The first person in line to enter today's first Neon Desert Music Festival wasn't an electronica-loving teenager or a skulking indie rock college student.
It was Roberto Avant-Mier, 39, an associate professor and research fellow at UTEP's Sam Donaldson Center for Communications.
He was there for personal and professional reasons, since he's a fan bilingual El Paso rockers Mexicans at Night and the author of a book about popular music.
"I was super-excited about it. It's important because people say nothing happens in El Paso," he said, adding that he'd usually have to travel to see NDMF's unique-for-El Paso blend of alternative rock, Latin rock and electronic music.
"I thought, 'Dude, you have to go,'" said Avant-Mier, who went with his wife, Olga, 36, her Sonic Youth t-shirt-wearing brother, Adrian Dominguez, 21, and his 19-year-old cousin, Ernesto Burciaga, both of whom attend El Paso Community College.
"This is the perfect place," Olga Avant-Mier said as they stood at the front of a line of about 100 festival-goers outside the El Paso Public Library minutes before the gates at Oregon and Franklin streets opened, the first wave of a steady trickle expected to number between 8,000 and 10,000 when it's all over by 11 p.m.
They opened at 11:06 a.m., six minutes past the announced time. The first two scheduled acts also started later than the posted time. Two-member DJ crew Party Sex and B.S. were the first to perform, but their 11:30 a.m. set on the Mattress Firm stage in San Jacinto Plaza, which was surrounded by a six-foot chain link fence, started 20 minutes late.
Neither the duo or the 30 or so people who gathered in front of the stage seemed to mind.
"They need a little more organization, but I hope it goes great," said PSBS' Sergio Chaparro, a 19-year-old EPCC student who grew up in Juarez.
"It's great El Paso is doing this now. I'm really excited," said Chaparro as his DJ partner, 17-year-old Franklin High School student Eddie Gonzalez stood by coolly.
The festival site, a seven-block area stretching from Cleveland Square Park to the placita, was relatively calm in the run up to the opening of a 12-hour event featuring 29 acts on four stages, including the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group (with Mars Volta singer Cedric Bixler Zavala), Canadian electronic duo MSTRKFT, Mexican rockers Kinky and Brazil's colorful CSS.
Gina Martinez, one of three executive producers and El Paso natives with Austin's Splendid Sun Productions, said she got about 30 minutes of sleep Friday night.
"The rest is all adrenaline," she said shortly before barking out orders to some of the pink-shirted volunteers who would be selling tickets ($35, $25) at the entrance.
Fellow producer Zach Paul said things were running smoothly, with a few last-minute glitches here and there.
"We're just trying to tie up loose ends," he said.
His uncle, promoter and former El Paso Diablos owner Jim Paul, was on hand to "help put out whatever fires they have."
"I don't think anybody in El Paso has ever put on something this huge," he said.
The Scion Stage, where Rodriguez Lopez performs at 9:30 p.m., faces Cleveland Square Park. It's one of two main stages.
The other, the MTI Ready Mix stage, where Kinky goes on at 8:30, faces west at the Mesa/Main street intersection.
The fourth, smaller Dick Poe Hoy-Fox stage, faces west and is tucked into a paved area just north of the new Mills Plaza parking ramp, where El Paso quintet Cigarettes After Sex went on at 12:15, 15 minutes after the posted time.
A dozen visual artists created paintings using brushes, spray cans and markers on 8-by-10 foot wood panels. Merchandise booths sold everything from t-shirts to paintings to candles to jewelry.
Beer tents were selling 12 oz. Heinekens and Red Bull for $4, 16 oz. Coors Lights for $5 and 24 oz. Tecates for $7.
Six food trucks between the Scion and Poe stages, including the Drifter and Creative Gourmet Eats, sold a variety of things to eat, such as gourmet burgers, buffalo wings, tacos and shaved ice.
Rudy Valdes, owner and chef of Crave Kitchen and Bar, had enough food to feed 2,000 people."Either they eat it or I eat it," he joked.
He said an event like NDMF, which is geared to younger people, is overdue here.
"It seems like we're on our way to becoming a big city," said Valdes, an El Paso native who used to live in Phoenix. "A big city needs big city attractions. What better way to do that than this?"
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