The East Coast’s Longest-Running Dance Promoter: Club Glow Celebrates 25 Years

By the end of this year’s Project Glow, 25,000 fans were in attendance each day of the Washington, D.C., electronic music festival. This year featured Zedd, Illenium, REZZ, Knock2 and more, and proved to be a successful wrap to the festival’s third year. Promoter Club Glow, which entered into a partnership with Insomniac Events in 2020, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Despite challenges stemming from the fact that RFK Stadium, where Project Glow takes place, is targeted for demolition, Club Glow President and CEO Pete Kalamoutsos worked around the stadium’s schedule to better coordinate the event. The festival took place April 27-28, with RFK Stadium officially cleared for demolition four days later on May 2.
The stadium hasn’t been used for an event in five years, and the building in disrepair much longer than that. Initially, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser planned to tear the stadium down by the end of 2023. The demolition stalled, and Project Glow was able to continue.

“RFK Stadium is in the middle of a demolition so our biggest challenge, every year, is working around their plans,” Kalamoutsos says. “We have had to work and adjust our exterior operations footprint which was no small feat. Luckily, the Insomniac team are the best festival producers in the world and they helped us quickly come up with a solution that would make our neighbors and customers happy.”

In order to accommodate the demolition, Project Glow rearranged its walk towards the festival grounds for fans getting dropped off. The walk became longer than it has been in previous years, but moved crowds further away from the abandoned stadium.
Some of this year’s changes included a layout redesign, including turning stages to face the Anacostia River. The idea came after the festival’s 2023 edition, with Kalamoutsos saying, “It would make for a much better site flow and experience. Also, having RFK Stadium and the city tree lines as a backdrop was an amazing view when looking at the stages.”

The festival continues to learn from each edition, expanding its footprint to include more stages. It began in 2022 with two stages and an art car. Now, it has The Secret Garden stage, introduced in 2023, making more of an effort to highlight LGBTQ+ nightlife in the D.C. area. They asked their partner, Ed Bailey, to help with more artist curation on The Secret Garden stage while also building bigger dancefloors and better sound systems.
For this year’s event, Kalamoutsos says he greatly enjoyed the Pulse Stage performances.

“For me personally, it was the Saturday Pulse Stage lineup: Lane 8, Nora En Pure, Tinlicker, Sultan & Shepard and Jerro,” Kalamoutsos says. “I’m personally a huge fan of progressive house and the emotion that it inspires; this was definitely an adrenaline-packed show.”

Club Glow also hosted afterparties at its two venues, Echostage and Soundcheck. The official closing party featured a performance by Zedd and Knock2 (both of whom are booked by Wasserman Music’s Lee Anderson) at Echostage, marking their first time performing back-to-back. The venue underwent some upgrades last year, including enhancements in lighting and lasers.

Project Glow estimates it generated $14.3 million in economic impact for the D.C. area in 2023, while its 2022 edition generated an estimated $8.8 million.

Project Glow continues its work with nonprofit Sasha Bruce Youthwork in the D.C. area. This year, the festival donated another $10,000 towards the charity.

“Sasha Bruce Youthwork is an amazing local charity that helps improve the lives of runaway, homeless, abused and neglected at-risk youth and their families in the Washington area since 1974,” Kalamoutsos says. “Sasha Bruce has a slew of programs that help their at-risk youth including residential facilities/safe homes, workforce and education development opportunities, and life skill training to prepare for the next step. As locals, we were proud to support such a great local cause that truly impacts the lives of our youth.”