XMAG

XMAG - "techno.pop magazine" from Czech Republic has been one of the most important and key players of the scene since 1996.

The first 200 copies were made on a copy machine by Aleš Bleha - a former local radio DJ and a promoter of legendary parties. He launched a bulletin called Trip2House to support his events and to get people in touch with the worldwide dance music movement. His journalistic "looking for a perfect beat" slowly found readers across the whole republic. Soon the stapled black and white pages developed into a full colored magazine.

The year 1998 was a fundamental year for Trip2House. With an amount of 5000 copies, it started to be published regularly. Magazine's title was cut down to Trip, later enlarged to Tripmag, and changed for the third time in 2003 when it became XMAG.

A CD covermount was one of the drivers that turned the whole thing into a bestseller due to almost nonexistent distribution of electronic music releases in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. During the years there have been released a lot of mixed & non-mixed CDs and DVD movies.

An incredible success of XMAG led to establishment of a publishing house (known as X Publishing) focusing on youth culture and lifestyle magazines like Street - urban culture magazine, Hype - the magazine of the magazines or Živel - overground against monoculture.