From 2011-2016, I was fortunate to help concept, plan, execute and emcee the annual Dealer.com employee summer party. The first Dealerpalooza started in 2011 and by 2013 had quickly become one of the largest and most talked about events in Vermont.

Held every June at Waterfront Park on the shore of Lake Champlain and open only to Dealer.com employees and their guests- it went from a crowd of 800 guests in 2011 to over 2,000 by 2015. What started as “not your average employee party” transformed over the years into a full blown music festival with various tents, multiple stages, an enormous production team, incredible local food trucks and truly something for everyone. During this time we had a myriad of wild entertainment & experiences yearly: fire performers, henna artists, a large outdoor roller skating rink, tarot card readers, an Old West saloon, fortune tellers, a mechanical bull, an 80’s arcade with vintage games and an insane amount of fun!

On the music side, a sampling of past performers include everyone from: disco legends The Village People (2012), critically acclaimed synthpop band Future Islands (2015), Prince associate and pioneer of the Minneapolis Sound Morris Day & The Time (2016), the all female Zep tribute Lez Zeppelin (2011), DJ Windows 98 aka Win Butler of Arcade Fire (2015) to indie duo The Naked and Famous & pioneers of live electronic music Big Gigantic, both who had just played Coachella weeks before joining us in 2014. And lastly, from 2013- a trio of Grammy Award-winning, seminal hip hop artists: Naughty By Nature, Salt-N-Pepa & Arrested Development.

The culture was an enormous part of the success of Dealer.com and I’m extremely proud to say that these events were a huge piece of that.

(Photos: Aaron Barton & John Sappo)