Finally finished writing this. It’s pretty much what my life was for the past 3.5 years! So here it is:
Who are Josh and Friends?
Josh and Friends is a dance music event business which promotes and produces dance music events in Sydney.
The Josh and Friends group also operates a free community Web2.0 enabled website www.joshandfriends.com.au .
The History
* please note that attendance figures are based on door takes at the end of the night.
2003- The Dawn
Josh and Friends was originally born as a small party for Joshua van Aalst and his friends (James Deucker and Selina Combs), where they could DJ and produce their own event.
The initial party was called A Night At The Palace and was held on the 22nd of August 2003 at the Palace hotel (corner of Flinders and South Dowling St’s Surry Hills). The party was a wonderful success with over 100 people turning out to enjoy the music and dance. A friendly vibe with freebies handed out throughout the night, a mailing list also was collected.
Following the success of the first party a second event was held at the Palace Hotel in conjunction with Scott Richardson from Trance Tribe. The then owner of the Palace Hotel notified that the venue was to be sold to Pubboy management and no more events could be guaranteed.
Not wanting the journey to end and still heavily focused on DJ’ing, Joshua van Aalst contacted one of Sydney’s longest running (9 years) underground venues, The Icebox (now Saphire Suite at Keller St Kings Cross). The owner Charlie Sailor was quick to respond and invited the event to his club.
The event; A Night At The Icebox was the first Josh and Friends event to be widely promoted both in collaboration with Trance Tribe and also via a street poster run.
The first A Night At The Icebox on the 3rd of December 2003 was a massive success with almost 300 in attendance. The feedback on the underground internet sites (Tranceaddict, Trance Tribe and In The Mix) was nothing but praise.
This began the first of a series of monthly parties at the Icebox nightclub.
2004
In early 2004 it was already evident that Uplifting Trance was in a massive slum in Sydney with major events Transmission and Sydney’s 2nd biggest club Gas nightclub cutting it from the bill.
In March looking towards a future for the little event business and attempting to fill the void of Uplifting Trance, Joshua van Aalst changed the name of the event to A Night Of Trance. This name was to become one of the biggest (in attendance) names in Trance music in Sydney.
The March event featuring old skool DJs Diggs n Morro was the most successful event at the Icebox with over 400 people crammed into the venue.
Following the March event The Icebox had double booked for April! So Joshua van Aalst contacted the new and much bigger Suzie Q’s nightclub (now Havanna Club on Oxford St). Ben Cooper agreed to host the event at his club. The club had 2 dance floors and a capacity of 600+. Significantly larger than any previous venue that Josh and Friends had done before. This was the first Josh and Friends event to involve a marketing campaign of street press, pole posters and flyers.
The event was another huge success with over 450 in attendance. Although this does not seem a big jump on the previous Icebox events it must be noted that the Icebox received approximately 100 patrons walking in off the street per night. Suzie Q’s at that time received no walk in patrons.
Following this event Josh and Friends were unable to book in another date at Suzie Q’s nightclub.
Looking to up the anti yet again, Joshua van Aalst contacted personal favorite, Sydney venue ARQ Nightclub (16 Flinders St, Taylor Square). ARQ was a 900+ capacity super club with 2 massive dance floors and a moving lighting rig. ARQ was known as a gay and lesbian venue.
In what was to be a stroke of luck ARQ phoned back. They were having difficulty with their Friday night and invited Joshua van Aalst to trial a once off straight event.
Although the May 2004 A Night Of Trance was not a huge success mainly due to Rush (another uplifting Trance event) being held at Icebox on the same night and also the straight clubbers lack of knowledge of the ARQ venue, the ARQ office invited the Josh and Friends group back in July 2004 to put on another event.
This time with the clubbers new knowledge of the venue the event was a massive success drawing 700 clubbers.
Following the widespread success (attendance and word of mouth) of the July event Joshua van Aalst formerly registered the business name Josh and Friends and trademarked the logo, with the possibility of one day running the Josh and Friends business as a full time profession.
The next event to be held at ARQ nightclub was A Night Of Trance 1st birthday which saw 800 clubbers rammed into ARQ for a night of top quality uplifting music from the likes of DJs Scott Richardson, Cameron O’Shea, Joshua van Aalst and Marishka.
