Sarah Feldberg
It was hot at Electric Daisy Carnival this year. Even after sunset, temperatures stayed above 90 degrees well into the evening, while some 400,000 revelers danced until sunrise over the three-night music festival that turns the Las Vegas Motor Speedway into a neon spectacle of sound and light.
Since moving to Las Vegas in 2011, heat has always been a concern for EDC producer Insomniac Events and its attendees. For the past seven years, the festival has been held in June, and though the party famously runs from dusk till dawn, some years temperatures stay perilously high throughout the night. To fight the swelter, ravers wear little and carry fans, and Insomniac places free water stations throughout the venue footprint. My first year attending, I was greeted upon arrival by an on-duty clown, who kindly offered to hose me down.
Medical tents and roving personnel offer a safety net, but they don't catch everyone. Party drugs like MDMA make users especially susceptible to dehydration, and this year, the Metropolitan Police Department recorded 1,090 medical calls, a 77% increase over 2016. After attending the first night of the festival, a 34-year-old attendee died with a reported temperature of 109 degrees. The autopsy revealed drug use with heat exposure as a contributing factor.
In 2018, the risk of such tragedy may be diminished by a move to earlier in the year. Insomniac announced a series of major changes this month including new dates for its flagship festival.
"We strive to make every year better than the last, and after a lot of brainstorming and feedback from our community, we have decided to move next year's festival to May 18, 19 and 20," said Insomniac founder and CEO Pasquale Rotella via statement. "This way we can enjoy cooler weather, the gates can open earlier, and we can hold a very special opening ceremony each day at cosmicMEADOW."
Other issues that have persisted at the festival include hours-long traffic snags on the limited roads going accessing the Speedway and brutally long lines for prepaid shuttles to and from the event. Before this year's festivities headlines warned Vegas locals and visitors to "brace yourselves" for "traffic nightmares." Attendees, meanwhile, were stuck waiting hours for early-morning transfers back to Strip hotels.
One Reddit user started a thread with a photo of exhausted partiers slumped behind metal barricades. "Got in line for my shuttle at 5AM. Still waiting 3 and 1/2 hours later. We're sleeping on the floor and probably still have another hour to go." Another poster complained that their shuttle driver took the wrong route, and then dropped them off almost a mile from the Speedway entrance.
"We hear you loud and clear on all issues related to traffic, shuttles and Premiere Parking," Rotella responded in an Instagram post at the time. "This is not the level of experience you deserve, and we are working to fix these problems. Keep the lines of communication open. If you have an issue or question, please let us know via social media."
For 2018, Insomniac has addressed those issues in a handful of ways. For the first time, EDC will offer camping next to the Speedway with air-conditioned tents, RVs and RV hookups available. On-site accommodations, Rotella noted, "will eliminate traffic all together for campers."
As for group rides, "Shuttle operations will be handed over to an independent company that specializes in the largest music and sporting events in the country. This is what they do and they do it better than anyone else, year over year," Rotella added.
The announcement also noted that the completion of construction on I-15 near the Speedway will increase traffic flow and make for easier entry to and exit from the venue.
Usually the festival announcements that get fans the most excited involve big-name headliners and over-the-top experiences. But for EDC fans confident in the event's talent lineup and epic productions, cooler temps and milder traffic will likely be music to their ears.
Three-day tickets for Electric Daisy Carnival 2018 start at $325 and go on sale Sept. 28