all photos by the hardworking and very talented BYT photo team consisting of: Jeff Martin, Franz Mahr, Kevin Hulse, Nick Balleza, Stephanie Breijo, Ben Droz and Mukul Ranjan
AS ALWAYS-we just want to say our thanks:
- to our awesome bands and the awesome covers their picked (The Dance Party, Shark Week, Beyond Modern, Sunwolf, META, Silver Liners, Plural Nouns, Dance for the Dying, The State Department anchored supergroup and Hiding Places)
- to our awesome DJs (JD Samson, Geologist and Avey Tare from Animal Collective, ANR, DJ Stylus, MetaPhysical, Lightwaves…)
- to Katie Balloons for keeping us festive for years now
- to DC Night Lights for all the pretty lights and lasers and more
- to all of you for coming and staying
- to All Things Go and FOTOweek for partnering with us on this
- and to 2012 for happening
we’ll kick off with some snaps by Kevin:
more by JEFF:
more technicolor magic by Franz
more snaps by Ben:
more by Nick:
a handful of memories by Blink:
and last but certainly not least, some by Stephanie:
PHEW.
This party was awesome. But next time please keep out people who complain on the internet because they apparently don’t know how to pregame, or how to get there on time, or can’t ask for more than one drink, or who can’t just enjoy themselves without a drink in their hand. I for one was able to get tons of drinks, especially between 8:30 and 10, and later too. And I had a ton of fun. Like everyone in this photo spread.
I have to agree with the other comments about this party not being worth it. It looks like so much more fun in the pictures.
Let me do a more thoroughly review:
1) Lines for drinks: Around 10 PM I stood in line literally for 45 minutes to get a drink. It might have been a little more than that, but I’m sure it was at least 45 minutes. It’s a New Year party, and people were standing sober in line for 45 minutes. And it was a wide long line, it’s not that it was a short line but the servers were slow.
Because of this, a lot of the areas in the party were pretty much empty, as I would say more than half the people were in line for a drink (or the bathroom, more about that below).
One more thing about this. People were leaving with 4 drinks each. I don’t blame them, if you stand in line for 45 minutes, and leave with a small glass of liquor or beer, you feel like you will have to drink it in line for the next. But in turn this makes everything slower. The bartenders should have been on top of this and limit the number of drinks someone could order as to avoid this problem.
2) Lines for bathrooms: For the number of people there, and for being an open bar party, there were way too few bathrooms. Ok, so this was a Borders store (not a bathroom intensive place), and I guess they were not going to build bathrooms just for one night, but this should have been taken into account when selecting the venue.
The lines for the bathroom were pretty insane, and I think the only reason they were not worse with people peeing all over the place was because it wasn’t that easy to get a drink (see 1).
3) Midnight: Ok, so we are in a New Year party, and it’s 11:55. You gather all your people around for the toss. Midnight strikes. Nothing at all happened… nothing. Sure, people got a little louder as they were yelling and saying happy new year, but the party continued as if nothing had happened. The music just kept playing the same song, lights were the same. No countdown, no announcement, no lights, nothing.
This is subjective, and maybe it’s me, but I was expecting something.
4) People leaving soon after midnight: I can’t blame the organizers on this one (or maybe yes). It might have been that people had other plans after midnight, or people were sick of waiting in line forever for a drink, or people really needed to pee… or a combination of those, but for some reason the party kind of emptied soon after midnight.
All in all, definitely not worth the money, and not worth the only New Years Eve we get in the year.
it looks like so much fun in the pictures! I just wish I hadn’t paid $70 for one drink and lots of time standing in line. I’ll stick to pictures of BYT events instead of actually going to them.
So when are we getting refunds from this terrible party? AKA long lines for warm beer, no restrooms, crazy ass bouncers. #WorstPartyEver
Wow, I am glad that someone finally had a good comment about the party because I know that all my friends and I had an absolutely FANTASTIC time! These complainers must have never been out on NYE, especially to a concert-type party, because it’s always crowded and there are always lines. At least you didn’t buy a ticket and then have to buy drinks too! However, the bar lines weren’t bad after the initial surge of everyone arriving and everyone I saw had at least two drinks in their hands. By midnight everyone was partying hard and having a ball. It’s too bad you’re only hearing from the debbie downers but it was a raging good time, great job BYT!
I had a pretty good time. I will say the lines were long, but I think it’s because EVERYONE came in at around 10 and pretty much rushed to the bar to play catch up. Also, you can’t only blame the organizers because, on multiple occasions, I saw people ordering rounds of shots and taking them AT the bar and THEN ordering their 4 drinks each. The lines after midnight weren’t bad at all! The countdown thing did throw me off a little bit, only because everyone around me was looking at their phone trying to guess when midnight was going to hit. The lady in the balloon BLEW.MY.MIND! All in all, a solid party. People just don’t realize that you can’t go to a crowded event and expect a drink in 5 minutes. http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/35nkcm/
Like the first posters said an well documented by JPL, not worth the $70 in the slightest.