"I'll let you know about the new booking as soon as possible, but I am really, really upset about this."

Once he manages to stop hyperventilating over the recent Stephan Bodzin cancellation at White Rabbit, Thomas Gaestadius promises me a suitable Plan B. Being a DJ, the man doesn't miss a beat: he deftly maneuvers a gig with fellow Scandinavian techno maestro Mental Overdrive to replace Bodzin. I'm impressed by his efforts, but I still pacify him with my own opinions on the matter. I will never stop believing in the fate of that venue, top international DJ or not.

Cancellations from afar happen all the time. As one who lists and covers events, I've received plenty of telephone calls from organizers when the big overseas name decides not to come. And as one who's befriended them after many a night on the dancefloor or at the bar, I've been a sounding-board to their woes when, as Kurt Vonnegut euphemizes, the excrement hits the air-conditioning.

All of it makes me think that any of these people from outside are worth a damn. Promoters and club owners in town make big bucks for an international booking, but they can still pack a club whether or not anyone from abroad is there. China Doll descended into utter full-capacity mayhem at The Syndicate's recent anniversary party, but I'd like to think that it wasn't because they had Hospital Records royalty on the bill. I won't remember the sets that Cyantific and Logistics threw, but Elemental, Blackie, and D-Rail took me to the next level. Business as usual here in the 'Jing. I showed up to sing happy birthday to The Syndicate because they've been throwing wonderful fun parties with wicked music for the last four years. They've had some impressive names on their bill, but I simply follow the diagonal black and yellow lines of their logo without even looking at the name on the flyer most of the time.

Another little, locally-based organization by the name of O2 Culture has been running the party game for years now. My current livelihood rests largely on understanding the local electronic music scene, but before I had any knowledge about what I cover now, I was just another laowai studying Chinese out in Wudaokou, waiting for the next Yen party. Yen parties are spectacles of the masses with turnout in the thousands, but they do it solely with local talent. Acupuncture Records throws a party per week on average, and as someone who was there with them from the very beginning last fall, I have to give major respect to the eight Chinese DJs for keeping the soldiers of techno on the dancefloor until the wee hours, with foreign bookings conspicuously absent from the bill.

Of course, I've been to parties where the dancefloor was empty and the folks throwing it offered me drink tickets with anxious faces just to stay. It's not always the best atmosphere ever, and the fate of the party always seems up in the air, as if one missed beat or an extra minute waiting for a drink might clear the venue. Then again, I also come from a city that once upon a time had nothing but salsa and disco clubs filled with gangsters and drink-swilling weekend warriors who didn't know a thing about music. My hometown of Miami used to be a swamp, and now they're celebrating ten years of the annual Winter Music Conference. If you don't feel like spending an overwhelmed hour marvelling at some of the legends on the lineup, just think of what kind of evening you might have trying to decide between hearing Goldie, Rabbit in the Moon, Infected Mushroom, Adam Beyer, The Stanton Warriors, Steve Bug, Anja Schneider, Richie Hawtin, Loco Dice, or Adam F....and that's just to name a few. And all this in a city of migrants that once, too, had a scene in transition.

I've often wondered what the relationship is between promotion and turnout, and seldom come up with any definitive answers. But what I do think is that the more we nurture our local names, the stronger we'll stand both at home and abroad, so that the jet-lagged and hungover guy from London or Berlin thinks twice before saying no to an opportunity to get the entire drunken proletarian mob worked up at a club in the sprawling, dusty capital we call home.