Distortion CPH 2017 — Blog

*Note: This is my "grandma stuck in their twenties" life so my experience is not the norm of Distortion but I still went so I am sharing what my limited knowledge is :)*

Picture a block party, tailgate & local festival all rolled in to one and then times it by 15, welcome to Distortion! Now that you have an image in your mind you might be asking "But what is Distortion?"

Distortion Nørrebro - Ryesgade & Sankt Hans Gade

Distortion, started in 1998, is a week long party that they describe as "A week of Emerging Dance Music and Orchestrated Chaos." Around 100,000 people attend this moving party each day.

The two main street parties in the districts/neighborhoods of Copenhagen are on the first day, Wednesday, in Nørrebro followed by Thursday in Vesterbro. These street parties shut down traffic, last from 4 to 10, are free to the public and can consist of 40-50 small parties in the district that can even include concerts. At night there is "Distortion Club" this event is a paid event that is at different "club" locations with concerts. The week ends with "Distortion Ø" or Distortion Island which is considered the main event. An entire island area of Copenhagen becomes a maze of concerts, dance floors & music for day 3 & day 4 of Distortion. Distortion Island, like Distortion Club, is a paid event.

So now that you have a little background on Distortion let's review my first ever Distortion experience. (Bonus points for whoever can tell me how many times I have written "Distortion" in this post.) I attended Day 1, Distortion Nørrebro, because it was day one, we live a bit closer to Nørrebro than Vesterbro & because our friends were going.

The red is the district/neighborhood of Nørrebro & the mark of Cafe Gavlen is around where we spent our day.

The Dane & I met up with my friend and her Dane before hand for a little pre-game before we hit the streets. We joined the party around 5:00-5:30 and this is what the street already looked like.

We spent majority of our Distortion in this same little block so I didn't get the full experience of that chaos that comes from going further into the district but I had a great time anyway.

What I learned quickly was that Distortion is really spending time looking for your friends or explaining to your friends where you are all with a decent amount of alcohol in all parties so I was VERY happy to be the party not moving around searching. In fact, we did walk to the lakes, see map image to realize that isn't far, to find friends who happened to be basically right where we started originally.

For me, Distortion was a BIG personal milestone as we spent most of the time looking for MY friends, because I have friends now!!!, instead of my husband's friends. We did spend time with both set of friends but it was definitely nice having that little victory in my own personal life.

Overall, I really loved the day. I am glad I finally got to partake in what is one of the biggest events in Copenhagen life. I am very happy that we didn't go as crazy as the Dane has in past years but I guess that is what adulting gets you so it was partying on my level for sure.