ELECTRONIC FRONTIER: Durham's Moogfest champions technology as a tool for creativity.

• Author: Dudash, April
• Position: PICTURE THIS

Durham email marketing company Oracle + Bronto knew just what to do with terabytes of clicks, sends and opens --dust off that data and turn it into music. Toddlers to adult fanatics of synthesizers worked "The Sounds of Commerce" controllers at last year's Moogfest (pronounced MOGUE-fest). On a nearby screen under a white tent at the American Tobacco Campus, dizzying images pulsed to the electronic music.

Moogfest is a tribute to Moog Music, the synthesizer company Robert "Bob" Moog started in New York in the 1950s and later moved to Asheville. But the four-day annual event, to be held May 17-20, isn't just a pilgrimage for fans of electronic music. Nor is it a traditional music festival, with last year's lineup featuring an overnight "sleep concert" by meditative composer Laraaji.

Moogfest is about technology at the service of music and art, an idea Durham's growing tech scene has embraced. "I want all of the technology companies to feel like Moogfest is their festival," says Moogfest organizer Adam Katz. "It's a marketing vehicle; it's a place to prototype projects and to find insights about your consumers."

Tech companies also say it's a way to attract and retain talent. At the circus-themed Big Top hiring fair, there were acrobats in shimmering tutus, stacks of hot dogs wrapped in foil and crisp Bull Durham Beer Co. pale ale on tap. Chris Heivly, who started Big Top in 2011, is best known for co-founding MapQuest, the online mapping service that was acquired by AOL in 1999 for $1.1 billion. But on the eve of Moogfest, Heivly wore a top hat and orange pants, urging job seekers to listen to tech companies' pitches. Companies don't hold all of the leverage anymore, says Heivly, who sold his recruiting business to Durham-based American Underground last year.

Oracle + Bronto's "The Sounds of Commerce" show at Moogfest was so successful at drawing in curiosity seekers that the company took it to customer events across the U.S. and abroad in the United Kingdom and Australia. "We're always hiring, so I think that local brand recognition, people coming in and saying, 'Hey, this is cool, who are you again? Who is Bronto?'--we also could get [job] candidates," says former general manager Carolyn Sparano, who left the company earlier this year.

Attendees will pay $99 to $1,500 for four days of nearly 100 live experimental and electronic-music performances, plus workshops, hackathons and lectures by experts ranging from anthropologists to...