Experts Only Festival Returns Bigger, Louder, and Even Better in Year Two
Last weekend, Experts Only Festival returned to Randall’s Island for its second edition and once again proved why this island belongs to the ravers. After the sold-out debut in 2025 that brought proper festival energy back to the city following the Electric Zoo collapse and Mirage bankruptcy, Summit and the team (Medium Rare, Relentless Beats, EMW) scaled it up for 50,000+ fans across three stages: a massive Main Stage with full production firepower, the art-installation-heavy Mirror Field, and the meme-inspired Pwemium Lounge. The 3pm–10pm daily window felt perfectly paced for a city crowd that still wants to make it back to Manhattan for afters.
Prospa’s last-minute cancellation meant extended sets across the board, and the programming took full advantage. Saturday opened with that classic Experts Only house-and-bass blend. On Main Stage, OMRI. and the Max Styler b2b Adam Ten pairing delivered long, locked-in grooves that kept the early crowd moving as the sun sat high. Styler and Ten traded rolling tech-house and peak-time tools for nearly two hours of pure club energy—tight percussion, cheeky vocal chops, and those big, gritty low-end moments that make you forget you’re standing in a field. Over at Mirror Field, the bass side of the bill took over: LYNY’s scratch-built sound design and vocal chops hit hard, Taiki Nulight brought the garage heat, Rohaan flipped between DnB pressure and experimental hybrids, and Levity closed the night with that signature high-energy bass bounce that had the crowd locked in until the last drop.
Then came the main event. John Summit closed Saturday with an extended two-and-a-half-hour set that stretched from golden-hour melodic moments straight into peak-time chaos. He ran through CTRL ESCAPE material, classic Summit anthems, and a heavy dose of tech-house IDs you couldn’t Shazam if you tried. The crowd sang every word of the big ones, hands in the air for the melodic builds, bodies moving for the dirtier drops.
Sunday raised the stakes even higher. Innellea b2b Korolova delivered over an hour of driving, atmospheric techno that felt like a proper mid-afternoon reset before the big guns. Will Clarke, Partiboi69, Devault, Dreya V, Jackie Hollander and the rest of the Sunday support kept the energy bouncing between dark, groovy, and full-send across the stages. Then the sun started dipping and GRiZ took Main Stage for a set that felt like a homecoming. Sax, live elements, bass pressure, and pure joy—his first return to the island since the Zeds Dead b2b that closed the final Electric Zoo. The crowd ate it up.
And then Subjohnics. John Summit b2b Subtronics for 90 minutes to close the festival was exactly the chaos you hoped for. House met dubstep in the best possible way: Summit’s melodic and tech-house foundation colliding with Subtronics’ heavy, creative flips. They ran through IDs, a Subtronics bootleg of Anyma’s ‘Hypnotized,’ a LEVEL UP & Subtronics flip of Tame Impala’s ‘Dracula,’ the Capochino flip of Devault’s ‘Feels Like Us,’ Summit & Rohaan’s ‘SATA,’ a GRiZ remix of ‘Where You Are,’ the inevitable ‘Griztronics,’ and closed with the Subtronics remix of ‘crystallized’ that had the entire field moving as one. GRiZ even jumped on stage near the end.
The production held up across the weekend as well—big screens, lasers, fire, and those immersive Mirror Field installations that gave people somewhere to breathe between sets. Experts Only is no longer just a successful debut. It’s the festival New York needed, curated by the guy who actually lives this sound, and last weekend it delivered again. Summit keeps raising the bar for what an artist-led dance festival can be in this city.
