At 5:30 Monday morning, Dash Berlin was winding up his set. As he finished, the Insomniac owl closed it’s wings, and the lights came down on one of the most intricate and astounding stages to date. This year, Insomniac Events poured $35 million into production costs alone. It was an astounding number to say the least but those of us “headliners” lucky enough to attend can attest that it was most definitely spent wisely.
Five reasons EDC Las Vegas 2013 is its best year ever
Pasquale Rotella’s Electric Daisy Carnival has outdone itself yet again for its third year at the Las Vegas Speedway, featuring a litany of improvements that further establish EDC Las Vegas as America’s Raver mecca. A carnival in the most traditional sense, Rotella has created a fever-dream inspired fantasy world in the middle of the Nevada desert. There is nothing quite like it in terms of scale and scope and this year the festival grounds saw significant expansion, some much needed layout adjustments, improved transportation and a Kinetic Field that was nearly three times larger than its 2012 counterpart.
Holy sh*t! That’s Kinetic Field?!?!?
While size always matters when it comes to stage design, EDC Las Vegas’s Main Stage not only went much bigger than in previous years, but also much better – creating a surrealist landscape that was oversaw by a massive Insomniac owl. Repositioning the Main Stage into an area that was self contained by massive sound barriers and art installations the sea of people in front of the stage found ample area to move despite the festival’s record-setting attendance. The parallels to Tomorrowland’s famous Main Stage were, of course, also hard to miss.
Bass Pod finds a new home on the Speedway
In order to make way for the much larger Main Stage, dubstep’s Bass Pod (which has lived in two different locations in the last two years), is now strategically positioned in the far opposite corner of the grounds. The stage not only changed locations, but like much of the festival it also expanded in size and scope. Low end wobbles permeated far enough to invite in fans of bass music, but not too far to interrupt the goings-on of Circuit Grounds.
Neon Garden evolves into a mini-Circuit Grounds
A stage once relegated to a a small size and a bit of an out-of-the-way location, Neon Garden donned a new skeletal structure and impressive scale of sound for the stage that used to just be “that one over on asphalt in the corner.” It helped that Richie Hawtin’s Enter concept owned this space on night one, with DJs like Loco Dice, Hobo, Matador, Victor Calderone, and Hawtin himself testing out the depths of Insomniac’s sound system.
Rides! Art Cars! Graffiti Walls!
There were more ferris wheels, there were more zany art installations, and there were certainly more sights to take in that ever before. Pasquale’s events have been interactive from day 1, but the newish emphasis on fans as the headliners really gave Insomniac a reason to dig deep into their creative brains for new ways to wow fans between stages.
The Armed Forces chip in
Traffic has always been one of the bigger issues Insomniac has faced, but this year they convinced the nearby Nellis Air Force base to open up its service roads to alleviate some of the traffic concerns. So far, it’s really seemed to make a difference. We’d estimate that travel time to and from the Strip has been almost cut in half for festivalgoers.
