This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Love Festival, the annual blowout that attracts thousands of people to its stages that, for one all-night party, are occupied by DJs from all over the world.

Festival founder Greg Dehnert, better known by his DJ name, G-Spot (more on that later), brought the party to local shores in 1998 after establishing the flagship event in Los Angeles seven years earlier with his friend and fellow turntablist DJ Reza.

The two men had a vision for a massive roaming party and went viral with their Love Festival, throwing the annual party in cities across America and Mexico.

Honolulu's Love Festival is one of the biggest DJ events of the year, and it continues to grow. What started out as a 1,000-person party in an indoor rock-climbing gym on Sand Island now attracts crowds that are 5,000 strong — and too big to fit anywhere but within the grounds of Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park in Kapolei.

Though G-Spot's busy enough during the rest of year promoting events and parties that have become Honolulu nightlife staples, it's the summertime - or Love Festival season — that really keeps him tied up.

Can you believe it's already been 10 years since the first Love Festival? How have things changed since that first event?

A lot of people have grown up with the festival, so there are people that have been going every year. People fly in from the Neighbor Islands to attend, and people plan around it. That's cool. We have a very dedicated and excited following, which has grown over the years.

Now we're bringing out world-class talent and DJs, and people recognize the event as an event.

And we're constantly changing little things like bringing out go-go dancers, or using better designers to design the flyers or upgrading the lighting. It's in the details.

What can people expect from this year's festival?

We have more than 20 DJs who will be spinning all kinds of music from hip-hop to '80s — and everything else — on multiple stages. And people love to dress up for it, too.

Like, in costumes?

Well ... I don't know if you'd call them costumes. It's more like, you know, sparkles.

Sparkles, huh?

Yeah. You know, a little more sparkly than they normally would. Like, someone might wear a wig or a funky hat or extended eyelashes. People dress a lot more flashy.

What made you decide that Honolulu would be a good city for a Love Festival?

I had been doing a lot of parties here, while Reza was doing the Love Festival on the Mainland, and we wanted to work together on something. We decided that we would try and bring the Love Festival here and make the event a destination party for people on the Mainland, too. I promoted it here and he promoted it on the Mainland.

And people used to come out a lot from the Mainland before the airfares were crazy.

On a scale of 1 to 10 - 1 being a day at the beach, 10 being world domination — how much work does it take to pull something like this off?

It's not an easy event, I'll tell you that! It's very stressful, and it takes a lot of work. But on the other hand, we've been doing the event so long now that a lot of stuff is second nature. But it's not easy. It's not the most difficult event I've ever done, but it's up there.

Is it worth it?

Is it worth it? (Pauses.) You know what? It is. I get excited for it every year. And I think this year, being the 10th year, I'm actually enjoying it, even anticipating the stuff that I know is going to go wrong. Stuff always goes wrong. But this time ... I had a smile on my face when you asked that, if that tells you anything.

Since I have your ear, let's revisit a few things about you. Tell me about your DJ name. How did that happen?

Well, it IS G-Spot, right? And it seems a little odd to some people. But it comes from my siblings. My older brothers used to call me "Spot" like the dog in those kids' books, and my twin sister used to call me G, because she couldn't say my real name. So it became G-Spot. I was being called that before I even hit puberty — before I even kissed a girl. So, it was always there.

Honestly, if I could go back and do it again, I would probably just use my real name, but I'm too far along in my career to change it now.

And I know people hear my name and roll their eyes, but it came from my brothers and sister and I have no problem with that.

And you're kind of a brainiac — you didn't come to Hawai'i to be an events promoter and a DJ, right?

No, I didn't. I come from a musical family, so music was always in us, and DJing is part of my soul. But I never thought I could make a living being a DJ. And being musically inclined, we're also all pretty good at math, so we all became engineers.

I went to the University of Florida and got my bachelor's degree in civil engineering and then got my master's from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Then the University of Hawai'i offered me a scholarship and a teaching assistantship at the engineering school, so I jumped at that.

I was also DJing and doing events while I was going to school, and before I got my doctorate, I realized I could make a living here as a DJ. So I chose that career path.

Right now I'm working on finishing my doctorate degree in transportation engineering. Maybe one day I'll run for office and fix Hawai'i's transportation problems.

Any regrets?

A lot of people think I'm crazy for choosing this over engineering, but honestly, I'm happy. I make a good living. And Hawai'i has been very good to me, it's been very good to the Love Festival, and it's allowed me to fulfill my dreams. So no, I don't have any regrets.