In case your FOMO over missing Friendship 2024 wasn’t already intense enough, we’ve got fresh evidence of some of the fun that went down.
The party cruise, which transported roughly 4,000 attendees and artists from Miami to Belize and back again on Jan. 6-11, featured several “Dial-a-DJ” sets, for which artists took over an attendee’s private cabin for an intimate bash.
One of these mini parties featured the event’s surprise guest Rico Nasty along with Boys Noize, who together barreled into one of the rooms with a horde of party people behind them to play their techno take on The Kinks‘ 1964 classic “All Day and All of the Night.” Rico Nasty serves vocals such as “he undress me in the bedroom all day and all of the night” on the yet-to-be-titled update that’s due out this spring.
The heaving private party then goes mobile, with Rico Nasty — wearing sunglasses and clutching a bottle of champagne — and Boys Noize leading a party caravan through the ship’s corridors as they follow DJ decks pulled on a rolling cart.
The mayhem then lands in the lobby by the elevators, where the crowd grows in size — and enthusiasm — as passersby realize what ‘s going on.
Friendship is the electronic music party cruise from Gary Richards, the longtime DJ and party promoter who launched the sailing bacchanal in 2018 and also founded HARD events. This year’s Friendship lineup featured Skrillex, Bob Moses, Chris Lake, Chris Lorenzo, J. Phlip, Todd Edwards, Nina Las Vegas, Rusko, Mr Carmack and a flurry of other stars.
“We had a lot of people in that room, and then we opened up the balcony,” Richards told Billboard of the Dial-A-DJ prototype parties on Friendship 2018. “Anywhere else where you had that many people in one room, the room would break. The fire marshal would be like ‘get the f— out of here.’”
Other 2024 Dial-A-DJ performers included Bob Moses, Mikey Lion b2b Lee Reynolds, VTSS, Mersiv, Justin Martin and Nala. The party also featured the first live performance of Skrillex and Boys Noize’s Dog Blood project since 2019.
The next Friendship voyage will sail from Miami to Belize Feb. 21-26, 2025. See exclusive photos from the latest voyage below.
