The East Coast is being introduced to another festival on the rise — Slingshot Festival. The event made headway for 5 days in May (May 8, 13-15) in Downtown Durham with quite a selection of DJs. If you’re a North Carolinian, or someone that lives on the East Coast with little to no electronic music events, then Slingshot probably caught your radar. With Slingshot also returning in October 2022, East Coast ravers in North Carolina will have something to look forward to as it stands as one of the few events that take the electronic music scene with serious dedication.
As it stands, the event is no doubt something that is much needed within the southern community of N.C. — diversity, inclusivity, change, and electronic cultural appreciation; this all makes Slingshot an unforgettable event that will catch the East Coast by storm.
I attended Slingshot the weekend of May 13th and it was my first time raver experience. As a North Carolinian myself, I can honestly say that Slingshot is more than a festival for the south… it’s a cultural shift. Of course, I don’t want to paint a skewed picture of North Carolina as being non-progressive, that simply isn’t true. The RDU (Raleigh, Durham) area (and honestly the rest of the state) definitely has a deep culture of appreciating the arts (e.g., many movies have been filmed in Wilmington) — I myself, even graduated from a Liberal Arts College. But the fact remains that art/music culture within N.C. still has many conservative undertones, and to have a festival such as Slingshot come in with such strong inclusivity, diversity, and change is kind of rare. And to see that many of the locals were immeshed within Slingshot’s vibrancy is an even better view to see, as many North Carolinians such as myself have a desire to see more inclusive, artistic changes within the area and the state.
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