Music has always been one of my passions. Like you, it doesn’t matter what I’m doing or where I am. I’m always listening to something. After the 2011 festival season had ended, it was clear that electronic music was getting ready to explode in America.  I saw Skrillex tweet about going white raver rafting* and thought it was clever, so I launched this blog to share the music I love.

We had a little over a thousand visitors in the first month. I was blown away. More than anything it made me want to dig deeper and keep delivering awesome posts for our readers. The hard work paid off because as EDM caught on, so did we. Our traffic regularly increased by 50% or more month over month and people started visiting WhiteRaverRafting from all over the world. The experience of seeing this thing take off was both incredible and humbling.

This past summer (2012) we started getting credentialed as media to some of the biggest electronic dance music festivals in the world. All of a sudden we were taking pictures, meeting people, doing interviews with artists and writing reviews of events. Though the hype and glamour is fun we never lost track of our identity. We are the scene.

Someone at CounterPoint recognized me by my tank-top and said it was an honor to meet me. I looked back at her… smiled and then I said, “Actually it’s an honor for us, knowing that there are people out there who believe in what we’re doing.” We exchanged kandi and carried on. All of the opportunities we have had are because of readers like you. We’re thankful and honored for you to be here.

I guess what I’ve learned through all of this is that it’s only when you really put your heart into something that people take notice. It doesn’t matter what it is. So much on websites, blogs, social networks and even life is all so artificial. We’re not. WhiteRaverRafting.com started as just a blog, but really we’ve evolved into this community of people who care about the music, our scene and each other.

Welcome.

Ben Hebert
WRR Founder // benhebert.com

Join us at facebook.com/whiteraverrafting or add me.

Notes:

• None of this would have been possible without the team I have been able to build. You should join.
• Credit for the term “White Raver Rafting” actually belongs to Evan “lazerjewsays” Weinstein not Skrillex.
• Thanks to Adam at Plexi PR and Chad at Caren West PR for being awesome people to work with.