Sponsored raves (2003-2004)

Dmitry Ashman:
"By 2003 it had become clear that the Fort simply couldn't hold everyone who wanted to come. So we came up with the idea of an additional party on the shore. In the end that eased the situation somewhat. The crowd split into "VIP" and "non-VIP". Those who could afford it financially went straight to the Fort. For them we set up that separate free disco.
Of course, priority back then was given to the Fort. All the headliners — and those were Seb Fontaine, Darren Emerson and Lisa Loud — played on "Alexander". Some of them also agreed to play on the shore, and that helped considerably to relieve the Fort."
Zhora Petrushin:
"You simply can't recoup all the costs through tickets. That would be realistic if the ticket price for events like these in Russia came close to European prices. For now, without sponsors it's just impossible. Right now a ticket to the shore costs 300 roubles. That's a deliberately low price, calculated for the St Petersburg mentality. It's easier for them to pay 300 roubles than to climb over barbed wire. For five hundred, they'd climb over it."

Dmitry Ashman:
"In 2004 we held the fifth, anniversary Fort. It was, perhaps, the strongest festival in terms of line-up. We invited Tiësto and Ferry Corsten, the most powerful DJs of the day. Some may find their music too hard, but you have to understand that the Forts are not a picnic and not a party for girls. It's a good dance festival, and the music on it matches — quite loud and hard.
At the last FortDance we made no distinction between the Fort itself and the shore, and we ended up with two entirely equal stages. What's more, what was going on at the shore was far more interesting than the situation on the Fort itself. Tiësto played on the shore, Corsten played on the shore. It's just that the Fort is limited in space, whereas the shore lets you do everything on a much grander scale. We abandoned the idea of a free disco and started selling tickets for the shore. But we didn't manage to earn much from it last year, since the police couldn't fully cordon off the dancefloor and people got in fairly freely. This year we've taken that into account, and now the shore will be fenced off.
The fifth Forts were accompanied by a fairly active advertising campaign. We used TV and even ran an all-Russian promo tour in support of the Forts. In the end, by our count, about 40 thousand people passed through the festival over the course of the night. Many, of course, were drawn by Tiësto's name, though he struck me as a rather strange character. The day before he'd had a gig in Moscow, and he arrived at the Forts with somewhat bulging eyes. We didn't talk much, but by all appearances he liked the Forts. Though it wasn't without star tantrums. One of the companies was running a live Internet broadcast of the Forts and Tiësto's manager didn't like it, since there was no such clause in the contract. In short, he declared that Tiësto simply wouldn't go on to play. I had to explain to him that I was about to take the microphone and announce to the whole crowd that Tiësto didn't want to play. And we'd see what those thirty thousand would start doing… In the end we talked Tiësto round."
Zhora Petrushin:
"I always said that I do the Forts not for money but to realise my own ambitions. Right now the Forts are a successful event. But the total costs of all six Forts have crossed every conceivable limit, and it already seems to me that this project will never pay for itself. And as for ambitions… Did I manage to realise them? No. It's just that once a person has decided his ambitions are realised, it means he's already dead."