I played around, experimented and trial-and-errored A LOT. But, I finally created something we could be proud of. Our unique signature in the world and the Rave scene. This is when we were rebranded from 40+ to 40up. If you ever hear someone refer to us as 40+, you know they are OGs of our group.

I actually did it! I was able to capture our group’s essence in a graphical way. A logo that truly represented our diverse history and style that bridged old and new school.

Now, that I have time to invest again, I’ve begun freshening up our look a bit. But, our 40up identity will always remain. It’s time for a more vibrant look that’s more easily located at festivals and recognizable on social platforms.

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Position: Admin

Role: James is the voice of reason and referee when needed in the leadership’s group chat.

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Position: Admin

Role: Laina is our resident word ninja and tech geek. She’s all young, sweet and innocent looking until you get out of bounds. Then she will slice and dice you with a meticulously written and factually correct 1000 word essay.

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Position: Admin

Role: Jill is our resident executioner plus event and merch goddess.

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Position: Leading Admin

Role: Carlos now leads our Facebook group. He joined the group early on and shared that he had always wanted to start something similar, but hadn’t. He is extremely passionate about our group’s members, principles, and place in the future.

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Position: Co-Founding Admin

Role: Pat came on board as our first Admin starting day 1. He is our group’s mediator and Robert’s voice when he’s on hiatus in some distant land.

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Position: Founding Admin

Role: Robert is our “wizard behind the curtains” who created and envisions the future of our Retirement community. He’s a geek who doesn’t always play well with others, so we keep him locked away to brainstorm 24/7.

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We wanted an identity for our group but I have no graphic skillz. So, I found a free vector software and starting playing with concepts.

I was trying to somehow capture the essence of who and what we were. We’re older and mostly Gen X. Most of us Raved as youngsters, then spent years away adulting and parenting. We’re still the same fun, energetic, and vivid, souls as our youth, just trapped in these old bodies.

I would say the early concepts looked like a mullet, but it was more like a bad 70s or 80s Mom-cut, bless her heart. If Mom ever used a bowl or similar technique, you know the pain. Sorry about triggering the haircut PTSD!

We wanted to promote the group at events but didn’t want to be pulling phones out like the youngsters. So, we decided to go old school with printed business cards. The early conception for our festie cards took things a step more nostalgic with cards that looked like Rolodex cards.

A group was planning to go to Dirtybird CampINN 2022 and wanted something for our door. The problem was that we only had my very rough ideas and I couldn’t come up with anything better before the event.

Cue McGyver! Yep, now that song is stuck in your old head. So I used a friend’s wide format printer and printed off 3 copies of a very crude design and full sent that shit. It was crude and hideous but everyone loved the idea of our group, our hideous little sign and we gained some new members.

I think, at one point, we put it on the front of our shopping cart too. Yes, there “may” have been a shopping cart in our room.

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WOW! In barely 2 years, we have grown from 75ish members pre-EDCO ’21 to, now August 2023, over 7500 members with nearly 7% being outside the US. That is a huge percentage considering less than 2 years ago new members questioned if the group was an Orlando group because of our saturation of Orlando and central Floridian membership at the time.

The best part is that many responses are the same to this day.

I’m so glad I found this group!

members in open chat after joining

I’m so glad to have found people my age

members in open chat after joining

I love this group!

members in open chat

This is the only group I follow on Facebook

members in open chat

I haven’t “poached” any members from other groups since early 2002. Currently, we approve 100 new members each week. The group’s natural growth has sustained that number for quite a few months now.

As leadership, we are constantly astonished at what we’ve accomplished so far. When this all began, who would have ever thought it would grow like this? We knew it was “possible” but didn’t know it would really do all of this.

Our membership is extremely diverse too.

Of course we have many members who Raved in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. But, we also have a huge number of members who only recently discovered our music and our scene. Plus, we have some huge names in the industry as members. I hope that, one day, we have many of the legends of our beloved Rave scene as members.

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I was walking around EDCO, twisted af, talking to people and screening membership requests. The Admins who didn’t go, were screening like crazy from home wondering WTF was going on. The number of requests skyrocketed to say the least.

Post EDCO was absolutely brutal, especially in January and February, to say the least. We quickly broke 500 members, then 750, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500. By the end of March”ish”, we had nearly 3000 members. 3000 old souls who always had the same thing to say. OMG, I’m so glad I found this group. I thought I was the only old Raver out there!

Even today with over 7500 members, the sentiment is still the same. New members constantly introduce themselves and say how happy they are to have found us and how wonderful our group vibe is. This is SO profound to our Admins/Mods and the reason we run such a tight ship,

It was such an onslaught that we had nearly 400 membership requests in one single day. NEARLY 400 in.one.single.day! It blew mine and our minds when I screenshot and shared it with leadership. Needless to say, I quit “poaching” other groups once we hit about 2500 members.

Now, keep in mind. We’ve never just let anyone join. We have and always will screen every.single.member before we let them join. Why? We want a peaceful environment in the group first and foremost. We never have and never will put up with any dumpster fires in the group.

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