personally it's a shame that events are declining in numbers/folding etc but i reckon its all to do with the fact that too many nights were trying to do the same thing all at the same time. How many times i've seen the same djs booked to play night after night in the south west - even two bookings on the same night in some instances means that its not worth the distance travelling to see these names as they will be somehwere else soon enough anyway - if that makes sense.

in terms of productions, I am finding artists like Scot Project and Wavetraxx two producers who i would have gladly bought tonnes of material by, sounding the same now and running out of ideas. It's the same with other producers and i call it "flutlicht syndrome" as they were the worst ones for it where using the same samples/soundsets in each tune - despite the tunes sounding good got to the stage where they were nothing special anymore. The hardstyle producers are even worse at doing this in my opinionw hich is why hard trance is my preferred style of the two. This meant stale sounding music (Even though im a hardstylke fan as well). Producers like Digital Pressure, Jon Doe, Marco V, Andreas Kraemer and Marcos have however done blinding work this year and should be commended.

The point is there are too many nights at the same time playing the same music with the same DJ sometimess (within reason) and thats why the numbers are down. Music at the moment is amazing as some fresh ideas are coming and tracks still have that "f*ck yes I want 200 of these beauties" factor about htem :)

Louk