Atlantis Vertigo Rave

Atlantis Vertigo Rave
*The Atlantis Vertigo Rave took place on the top of the CN Tower, Toronto Ontario, Canada, October 23, 1993. It was sponsored by a rave promotions team called Atlantis that began in 1992 as a rave promotions group called Nitrous in the city of Toronto.
*The history of rave in the United States and Canada is somewhat sketchy, as many people are now just beginning to find articles on the internet related to the time frame and the internet was still a very new phenomenon in colleges. People were somewhat still disconnected from it in every day life. Those that understood how to organize information and move music around the world via computer had something of an advantage during the 1990s, and techno emerged so quickly as a new music that it literally transported from its origins in Detroit, to Europe, and back into popularity through Canada in the early 1990s.
*House parties in history actually date back as far as the Beat Generation writings, and some even earlier. The house parties of Detroit, New York, London, and Toronto, however brought music, people, dancing, drugs, technology, and creativity into whole new places, spaces, fields, and city streets. Word spread fast of raves evolving and by the mid 1990s, there were events numbering 30,000 people or more, one example is Love Parade.
*As a first hand witness to the raves of Toronto nightlife between 1992 and 1993, they all held one thing in common. World class music that couldn't be heard anywhere else. The DJs shopped and purchased records with new materials so quickly, that it was hard to go from weekend to weekend without hearing a new anthem that would leave an indelible impression. CD anthologies of rave music began to appear on record shelves with Various Artists listed because the artists were producing so much new music so quickly, and using multiple names to identify themselves, that it was difficult to keep track of who was writing what. As a consumer, I purchased more than a few of them.
*The Atlantis Vertigo Rave amounted to around 3,000 persons in the city of Toronto, at one time or another during the event, taking the elevator to the top of the CN Tower. At the top, around the observation deck, was the most sophisticated layout of speakers I had ever seen. And the DJs did not turn the volume down for a second. It was as loud as the raves in the warehouses of many of the events I had attended previously, if not louder because of the finite space.
*Today I found an article regarding some of the early discussions about raves in the media archives of a website that was popular in 1998 called Hyperreal. For those interested in early Toronto rave culture please read here. It led me to create this article to document a piece of what is often forgotten history. Please edit and augment this article with any other scraps you can find related to this particular event.
Citations:
*http://media.hyperreal.org/library/articles/globe.canada.oct9.1993
**The Toronto Globe and Mail Article regarding Atlantis rave organization planning in Toronto including an email sent from a techno mailing list at Stanford 2 days prior to the event.
*http://poetry.wikia.com/wiki/Atlantis_Vertigo
**A first hand account of the event as published in the poetry anthology American Mohawk: Collected Poems reprinted for free reading in Wikia Poetry.
*http://www.beats.to/images/flyers/161093-atlantis-cn-tower.jpg
**A flyer found from the initial announcement of the rave. The actual rave date is incorrect on the flyer to the best of my knowledge. The event was one week later.
*http://cydonian.com/sigmaforum/uploads/post-10-1075701256.jpg
**A document resting in a forum discovered with a simple google search. Another early announcement of the event. See discussion threads in the next link.
*http://cydonian.com/sigmaforum/index.php?showtopic=81
**A discussion forum about the Atlantis Vertigo event.

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