From A Seasoned Raver: 4 Things I Didn’t Expect At My First EDC Las Vegas

After nearly a decade of raving and three years working in music, I’m not exactly sure why I hadn’t been to Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) Las Vegas, the largest electronic music festival in the United States, prior to this year. Maybe I always thought EDC Las Vegas was too big for me. I hate crowds. Perhaps I thought it was too commercial, as someone who typically prefers artier, transformational music festivals. Though the reason is unclear, I’d just never made it to “the big festival.”

As I finally attended the 29th edition of Insomniac‘s flagship festival last week, I approached the weekend with an open heart and a curious eye, taking in every stage, light show, and activation in vivid detail to present a handful of things that surprised me after all my music festival experience.

Sheer Size

The No. 1 thing I was perplexed by all weekend was the size of the festival, both in physical size and population. When I first entered the event, I commented to my friends, who are long-time attendees, about how I thought the venue looked small.

Based on my experiences attending festivals like Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, and Sziget, these festival sites often feel vast. While their acreage is larger than that of EDC, the attendance numbers are roughly half. Initially, I found EDC Las Vegas to feel surprisingly small. However, once I descended the stairs and entered the heart of the festival, I realized just how large and intricate it truly is. I discovered YeeDC! nestled in Downtown EDC, Memory Lane displays photos and videos from past EDCs, and entertainers on stilts engage with attendees and enhance the festival atmosphere.

This year, EDC Las Vegas has introduced a historic 16th stage, making it remarkable to consider how festival organizers managed to fit everything into the speedway without creating overcrowding. While there were some issues with sound bleed and a few congested areas, the overall flow of the festival was quite smooth, especially given the size of the crowd—over 500,000 attendees over three days—and the number and scale of the stages placed within the racetrack.

EDC Las Vegas Vibes

With so many visitors throughout the weekend, it’s hard to believe there weren’t more congestion problems and rude guests shoving to get by. Generally speaking, crowds were polite; they said excuse me, and no one was overly rushed to get anywhere. Certain people may have indulged above their means. However, those people almost always had a friend group behind them, looking after them, saying excuse me and sorry to people they may have bothered in their paths.

Admittedly, EDC’s status as the largest electronic festival and one of the more expensive raves in the United States led me to prejudge the people who attend. Before the festival, I had just assumed that rich, egotistical, clout-chasing ravers chose EDC Las Vegas as their mecca of dance music festivals, but I was refreshingly wrong.

Although the festival is massive, Insomniac maintains the ethos of being for the people, and I underestimated how many pure-of-heart ravers would attend the event. With OG ravers fueling the energy, PLURR vibes were at their peak. People were handing out trinkets, striking up conversations with neighbors, hugging strangers goodbye before scurrying off to the next set, and simply bringing up the vibes of the entire festival. It was a restorative reminder of what rave culture should be.

Production

There are some ways in which EDC Las Vegas knocks production out of the ballpark, and some things the festival leaves to be desired. Stages at EDC are some of the most renowned in the world—many dance music fanatics dream of seeing the Kinetic Field stage one day. The attention to detail that crews put into that stage, which changes every year with the festival’s theme, and its grandiose size, are pretty stunning. Similarly, the fireworks and drone shows each night light up the sky in unimaginable ways. Many people at the fest were seen ditching massive performances to observe the fireworks from the speedway bleachers, widely regarded as the best spot in the house to take it all in.

However, I was surprised by the simplicity of the other stages. The rest of the bunch were up to par with other U.S. festivals, but nothing extraordinary in my experience, which was a shock, knowing EDC Las Vegas’s reputation in the electronic scene. An aspect that I found especially disappointing was the lack of monitors on the stages. Although the festival wasn’t overcrowded, it’s not uncommon to be stationed behind tens of thousands of people at a set unless you’re the dedicated few who enter early and ride the rail the entire night.

For hard-working attendees who pay a minimum of $450 for a general admission ticket and upwards of $2,000 for elevated experiences, it feels inconsiderate not to provide screens and monitors so they can see their favorite artists on stage without snagging front-row spots.

Decorations and lights were abundant at EDC, providing attendees with an otherworldly twist on reality. Visuals and lasers were up there with the best of U.S. music festivals. In my opinion, only Excision‘s raw laser displays and visual-heavy shows, like Thunderdome and Lost Lands, beat out EDC’s explosive visual production.

Many stages seemed quiet, presumably to reduce sound bleed and to comply with city ordinances. Sound levels varied wildly from stage to stage. The bass from Neon Garden, the underground techno stage, vibrated eardrums, while the sound at Cosmic Meadow, the second-largest stage, was relatively low throughout the weekend. Bass power was capped for artists such as NGHTMRE, who supposedly blew out the speakers at Cosmic Meadow during his Friday night closing set.

Set Times

I’m the “type B” festival friend who sees a lineup, buys the ticket, forgets about the festival until the weekend of, and shows up without planning a single thing. So, imagine my surprise when, on Thursday night, I’m looking at the daily lineups for the weekend ahead and I see that sets start at 7 PM PT and go until 5:30 AM. No other festival I’ve been to holds official sets that late into the night. This doesn’t even include the RV renegades and camp after-parties that extend well into the late morning.

Fortunately, I was able to stay in an RV for the weekend. Although the shift pods that can be rented for the weekend have air conditioning, rumors spreading around camp were that they can get quite toasty. Waking up in the Nevada heat in the morning, combined with daytime camp festivities, like pool parties and DJ sets, makes for very long days following the early morning festival closures.

A pleasant surprise in the campgrounds was free 24/7 showers and flushable toilets. After partying from sundown to sunup, having the option to shower, wash your face, and brush your teeth with running water at 6 AM—if you’re not dead tired—is a simple but game-changing luxury.

All images courtesy: Insomniac Events. Featured image credit: Skyler Greene.