INTRO 2012: A Festival Guide Plus Win Tickets

Whatever plans you have for Saturday, May 26, cancel them. Beijing's biggest and best electronic festival, INTRO, is back! (Just a few days ago, in our recent Reader Bar & Club Awards, INTRO 2011 won Best Party of the Year.) This year's event has been shortened to a single day but the expectations are bigger than ever. Acupuncture Records has assembled more than 40 artists to make Beijing's electronica aficionados dance for the entire sun-kissed afternoon. We've got tickets to give away but before that, here's everything you ever wanted to know about INTRO 2012.

Here’s a list of practical info, plus some other essential suggestions to enjoy the party.

Tickets
Take advantage of the second-round pre-sale tickets available for RMB 200. Check online on Damai.com, Sendmetickets.com and Mosh.cn and at various venues including Migas, Fubar, Yugong Yishan, Temple and Bridge Café. Be quick about it. On-site tickets cost RMB 300, cash only.

Lineup
As in the previous editions, there will be three stages. The Main Stage will host most of the festival's foreign highlights, including Brazilian techno producer and DJ Gui Boratto, France's Anthony Collins and Cheesebeat founder Michael Vonplon. A few Beijing favorites like Elvis.T, Weng Weng and Yang Bing will share the stage with them, but it’s not all about Acupuncture. The Syndicate Bass Stage will feature Blackie and Kay C together with Spanish DJ and video artist Digital 21, while the Metrowaves Stage will include dubstep, house and techno.

Will there be alcohol?
That’s a hard question to answer. If the Strawberry experience taught us anything, it's that we should simply forget it, since there wasn’t a single (official) beer on sale. Last year, the lack of alcohol didn’t ruin the party for anyone, but there’s a difference between restriction and prohibition. Anyway, sobriety could bring some novelty into our standard weekend rituals. We live in hope.

After-party
Lantern will host it from 10pm on and you’ll definitively find alcohol there, but you’ll have to pay again to get in. The entrance is RMB 100, but with an INTRO ticket, it's RMB 50.

What to wear
Most of the crowd will be in shorts and T-shirts, but as with every self-respecting festival, there will be plenty of weird outfits. Last year featured ladies with vertiginous high heels, aerobic lovers directly from the '80s and a bride (or a girl dressed like a bride, I still can’t figure it out). So if you’re still waiting for a good occasion to wear those fluorescent pink leggings, this might be the one.

What to bring
There's no grass there, just sand and concrete, but you’ll need to rest from time to time, so pack a large picnic blanket. Last year, blankets were quite in demand; some people even stole them from others. Our advice is to bring a cheap blanket, one that you wouldn't mind losing; in fact, you may not want to bring it home – you don’t need to know what those stains are. Speaking of stains, if you want to be one of the cool kids, you’ll definitely need some glowing body paint. Then you can properly annoy other people by staining their clothes. Lastly, since everybody loves being immortalized in awful party photos, don’t forget your camera, along with your star-shaped glasses and sun block.

Most important of all, don't forget to bring copies of your passport and residence permit!

To win your passport to INTRO 2012, simply answer the following question: What does INTRO stand for? Send your answer to win@thebeijinger.com by noon on Thursday, May 24. The winners will be notified soon after. Good luck.

INTRO takes place at Crab Island (Xiedao ICEC) on Saturday, May 26. Click here for more information.

Photo: Chicago Tribune