Colourful lights flash wildly back and forth in the nightclub Celebrities, stunning Nicole Pan. She leans over the lighting booth, taps the shoulder of the lighting guy and yells over the music.
“Cool lights! Do you know how someone who just started DJing could get more involved in the music scene?”
In the past two years, if you’ve attended events by UBC Raves or Halloween nights at the Pit, you might have danced to beats by Pan, a third-year science student who studies biology, chemistry, computer science and commerce — and DJs on the side.
To Pan, DJing is about more than just partying — it’s creating energizing connections with a crowd of strangers through the language of music, a dopamine hit unlike anything else.
“That feeling is something I constantly seek and crave,” Pan said.
Everyone needs an outlet when they’re bored and procrastinating school work. For Pan, it’s playing with her mixer board in her bedroom when creativity strikes at 3 a.m. Having played piano, saxophone and guitar growing up, Pan said she was always a classical, jazz and pop music kind of girl. It wasn't until university that she was introduced to electronic music.
“I didn't know that there was this whole new culture of music that I wasn't really aware of,” Pan said. “From there, I got a little DJ mixer board and I started experimenting on my own.”
Now, as a DJ, she describes her music style as a blend of pop remixes, hyperpop techno, minimal techno and progressive house.
“It’s very important for me [as a DJ] to expand my world into other horizons,” Pan said. “Not only is the art world just so big, it challenges you to see where your creativity takes you.”
Particularly, Pan enjoys exploring more niche and underground artists.
“You can play the same Kid Cudi song 60,000 times and people are going to enjoy it. You can play the same Sabrina Carpenter remix for the fortieth time, people are gonna love it. But at what point does that get super repetitive, super boring and almost bland?”
University is all about education, but Pan discovered she learns as much on the dance floor as she does in the classroom. Exploring niche artists isn’t just about listening to a different kind of music — it connects her to different kinds of people and forces her to live outside a bubble of the same friends, opinions and outlooks.
“When you dive into these more niche genres [and] artists, you get to see what their perspectives are on music … and how they go through their life and what their mindset is on all of these different things.”
Being exposed to diverse EDM communities eased Pan’s social anxieties about conforming to a specific group of people. They taught her to take life less seriously, focus on being herself and, above all, live in the moment.
“I’ve realized that everybody is so different in the way that they have social connections or in the way they view life that it doesn’t really matter what your view on life is or how you socially interact with people. As long as you’re yourself, people will naturally gravitate towards you.”
While Pan has experienced the ability of music to bring people together, her status as one of the few female DJs in a community of majority-male DJs at UBC often brands her as “the sore thumb that sticks out.”
Women have always been underrepresented in the DJ scene. Globally, only 30 per cent of acts booked for electronic music festivals in 2023 were women, an increase from 9.2 per cent in 2012.
“[A] lot of communities will either ... think I really don’t know anything and try [to] mansplain everything to me [or] ignore any opinion or any ideas that I would have,” Pan said. “I feel like they’re not even doing it on purpose. I feel invisible sometimes."
Pan said the most important thing is to keep speaking up and fighting to make sure your ideas are heard.
“Just be annoying, honestly,” she said. “Just say what you care about, say your opinion and keep speaking up until they listen to you, because representation matters, no matter what field you’re in.”
Though it can be intimidating to enter a male-dominated space, Pan encourages other women and girls interested in entering the DJ world to shoot their shot. Her philosophy is to follow your passion instead of regretting the fact that you didn’t try.
“Once you do go for it and once you do put yourself out there, I can guarantee you 100 per cent that sooner or later you’ll find your people.”
For Pan, these people are the founders of UBC Raves. With them, she’s always felt like her opinion matters.
“The only people I really do feel safe with are Alie and Sten,” she said. “I have ventured out a couple times and tried to get to know some of the other people as well, but it’s just not the same.”
Despite the challenges of working in a male-dominated field and balancing DJing with her academic workload, Pan is confident it will be part of her life for a long time. One day, she hopes to return to Celebrities — this time as a DJ.
“I love sharing my passion for music with people,” she said. “I love dancing the whole night away.”
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