If you were in downtown Lincoln Friday evening, February 11^th, you may have seen small groups of people hurriedly walking towards the Pinnacle Bank Arena dressed from head to toe in white. What were they doing you might ask? They were headed to the event center to dance the night away while being drenched with gallons of paint.

I was one of those people, and I’ll admit that yes, it does sound like a weird thing to do. It’s also an amazing thing to do. This was my fourth year attending Life in Color, and I hope it wasn’t the last.

Life in Color is a unique event, and this year they were celebrating their 10-year anniversary. The “world’s largest paint party” was started by a small group of college students at Florida State University, and began as something called “Dayglow”.

It has now turned in to a massive festival tour that makes its way across the United States during the spring every year. The appeal to this giant dance party is the hoses and “cannons” of non-toxic paint that is distributed throughout the night.

It has the same basic premise as a color run, but instead of running 3 miles, you get to dance with your best friends all night.

EDM (electronic dance music) is the main theme music for Life in Color. The headliner this year was Zeds Dead – a prominent duo from Canada in the EDM business. It wasn’t the first time they had made their appearance on Life in Color’s stage, and you could tell the audience was excited to see them again.

This event is something I look forward to every year, and this year didn’t disappoint. As I said before, this was my fourth time at Life in Color and it was my favorite experience thus far. It is a little difficult to explain why I like it so much though. Like everyone else, I like to have a good time. But it’s something more than that. The feeling of so many people coming together in one place for the sole purpose to have a good time is so heartwarming to me. Fans from all over the area come together just to enjoy the music, energy, and good vibes.

It took a little convincing, but I talked most of my close friends in to joining me at Life in Color this year. The beginning of the night was a little rocky…somebody always has to forget something and parking was a nightmare.

But when we walked through the doors of the Pinnacle and saw the lights and smiling faces of so many strangers, any hard feelings from earlier disappeared. Holding hands with the people you love most and walking in to a huge happy crowd is not something you get to do very often.

Sometimes you have to take a step back from real life and dance like nobody is watching, no matter how awful at dancing you are. The world can be a scary, negative place.

I wish we had more things like Life in Color to show us how simple everything is though. All you really need is a hand to hold and a song to sing, and you’ll be just fine.