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The pulse of electronic music could be felt blocks away from Hart Plaza on Saturday, the familiar sign of the arrival of techno festival weekend. After nearly a decade, it has become a Memorial Day weekend staple in downtown Detroit.

The crowds began to grow around 4 p.m. -- just as the action on the event's four stages began to heat up.

"I wouldn't miss this for anything. It's the best time to be in Detroit," says Andrea Pullen of Southfield. Her husband, DJ Stacey Pullen, has performed at past festivals. "I like getting turned on to the new music. It's gotten better over time, the sound systems, the stages. It doesn't lose the excitement."

Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau, the event's producer, said ticket sales were going better than expected for the festival, which continues through Monday. Movement drew more than 75,000 over three days in 2008. At nearby hotels, the lobbies were flush with out-of-town partygoers preparing for a weekend of music and afterparties.
Organizers try to make Movement greener

Heaps of paper flyers strewn across Hart Plaza had always been a telltale sign that techno festival weekend had arrived. They also meant that Aaron Siegler had done his job.er

At the first electronic music festival in 2000, Siegler realized he could get into clubs and events for free if he helped pass out promotional leaflets. Over the years, the 29-year-old Farmington resident made a business out of distributing the circulars, which are a mainstay in the electronic music scene and particularly present during Movement, when promoters are trying to draw the crowds at Hart Plaza to the many related after-parties.

Siegler has worked at every Detroit techno festival, and in peak years, he and his street team handed out 40,000 flyers.

But those kinds of numbers are no longer aligned with the growing desire for greener forms of communication, or fans' increasing reliance on social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook for information.

Though Siegler traveled to California last week and Miami in March to distribute flyers for this year's Movement, his numbers are down, hovering around 10,000. And his time spent promoting on the Internet is up. Movement's producer, Paxahau, offered a free ticket to festival fans for reposting 90 electronic promotional ads.