Previously three complete strangers, Adrian Ashdown, Crystal Samora and Scott Shambo Semko now make up the management team behind VYBE. Having lived in Colorado for nine years now, Ashdown is the primary founder; she began this journey by looking deeper into her own creative patterns back in 2022.
"I had this realization that during mushroom trips was when I was feeling my most creative," Ashdown says. "That's kind of fucked up. I want to feel my most creative all the time." It's easy to say that Ashdown is not alone in this train of thought. Once she poked her head into the rabbit hole, there was no turning back.
"I went into studying creativity and change leadership over at Buffalo State [University, in New York]. Learning about the science behind creativity and the depths of it has been transformative," Ashdown says. A dancer herself, she began to plan a creative event with dancing and community at its core. In June 2022, Ashdown networked through her community and rented out a small studio for her first official VYBE event. With a group of around ten excited friends, a canvas, markers and a playlist, Ashdown was ready to host and share her passion.
Just hours before the first VYBE event, Ashdown happened to meet Semko at Cheesman Park in a causal-flow artist meet-up at the pavilion, where they bonded over Bonnaroo shirts and EDM. She invited Semko to join the event, and as a fresh Denver transplant, Semko happily accepted the invitation.
"It was so approachable and welcoming," recalls Semko. "While there were talented dancers present, it wasn't about the competitive nature of it; it was about the community orientation and people coming together to dance." Despite the small size of that first iteration, the greater idea was not lost on Semko or the other attendees.
"I had a very similar vision for a creative community, and I came to Denver seeking to create that," says Semko. This overlap in dreams pushed Semko to help Ashdown with marketing and running VYBE as a company. Now, with the help of Semko, Ashdown continues to hold successful events and grow her team.
As VYBE evolves, each event contains the same core pieces: music, dancing and arts and crafts. The Cheesman Park events, or Park & Play, are perhaps the group's most impactful opportunity for the Denver public, with outreach far beyond the local rave scene. While some turn to the park for a step away from busy city life, VYBE's Park & Play raves provide a new experience for many park-goers from the early spring through the fall. These donation-based events bring live DJs, yoga classes, flow artists and art activities to the grassy fields of Cheesman for any passerby to observe. With audiences ranging from 100 to 300 people, the all-ages events are hard to miss. More than fifty successful Park & Play events in the past two years have established VYBE as a bona fide event collective with continued growth and positive experiences.
Built over a graveyard, Cheesman Park is a historic spot in Capitol Hill with rumors of ghosts and decades of Denver activities.
Photo courtesy of VYBE
"I was just enamored by how safe I felt. I love dancing and I love connecting, but I feel in some spaces being a dancer is almost abrasive, the eyes are too much, or you're doing too much," says Samora. Much like Semko, she transitioned from an attendee to a member of VYBE's branding and marketing team.
"We've all had this vision to connect deeper and use music and creativity as the vessel to allow us all to expand," says Samora. In addition to personal-growth experiences, these events provide networking opportunities for DJs, artists and dancers alike.
"People keep feeding back into the community," says Ashdown. "It's just amazing, and we're so thankful that we've had so many people support us in this endeavor." As the community grows, spreading the true values of the group becomes more important to ensure that the safe and supportive aspects are upheld. Though most of Denver sees the collective as solely an EDM group as a result of the Cheesman Park events, VYBE has much bigger plans.
With Ashdown, Semko and Samora's personal communities rooted in the electronic scene, artists and DJs of that genre were the first ones available and open to contribute toward VYBE events. Now, as the group gains traction and a following, its members are excited to expand into more music genres.
"There are a lot of different genres that we have dabbled in, and we are allowing ourselves to keep open," says Ashdown. "It's finding the balance, really, with this idea of rave culture and PLUR, which I do think is something very specific to the EDM scene, although you hear criticisms of it being surface-level."
For any non-ravers, PLUR stands for "peace, love, unity and respect." Many have adopted the acronym and often associate it with giving gifts or tokens to other members of a large show crowd. Attempting to uphold this term at VYBE events, attendees are encouraged to come as they are. Some people may stop by to work on homework while listening to the music, while others make bracelets, paint or draw on the sidelines of the dancers, flow artists and musicians.
VYBE will continue to hold monthly Park & Play events this year when weather allows, most likely starting in March, with some bigger plans on the docket, too. The goal to make health and wellness more attractive to the EDM community takes even more precedence as the members acquire resources and outreach.
Next on the agenda is a VYBE health and wellness festival, coming Saturday, February 15, at Yoga Center Denver. This rebranded version of the wellness festival that the collective held last year is another chance to dive into the VYBE community. Now deemed the Realize Light Wellness Festival, the event will offer a wide assortment of activities from 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. for all energy levels. Curated for attendees to take their wellness practices home with them, the festival is described as a "self-discovery retreat" or "self-love celebration" where participants can experience a cacao ceremony, creative exploration, sound baths, plant medicine offerings, grounding ceremonies, dance parties and DJs.
If this sounds like the crowd you've been searching for, subscribe to the collective's email list and stay up to date on all things VYBE in 2025.
Realize Light Wellness Festival, Saturday, February 15, 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m., Yoga Center Denver, 770 South Broadway. Tickets are $133 to $188.
