Who is Riel? (The guy who is co-throwing "Experience")

[ƒORM]

Riel founded undernet.* in 1994 after seeing the mess that Summer Love got into in ’94, using TicketMaster tickets. The money was not released to the promoter and everyone got screwed that year, it was then that he realized that the scene needed it’s own ticketing agency. He also had a vision of all the promoters collaborating more if there was better accountability with respect to “who was bringing in the crowds”.

undernet.*’s proprietary swipe card technology gives a much higher level of accountability to the promoters, their partners and the investors behind the scenes.

undernet.* has an 8 year history of assisting other promoters with negotiating spaces, obtaining insurance and dealing with city officials and the Police. Some of the venues we have secured in the past have included Robson Square, UBC Thunderbird Arena, The Woodwards Building, The Vogue Theatre, Kelowna Memorial Arena, the Plaza of Nations and we have the dubious honor of having “discovered” the Riverside Banquet Hall.

In addition to being an integral part of getting other peoples companies and parties through the legal maze of the city, insurance, work permits and other such “administrative” hurdles. Riel has also produced parties of his own. Early efforts such as GhostTown II, Epoch (NYE in the Woodwards Building), and XENO (First UBC party at ThunderBird arena), were followed by collaborations with Sweet, Exert, G-house, Eternal Empire and several others that have since passed by the wayside.

After a disastrous night on April first, when the Matrix (scheduled to be the first event at the PNE) had it’s permit pulled in the 11th hour, Riel decided to rethink his approach with the scene and solely produce his own events.

Riel recognized the city of Vancouver’s “Rave Bylaw” not as an attempt to legalize raves, something he and his lawyer wife Juliet had been fighting to achieve for years, but rather as a way to force them to go bankrupt. Limiting the venues to really expensive, unionized venues and forcing the promoters to hire more and more police, drained all the money out of the scene and caused many promoters to go out of business or loose interest in promoting in Vancouver.

Riel went back underground, doing smaller parties and afterhours including “The Amsterdam”, “The Victory” and “R-House” all regular parties that happened every Friday and Saturday for well over a year. All the while, Riel was perfecting his DJ skills and developing relationships with various local DJ’s.

Partially because he missed the bigger parties, and partially because he couldn’t stand to let “THE MAN” win the war, Riel came out of retirement to work on BridgePoint. For several years, Riel has been extolling the virtues of “the scene” having a permanent venue. One where we didn’t have to re-hang all the lights, sound, visuals… Where more time and money could be put into attracting bigger name talent, developing and marketing our own local talent and establishing better promotional networks.


This was achieved for a while by Lewis Neilson, Riel’s current partner in BridgePoint, while he ran the Plaza of Nations, until the city and the owners ganged up to get him out last February.

Only time will tell how this latest venture will end, but one thing is sure… Riel will always keep a few fingers in the scene. Whether it’s as a Promoter, Producer, DJ, innovator or as just another punter, Riel has been bitten by the Rave bug and we all know, once bitten – that’s it, there is no cure.

[dj4mula]

Wow, what a story. I hope Riel succeds in getting a new venue and possibly bringing back top acts to BC.

Much succcess Mr. Riel.

:Power-P:

[bob]

did u copy that out of a social studies textbook lex?
that story makes him sound like LOUIS RIEL... haha...


i never really knew who the guy was until like a year or 2 ago... i just went to his parties and whatever. clueless. frankly i didn't care, i still don't... obviously he's done a lot for the scene, undernet has been sending me crap e-mail since like 1996, well it stopped like a year ago i think, but i've been to a lot of their parties, and i must say they were all good parties... oh well, good luck to him with bridgepoint...


FREE THE METIS PEOPLE MR. RIEL!!!

[tribal_guy]

hats off to riel.

and louis riel.

[Sir_K]

Anyone have a contact for Riel?

[ƒORM]

thx

[D]

post the info. on the *cough*beer garden*cough*

heheh...