DayGlow show a paint rush

A few thousand dancers willing to have paint shot at them can't be wrong.

At least, not according to organizers of the DayGlow Paint Party, which brings its "Escape Reality" tour to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for two sold-out shows, Friday and Saturday. A crowd of 3,500 revelers will allow themselves to get bathed in nontoxic multicolored paint while grooving to DJs such as house music head Roger Sanchez and Philly's genre-mashing sensation, Diplo.

The only rule the organizers of the party have (other than to play nice with others) is to wear white to enhance the 3-D effect of the brightly colored paint. That's a small request at an event where twitchy 3-D visuals play on multiple screens and thousands of attendees wearing DayGlow 3-D glasses are caked in paint as stilt walkers, fire eaters, and aerialists carry on in a Vegas-like production comparable to any Cirque du Soleil program.

"It started as a college thing, a paint party at Florida State," says Sebastian Solano, 27, president and cofounder of DayGlow. He negotiates the deals with the venues, books the artists, and oversees all. The shows started off as a wild paint-filled favorite with college fraternities and moved quickly from there. "Myself and my crew have been throwing parties since we were in high school," Solano says. "In college, it became a career." So much so that Solano and his tight-knit crew of friends ("young business-minded people who are not scared of going for it") dropped out of college to pursue this calling.

"We grabbed the concept and turned it into a full-on show and a worldwide brand," Solano says.

Solano and his buds took their time as they turned DayGlow into a massive live electronic music concert with paint guns, staying in Florida and playing colleges and clubs as they improved the production of the show and the buzz grew louder.

The shows got bigger, the lighting grew brighter, the effects more immense, and the "Paint Blasts" bolder.

DayGlow Orlando at the University of Central Florida Arena drew 5,500 fans. They sold out their first out-of-state show in Columbus, Ohio.

"We knew that for the show to reach nationwide recognition, we needed to bring big DJs to perform, so we did, and the DJs loved the show as soon as they saw what we were doing," Solano explains.