As we all know, capital is being flooding into EDM culture, most notably EDM festivals–arguably the best part of EDM. I just want to take a moment to round up all of the news that we, the festival-goer, can take advantage of:

Sensation U.S. Tour

ID&T, the entertainment and organizers behind festivals like Defqon.1 and Tomorrowland, is bringing popular European festival, Sensation, to the States. While not widely recognized in the U.S., Sensation has been on many top festivals in the world list; not for the scale of the event, but for the unique, secluded, and intimate experience it provides. Attendees go to indoor arenas with a mandatory white dress code and enjoy the escape into a world of abstract displays and Matrix Reloaded-esque, tribal-like atmosphere. The tour starts this late summer into early fall and will hit Miami, NYC, Las Vegas, and other major cities across the U.S.

Official Sensation trailer —

TomorrowWorld

ID&T is invading on all fronts. Arguably the world’s biggest, most popular festival, TomorrowLand, is being organized as a U.S. spin-off, TomorrowWorld. Hosted in Atlanta from September 27 – 29, TomorrowWorld is looking to bring Europe’s pride and joy and overload a U.S. audience with over 300 artists. The list of performers that will take some time to scroll through because it’s so immense.

Official TomorrowWorld trailer —

Sound of Q-Dance

ID&T’s Dutch invasion does not stop there: Q-Dance returns with their first U.S. stand-alone event. Known for the “harder styles of dance music,” the Sound of Q-Dance will be held in Los Angeles on October 5th. While not on the scale of TomorrowWorld or even Sensation, this can be seen only as the beginning of massive Q-Dance campaign. I can only pray, pray, pray that one day Defqon will land in the U.S.

Official Sound of Q-Dance trailer

Official Defqon.1 “endshow” movie —

So, where does this leave the other two established U.S. EDM entertainment companies? Insomniac already has an arsenal of festivals: the Electric Daisy Carnival and Wonderland series, most notably. The Wonderland series, Insomniac’s winter-aligned festivals, are increasing in scope. Brand new at this year’s Nocturnal Wonderland, camping grounds will be available for attendees to stay over night. This year’s EDC Las Vegas stop was obviously their most elaborate and glamorous ever; with theme becoming a major center-stone for the festival. Attending myself, I observed that this year they utilized the entire 1.5 mile motor speedway and the crowd still seemed dense. They’re only going to want to expand; they need to expand, so I’m calling it now: next year or the year after, the Electric Daisy Carnival’s main stop, Las Vegas, will be held over two weekends, much like Ultra Music Festival. Not only will this increase the amount of tickets available to be sold, but, also like Ultra, Insomniac can better emphasize their “EDC Week” (EDMbiz conference, their sponsored Vegas club events) by putting it between a two weekend festival.

Speaking of Ultra, the other major U.S. EDM festival, immense expansion has been in their scope since last year: the festival stretched over two weekends, and stuck between them, “Ultra Week.” This transforms the entire city into a 10-day EDM binge. If attendance increases this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if they considered hosting a west coast edition of the popular EDM gathering.

Before I started this post, I planned to highlight a few new attractions that are coming to the U.S. Not until I started organizing and listing them was when I realized that the EDM festivals arms race is getting fucking immense. Money makes the world go around. And, as long as they make it worth our while, we’ll be happy to keep it spinning.

Residing in Las Vegas, I have been listening to EDM since the Eurodance craze of the 90s. I utilize my love for deep, philosophical thought and writing to cover the ever-expanding genre for ElectroJams. Question, concerns, or bitching can be directed to my Twitter account @yalepoloclub. I always love a good conversation. electrojams.com