For Life in Color Co-Founders, the Miami Festival is a Christmas Gift to Themselves

When you meet the people who will change your life, there's no fireworks, no pomp, no banners, nor confetti. There's just a new friend, then an idea, and later—if you're the dudes behind Life in Color—an international rave empire.

Even as the "World's Largest Paint Party" brings its high-energy color carnival home to Miami for two days this weekend, December 26 and 27, at Sun Life Stadium, Life in Color is not longer a Florida exclusive. Throughout the year, the series splashes across seas and borders with successful events in Australia, Asia, Europe, and South America, as well as throughout Canada, Mexico, and the US. The whole thing started as Dayglow parties by four friends in 2007, quickly hitting North American college towns but always with firm roots in their home state. It took blood, sweat, tears, a lot of finagling, and untold quantities of paint, but LiC's foundation is in the friendship between those who run the company.

"When you've got somebody next to you that's willing to stay up 24 hours or 48 hours, that's really cool," says co-founder Paul Campbell. "A lot of how we grew [depended on] crashing at Lukasz's house for a long period of time or whatever it took. It took all-nighters a lot."

Campbell, 30, is the backbone of LiC, along with co-founders Sebastian Solano, 30, and twins Patryck and Lucasz Tracz, 29. They all met in Florida, either as childhood friends or as coworkers at Olive Garden, and all come from very different backgrounds. Solano is a Colombian immigrant, the Tracz brothers come from Poland, and Campbell is the fifth of six kids who grew up in a single-mother household.

Their shared love for mischief, parties, video games and the show Entourage brought them together. Their venture into the professional party-throwing arena made them close. They've shared houses, cars, money, even beds to get where they are. Now, it's the party that keeps them together.

"It's a gift and a curse," Solano says of their collective work ethic. "In a lot of cases, it ends friendships. But to be honest, with us, I think it's the key to our success. I don't think anybody else could put up with Lucasz, or with me, or with Paul and Patryck."

"I kind of like the craziness," Campbell adds. "It adds more spunk to life than when you work in any other business or with partners that you're not attached to. You can be bringing up shit from like, third grade, and it's fucking entertaining."

"We're a group of people that can work together, get in the worst arguments, get the job done, and become friends minutes after the fight and go back to playing video games," Campbell continues. "We just really learned how to work with each other."

Life in Color started in Tallahassee, Florida, a city with less than 200,000 people that swells with an additional 40,000 during the school year as the home to Florida State University. The city also happens to be the state capital in the Florida's politically conservative panhandle. They began as Committee Entertainment, renting out clubs on the busiest nights, then selling tickets to kids in all-inclusive packs with bottles and party bus rides to and from. Three months in, they started dreaming bigger, and the idea for a giant paint party in Miami became an obsession.

"I remember begging my mom on her patio for $5,000," Patryck says. "I was begging her for paint for Miami, and she said no. Thank god my grandma was there, she was like 'just give it to them.'"

The first Dayglow paint party in Miami was a hit, and they paid Mrs. Tracz back, plus 20 percent. But it wasn't the last time they'd hit their parents up for money. They even asked their girlfriends to front them when they had to.

"I think our parents always believed—maybe except for Paul's—that we would go back to school," Solano says.

"I was a weird kid to begin with," Campbell says. "My mom was just like 'one day, you'll find your way.' She never was really buying into anything."

To this day, none of the guys have college degrees, somewhat of an irony given how studiously they took over the Florida college circuit with their events.

"Sebastian was like 'yo, this is gonna fucking work,'" Campbell says. "He was like 'yo, guys, I'm telling you.' and I was like 'I don't know about this, whatever, but I'm down because I definitely don't wanna miss out.'"

It didn't click for Campbell until some months later when the boys threw their first Dayglow in Orlando at the University of Central Florida's sports arena. Lucasz told him to go upstairs and check the crowd from an aerial view. With about 5,000 tickets sold, the place was full of music, lights, and kids covered in paint. To finally catch the scope of their efforts, it was an out-of-body moment for Campbell.

"This was different," he says. "This was cool."

In 2009 and 2010, Dayglow hosted its own stage at Ultra Music Festival. In 2011, it embarked on its first national tour, and in 2012, it caught the eye of live events mogul Robert F.X. Sillerman, whose SFX Entertainment eventually bought the company in 2013. ("I think [our parents] got really happy when we sold the company," Patryck says.)

Under the SFX umbrella Dayglow rebranded as Life in Color, rapidly started expanding its annual calendar. Even though the stakes are higher as part of a publicly-traded company and their production budgets are bigger, but each of the founders are adamant that they are still the same four guys still pull all the strings.

LiC held its first all-day festival at Sun Life Stadium in 2013 with a lineup that boasted Calvin Harris, Steve Aoki, Major Lazer, 2 Chainz, and more. For the founders, it was a dream come true.

"The same thing that happened in Orlando several years before  happened at Life in Color, " Campbell says. "It was just really cool to see that some kids from south Florida have taken this. We've put in our work. From Orlando to being at Ultra to this and all of us saying, 'one day, we want to be like these guys.'"

"I remember being at a hotel like four, five years ago and Paul was like 'guys, one day, I see us doing a Dayglow with Tiësto with 15,000 people,'" Patryck recalls. "I was like, 'god, if that would ever really happen….' Now, here I am, looking over 25,000 people, Calvin Harris is playing, and I'm like 'damn, this is the greatest day of my life, for sure.'"

This year, LiC Festival in Miami features two days of paint and music with Kaskade, Diplo, Bingo Players, Borgore, Adventure Club, Carnage, Headhunterz, Nervo, Madeon, Juicy J, What So Not and more.

"Most people would be like 'this was the greatest thing ever,'" Lucasz says of the reaction to an LiC event. "But we get in a room and say 'why did this happen? Lets change that.' We look at all the negatives. I have anxiety right now thinking about the festival."

"There's a time from mid-October until December 26 and 27 when it's tough to sleep," Solano agrees.

"You can't even enjoy Christmas," Lucasz adds, acknolwedging the timing of the festival—when many of their college-age fans are home on break—is an unavoidable necessity.

Instead of spending time with their families, opening presents, Solano, Campbell, and the Tracz brothers are working on the festival grounds, making sure every last detail is perfectly planned.

"That out-of-body moment, for an attendee to have that moment, that's what they're going to go back and talk about," Campbell says. "At a lot of the festivals, they can go see an artist and enjoy the production. What the paint does to people to drop their guard and just let loose is magic. I honestly, strongly feel like we've positively impacted the world. I think there's a lot of shit going on, but if we give people that little moment where they leave the shit behind and just enjoy it, it's a rewarding feeling. I love it."

Campbell, Solano, Tracz and Tracz are busy these days and don't get to hang with each other as much as they used to. On occasions like the festival when work brings them to the same city, it's as celebratory as it is hard work. Still, they don't take any of it for granted, soaking up their pleasure of each other's company, joking around with one another even at the most tense moments.

"I think the most valuable lesson that we've learned is that when all of us go all in together, there's only one thing that's going to come out, and that's a success," Solano says.

"They say, if you have fun at work, then you don't work a day in your life, "Lucasz adds. "Waking up and knowing I'm going to the office, the team that I'm here with, it makes it better."

"The sentence comes out, 'I have to go to work,' but it doesn't feel like work," Solano says. "We're going out there and doing what we love to do."

Life in Color starts today in Miami and hits East Lansing, MI, Lincoln, NE, and Denver, CO this winter.
Kat Bein loves splashing paint everywhere she can.