Written by Natasha Lenart
Electric Daisy Carnival, usually referred to as EDC, is an annual festival whose flagship location is in Las Vegas, although there are a number of EDC events held around the US and internationally every year. This year’s Las Vegas event is May 17th to May 19th, and is at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, about 15 miles north of the infamous Las Vegas Strip. In true Las Vegas late-night spirit, the event is from dusk ‘til dawn – the full grounds don’t even open until 7PM, and the party runs until 5:30AM! The festival moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 2011, but 2019 will be EDC’s 23rd annual festival. Through over 20 years of experience, EDC Las Vegas has established itself as one of the largest festivals in the world, and is a must-see on a large majority of festival-goers bucket lists.
The festival itself features 8 massive stages and hundreds of artists, dancers, and performers of all kinds. Attendance exceeds over 400,000 people. At EDC, attendees are considered “headliners,” too, because the amazing people who go to these festivals really make the event come to life. People from all over the United States come out to Las Vegas for this incredible celebration of love, positivity, and music. However, the huge event also draws in large crowds from numerous foreign countries from around the globe. Last year the festival was moved from June to May in an attempt to avoid the unbearable summer desert, and with that, they also introduced Camp EDC – on-site tent and RV camping.
Every year EDC announces a particular theme for that year’s event, and the kineticFIELD stage is redesigned every year to reflect that theme. Last year’s theme was kineticLOVE. In a video featuring Bill Nye the Science Guy, Pasquale Rotella, the CEO of Insomniac Events and no stranger to festival veterans, revealed this year’s theme to be kineticENERGY. As a scientist myself, I absolutely cannot wait to see what the kineticFIELD will look like – I’m really hoping for a massive mad scientist’s laboratory; Pasquale also mentioned that the stage is his favorite design for kinetic FIELD in the history of EDC!
A new EDC tradition is how the lineup is initially revealed. The festival goes live on Facebook and plays tiny clips of tracks by artists playing the festival based on the stages they’re playing, it’s called Music Through Music and it is insanely exciting! The day after the video goes live, Pasquale personally drops the lineup on his socials before it is shared anywhere else. Let me tell you, watching the live video last night, my head was absolutely buzzing, it’s so hard to contain that kind of excitement! I spent the entire rest of the night trying to use Shazam to piece together the rest of the lineup. And I mean, is anyone surprised the lineup is to die for?
Here are a few day-by-day highlights for me:
Friday:
• Above and Beyond
• Andy C
• Blacklizt (Zhu’s dark alias)
• Camelphat
• Deadmau5
• ERIC PRYDZ
• The Glitch Mob
• Gorgon City (Live)
• i_o
• Sander van Doorn
• Skream b2b Rusko (Old Skool Dubstep Set)
Saturday:
• Attlas b2b Rhett
• Charlotte de Witte
• Gel Real (Claude Vonstroke b2b Green Velvet)
• Infected Mushroom
• Joseph Capriati
• NERO (DJ SET)
• No Mana
• Sub Focus b2b Wilkinson
• Zhu
Sunday:
• Adam Beyer
• Cosmic Gate
• Delta Heavy b2b Dirtyphonics
• Dieselboy
• Dimension b2b Culture Shock
• Dom Dolla
• Enrico Sanguiliano
• Jamie Jones
• Svdden Death
• Tisoki
Tickets are still available online here and camping packages are available online here. I strongly suggest to start planning now – EDC Las Vegas is approaching quickly!
All photos are from Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC)’s Facebook page.
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