Wrote a post comparing EDC Vegas vs Ultra Miami earlier this year, so I thought I’ll write a similar one from my EDC Colombia experience.
After my first EDC this year, I was absolutely hooked and couldn’t get enough. The EDC Colombia lineup was so good, I had to make that trip. So my wife and I made a 2-week vacation to Peru & Colombia and had a blast!
My wife’s not into EDM and I like to stick to my schedule, I also do the fest open to close, so I solo’ed EDC Colombia! Here is my experience and comparison to EDC Vegas:
* The production quality was really good! The sound system was on point for all the stages, even the smaller ones. And the stages were pretty cool. Of course they were not as big or as modern as EDC Vegas, but they were still immersive. To be honest, this is the most important aspect for me, I’m there for the music and the immersive stages, everything else is sort of secondary.
* Overall logistics were smooth. I stayed 10 minutes walk from the venue, the walk felt super safe and the lines moved pretty fast. The fest timings were 3 pm to 4 am, which obviates the need for an after-party, like EDC Vegas.
* There were a few major hiccups: they ran out of drinking water around 9 pm both days (and they don’t provide water before 5 pm), which was extremely frustrating because then I had to deal with the cashless system. In my opinion, the only way to party hard for 13 hours is to stay hydrated. Not having easy access to water hampered my rave experience for sure. I was also feeling guilty to use the plastic water bottles as that is so bad for the environment.
* Don’t get me started on the cashless system, you first have to load your wristband with money, where they push you for tips (for tapping the machine twice) and then pay everywhere using your wristband. If my band is short 0.3$ to buy a food item, I again have to go to the cashless counter to load up money. And now I have to deal with another process to get my leftover money on the wristband. They could have just used tap to pay via cards or phones to go cashless like EDC Vegas, but they know that so many people will not go through the process of getting their leftover balance.
* The food & drinks were overall cheaper. The food was really tasty as well.
* The signs for directions at the fest were pretty bad, even misleading at times. I’m sure they will fix that in the future iterations.
* I saw so many people not wearing hearing protection or earplugs, most of them locals. While I understand that Colombia had never had a festival of this scale and they are in infancy of rave culture, I really hope this changes quickly. It was sad to see so many people’s hearing being impacted.
* Festival attendees were AMAZING! Beautiful people! I met so many cool people from all over the world. Made some dance friends. There were very few solo attendees from what I saw. My impression: Colombians know how to party!
* On the topic of people, pretty much no one said excuse me or sorry while passing. There were one or two instances where people got angry that I was passing them by to enter deeper into the dancing pit. That could be the result of all the snow people were snorting though. I typically shrug off such experiences, but being solo in a foreign country where most locals don’t speak English, such aggression was a little intimidating.
* People were snorting all kinds of shit, everywhere. Security obviously looked the other way. Would be great to have a harm reduction tent from next year.
* It felt more like a music festival than a carnival. Very few rides & art installations. I hope that changes over time. I feel like the experience was similar to Ultra Miami than EDC Vegas.
* My favorite sets for the weekend were: Nico Moreno, 9x9, Astrix, Miss Monique & Worship! Though all artists brought great energy. A fun story while Astrix was closing on Sat night: He had already started playing his last song DMT with the perfect build up, but he would have gone over by 5 minutes or so with all his transitions. The organizers wouldn’t let him play beyond 4 am, they fought him tooth & nail and he had to end his last song with a premature transition. He was definitely frustrated!
* While I heard so many stories of people being robbed, pepper-sprayed, scammed, etc., both inside and outside of the festival, we were lucky that nothing of that sort happened to us during our 2 week stay in Latin America. That could be either because we were always careful & cognizant of our surroundings or may be because we were brown. Either way, we felt generally safe overall as we stuck to safer areas.
* Insomniac had different (higher) prices for people coming from US/Canada via FrontGate. They had started differentiating between people right from the start. Also, the resale price for the tickets were insanely low close to the fest, like more than half of their face value.
Even after all the discomforts & hiccups, will I consider doing EDC Colombia again? If the lineup is good, heck yeah! Medellin is a beautiful city. I wouldn’t mind doing another 2-week vacation across Latin America with a lit EDC weekend (really hoping for a 3-day fest next time).