After the 1st Birthday came the 5am vs A Night of Trance event and the A Night Of Trance feat. Mark Dynamix event.
At the end of 2004 Joshua van Aalst got together with his friend Tennille Scicluna (ex Icebox nightclub) and opened the weekly Thursday night hard dance event WanteD at the Phoenix bar. WanteD and the Phoenix bar venue were instant successes and the event saw 200+ patrons entertained till 6am every Thursday night / Friday morning.
2005 – The Dark Age
2005 was a dark time in the history of Josh and Friends. In early 2005 a split occurred between the Josh and Friends event group, their clubbers and the Trance Tribe website and its loyal followers. This division was to have resounding effects on the A Night Of Trance events and also the image of Josh and Friends.
Following the above split Joshua van Aalst quickly launched the www.joshandfriends.com.au website to give the Josh and Friends clubbers an online community of their own.
March 2005 saw the massive A Night Of Trance @ Space nightclub featuring The Thrillseekers (UK). A personal favourite event of Joshua van Aalst’s the event featured a mammoth laser display with multiple bounce mirrors.
Mid 2005 saw the My Event Rules competition kick off with some amazing events including Dean’s Garage and Blacklisted. Ultra the first Josh and Friends all age’s event was also launched during this time.
During this period WanteD was also on the move, from Phoenix to Rogues (now The Gaff) and then to T2 nightclub on Taylor Square.
The end of 2005 was a busy time for the Josh and Friends group which now included Tennille Scicluna as a full time event organizer. A Night Of Trance moved back to the popular ARQ nightclub, a national CD was launched (A Night Of Trance – Karvan n Condivi), an updated www.joshandfriends.com.au website launched with cms (content management system) features, a spin off website launched www.gayscene.com.au and WanteD re-launch at the Pavilion Hotel.
2006 – The Golden Age
2006 was without a doubt the Golden Age for what was now known as the www.joshandfriends.com.au group (The display name was changed to the website to better promote the community). It was the year of multiple 1000+ events.
The mega Ultra 1st birthday kick started the year at the Metro on George St and was a massive success with 1,200 ravers enjoying the supurb DJ Warehouse sponsored lighting setup and the free arcade games that were placed throughout the Metro’s entrance.
The biggest event however for 2006 was in August when the Josh and Friends group took over running Saturday night at the 2nd biggest nightclub in Sydney: Gas Nightclub and the Bohem Lounge (licensed capacity 1,350 patrons).
With a fresh approach that focused on local and national talents and brands, Joshua van Aalst and Tennille Scicluna breathed new life into the venue and attendance grew from an average of 600 to a full house of 1000+ capacity by 1am! Major successful events during this time included Gas’s 7th birthday (feat. DJ Dean) and Cosmic Destination vs Groovinc.
During this period Gavin Cook (Gavin Dee) jumped on board as a full time Graphic Artist and Event Manager of WanteD.
The 2nd half of 2006 saw Gas close due to ownership issues but the Josh and Friends group remained strong with a string of very successful events at ARQ including Cosmic Destination vs Grooveinc the final lap in December and the launch of the 2nd national CD A Night Of Trance – The Anthems by Yoshi, which featured local Australian produced anthems from the likes of Nathan M, Jody 6 and E-Tek.
2007 – The present
2007 so far has been marked by two major events in the Josh and Friends calendar the first of which was the A Night Of Trance Summer Festival. To grow the Josh and Friends business festival size events would have to be produced. A Night Of Trance – The Summer Festival was therefore launched in Febuary. The event was at a massive 2,500 capacity venue the Roundhouse (UNSW). The event featured major Trance internationals Rank 1, Matt Darey and Steve Hill and every Trance local DJ. The event also featured sponsorship from Auslase which saw a mammoth laser install. The event itself was a massive success.
The 2nd important event of 2007 for www.joshandfriends.com.au was the launch of the new cutting edge Web 2.0 enabled website. The new website is a technical marvel and took over 7 months in development from top web developers from Sun Java, IBM and Switch Networks.
The Future
So what does the future hold?
At this point the future is without a doubt to grow the new website into a major dance music source for all, a source that the whole underground dance music scene can benefit from and one which was unavailable when Joshua van Aalst launched his first event in 2003.
There have also been some talks of an A Night Of Trance event later in 2007.
