When I first started going to festivals almost twenty years ago, there wasn’t a lot of thought put into them beyond the basics. They consisted of three to four stages, porta-potties and the same food options as those found at a little league baseball game. There are garage sales with more thought put into them than many of those early festivals. They were just a lot of people and a lot of music in a single crammed into one place for a day or two. Then Lollapalooza emerged with a larger goal in mind, with a focus on a full experience instead of just throwing a bunch of bands on a poster and calling it a day. Lollapalooza had multi-media activities to interact with, places to create your own artwork and misting tents. Performers and their fans flocked to the festivals, which grew in number as well until it seemed like there was a festival for every genre. Eventually the market was saturated, then the bottom dropped out and only a handful of festivals survived. I like to think they went into hibernation, gestating until they were ready to emerge, refined and improved. Indeed, it was the late decline of Rothbury Music Festival that made it possible for Electric Forest to rise in its place.

The rise in popularity and number of current festivals closely mirrored the meteoric rise in popularity of EDM. True, the genre is a lightning rod for disposable income, and what better venue for disposable income than a large-scale multi-day festival. Festival marketing focused on how to set one festival apart from the rest.

Despite adopting a naming convention similar to Electric Daisy Carnival, and Electric Zoo, the list of similarities between Electric Forest and other EDM-centric festivals is brief. Electric Forest isn’t going to win the contest for best line-up, the largest festival grounds or for highest attendance, because those aren’t the goals of the festival. Electric Forest is about the total experience of it’s attendees, and that’s where it sets itself apart from the rest.

Electric Forest is different because, well, most other festivals don’t have a forest. They might have art installations, or a Ferris wheel, but they’re generally on a large piece of flat ground with minimal vegetation, like at Coachella or Bonnaroo. Hell, EDC Las Vegas is held on a racetrack and Spring Awakening is in a football stadium. Very few have a dedicated piece of forest for attendees to lounge in or explore, or experience a magical transition from day to night. It’s not off to the side, either. The forest is the centerpiece of the festival, and it’s living, beating heart.

The forest began as a 600’ x 600’ tract of pine trees, planted in a grid with the intention of clearcutting. As luck would have it, (some would argue destiny) the trees were never used and have been allowed to grow for over fifty years. The trees are now 50’ tall, perfectly spaced apart for hanging hammocks. Of course, it’s not simply a tract of trees, at least not after Andrew Carroll (Lighting Designer for String Cheese Incident) and his team are finished with it. Until last year, the only clearing they’d done was to provide three paths that lead through the Forest. 2013 saw the addition of a large, red multi-purpose seating/bar/stage structure with large, lighted pagodas on four corners. It’s a beautiful structure, but it’s a questionable trade-off, as it required carving out a sizeable chunk of available trees.

That expansive, magical green heart is exactly what I used to lure two of my friends from southern California into an obscure town in west Michigan. Along with my partner, the four of us collectively tore it up at Coachella this year and decided to find another festival where we could continue our quest for great music and amazing people. The next step was clear for me, it had to be Electric Forest. But for Jimmy and Meredith, the answer wasn’t quite so obvious.

“It’s where? In Michigan? Like Detroit?” Sure, it’s a long distance to travel from southern California, but we assured them it’s so, so worth it. I should have known better than to believe that words alone could have swayed people to travel over 2,000 miles into the sticks of Michigan. Words cannot adequately describe the Forest. So I showed them a few snapshots (like this and this) I took from the last couple years, and they were right up on the fence, just needing a stiff breeze to push them over. So I looked up several videos of people filming a walk-through of the Forest, including ours taken after Big Gigantic closed out the festival in 2012.

“The Forest is even bigger now! More lights, and now the Observatory, and did we mention there’s a stage deeper in the woods?” They bought flights and their festival passes the next day. I’m not even sure if we sent them anything about the line up. That’s the power of Electric Forest. That’s why people keep coming back, bringing more and more friends, spreading the love and that’s why tickets sold out this year.

Stay tuned for more about the festival, artist highlights (Headliners here, Lowliners here), a check-in with the folks of the Electric Forest sub-reddit, preparations and when the time comes, my journey through the Forest and festival with my noob friends. In the meantime, you can read more about the festival in Justin Maxwell’s piece from last year.

I work, live and play in Minneapolis. I try to tell the story of the people that create music and experiences through pictures as well as through words. benallen.photos