
the build-up to the conference, a lot of people maybe got a little bit
overexcited and a bit greedy about renting out places for throwing
parties. I think that the people who were renting them out didn't have
the licenses to do what they said they're going to do. So what
happened with Red Bull Mansion was that they put a few parties on the
day before our party, and that flagged up a whole bunch of problems -
sound levels, time they were running, amount of people going there…
They had some very heavy-hitting residents around living in very
expensive apartments who had a lot of clout with the police, and so it
got shut down. So we never really got started. They were trying to
shut us down before we even opened. There's nothing you can do, it was
just the wrong venue and I feel sorry for Red Bull who paid a fortune
to pull it off. It's just one of those things - it all went Pete Tong!
Ryan Gawn: A lot of people commented that at Miami there was
excessive security, and that it had a negative impact on the
experience. Do you feel that Miami is going downhill, maybe the
novelty has worn off?
Pete Tong: I don't think you can say that. Given that it's now 20
years running. I actually thought this year was really good. I had
problems this year that were probably more dramatic than I can
remember from any time I've ever been there. Having said that, you
know, it happened at Spring Break, it happened at Easter, and that was
the city's choice and they wanted to do it like that. It's very rare
that they've done it like that, and that causes problems in itself, as
they put so many people in one place at one time. You'd think that
anybody really smart would think, we have this event that's going to
attract these people, an event that'll attract these people, we're
going to milk it, and put everybody on different weekends, and make
Miami spread over 6 weeks. What they did was try and put everybody
there at one time. To be honest, I think it's so successful,
everywhere was full, whatever party you put on was full. There's
usually so many parties that there's not enough people to go around,
so from a sheer attendance level, every single club I went to was
packed. Every single one - I didn't go anywhere where it wasn't busy.
But the side effect of that was that any of the legalized spaces were
completely inaccessible - they all got really full, so not everybody
could get in. The problems all came from the one-off places like the
Garden. The hotels were actually ok, I didn't hear of any problems
with the hotels. It was the mansions, the houses, the Versace house -
they were the ones getting all the hassle.
Ryan Gawn: Back to South America, any South American artists or DJs
that we should look out for?
Pete Tong: No, I'm hoping to discover some tomorrow. Marky and Hernan
are the big ones, but there's a few new guys that people are talking
about... …I'm very interested to hear Patife, as everyone's talking
about his sets.
Ryan Gawn: Expectations for tonight?
Pete Tong: They had to move the venue at the last minute, and I think
they've managed to move the entire sound system from Mint into Museum.
This is my first actual club gig, so I'll be peeved if it doesn't go
well. Should be good.
