Your guide to Movement 2015

This story originally ran on IXITI.com, the experience engine for southeast Michigan.

Is this really the 16th edition of Detroit's Memorial Day weekend techno festival? Time flies when you're having too much fun, usually 'round the clock with little sleep.

Now called Movement (please don't call it DEMF, the original name for the event that started in 2000), the three-day party at downtown Detroit's Hart Plaza is produced by Detroit-based Paxahau, and is a paid event, with tickets running $75 a day, or $150 for a weekend pass. 

We say this every year (yes, 16 obsessive, bleary-eyed years and counting)—the best way to take in the festival is to just show up and drift like little fluffy clouds from stage to stage. You heard that right: put your brain in neutral and float downstream, surrendering your mind and body to the beats.

What highlights can we expect this year? Who's coming from the UK and Germany that we haven't seen before? What Detroit legends and up-and-comers are on the can't miss list?

There are six stages this year, one more than in 2014. They will be loud. Bring ear protection, especially for the little kids, should you have some to bring.

On the Main Stage, the bowl with exquisite views of the downtown skyline, expect high level talent each day. Saturday's lineup begins with Detroit dub techno spiritualist Luke Hess and ends with Windsor native Richie Hawtin, who has resided in Berlin since 2003. Other acts that day include native Berliner Dixon and Chilean-Swiss producer/DJ Luciano, who always saves up a little extra when he performs in Detroit. Camp out at this stage all day, and you'll be mighty fine.

Make sure to come back to the main stage on Monday for local grinder Keith Kemp early and DJ Snoopadelic late. Yep, that's Snoop Dogg in psych-tech-adelic disguise.

But moving around at Movement is highly recommended, so keep your feet and your head active by also spending time at the Red Bull Academy and Beatport stages.

An assortment of Detroit talent is featured at the Red Bull Stage. At the Beatport Stage, start your Saturday off in left field with UK bass from Midland, still more bass and broken beats from Bulgaria's KiNK, and end it with a new project called Tuskegee, featuring native Michigan artist Seth Troxler (with the Martinez Brothers). And don't skip the Underground Stage or Sixth Stage.

But, as has been the case the last few years, the best stage each day will feature exclusively home-grown Detroit talent.
The aptly named Made in Detroit Stage is where you will find all the Europeans in town for the festival. This is where you should be as well, making regular rotations to and from this location.

The Saturday lineup, the Detroit Love showcase, is simply killer. Get there at noon for Urban Tribe, followed by Jay Daniel and Terrence Parker. Recloose comes home from New Zealand to perform his soul-funk-house hybrid, and the night ends with a big bang with Stacey Pullen, Floorplan (that's former Underground Resistance member Robert Hood) and Carl Craig feat. UR's Mike Banks. On Sunday, the Ghostly International Showcase takes over the stage. 

Close Movement down in the best way possible with a double dose of Detroit techno history on Monday night, when Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson (along with Juan Atkins, part of the famed Belleville 3) take the decks on the Made in Detroit Stage. This one is worth bringing the kids to, mom and dad, like seeing Elvis or Michael Jackson before they left the building.

Be safe, hold steady, have an awesome time everyone.

See the entire schedule here.

And of course there are after-parties, lots of them. Go here for up-to-the-minute info.

Walter Wasacz is a Hamtramck-based freelance writer, editor and consultant. He's been to every Memorial Day weekend techno festival in Detroit since 2000, and has lived to write about it