Best Party

BLOW UP – SAN FRANCISCO

SF usually exists as the ignored middle child to NYC’s elder status and LA’s youthful energy. But Blow Up SF has been making been making a racket worth listening to since it was hip to dance to Bloc Party and pretend to fall down drunk when facing a camera. Promoters Jeffrey Paradise and girlfriend Ava prove that the city by the bay has more to offer than hippies, junkies and rave girls in butterfly wings.

Runners Up

PORN AND CHICKEN

Any promoter will tell you that Monday is a tough day to fill up a room. So how do these Chicago promoters do it, moving from Risque Cafe to the large evilOlive and still not everyone can get in?

THE FREEDOM PARTY

In these days when photo blogs make most parties around the world seem like a homogenous hipster mash-up, leave it to some senior New York jocks to bring back the era when dancing all night felt like it meant something more than 21-year-olds  the dance floor.

Wrap it up with the year’s Best Festival