The Moon rose and set this year faster than ever year before. Only three days have past, and Moonrise Festival already feels like it was just a hot, hooping, smiling, sweating, bass-filled, body-moving, twerking, shouting, screaming, arms-pumping, neck-breaking dream. With dozens of festivals around the country, every festival has its knack, and with Moonrise, it’s the fans.
And it’s no surprise. With legions of Bass Heads, HDYNATION Family, Mellogang, Dirty Birds, TranceFam, and more, you can see how. With four stages (one mistaken for a sauna with a built-in moshpit at times) spread across the entire infield at Pimlico Race Course, it was the United Nations of Fans, with so many unique sets of fans being covered.
Take for example the Mellogang out in full force. With enough homemade mello-heads to fill an olympic swimming pool.
Or the army of HDYNATION which probably took the humidity of Saturday and incinerated it with the amount of fire going off.
And we talk a lot about Bassnectar on RaverRafting, but with an insanely dedicated fanbase, bass heads produce more kinetic energy purely by head-banging that they could power a small city.
But aside from the fans, let’s not forget about all of those beautiful performers, decked out in amazing costumes and makeup who give the ladies in the crowd future outfit ideas, and make the men swoon. From the sun-blazing Stellar Stage to Solar Stage, they never lost focus or the moves.
Now don’t get us wrong, no festival is perfect. Two things that stood out to us that we heard from many attendees and ourselves are still resonating: water & security. The first one was the water stations and water availability at the bars. While there were additional water stations compared to last year with better placement, it was a bit chaotic with no lines or order to them. That turned into a bit of a rough spot to use late at night. Therefore due to that, many people were buying water at the bars, so they ran out. It’s definitely something for improvement for next year, by installing water booths with volunteers using kitchen-style nozzles to quickly fill people, in an orderly fashion, and move them on their dancing way. Secondly, we heard many reports shortly after, and you will find many online of people discussing being extorted in security and in the festival itself. Please remember to contact Moonrise directly at securityissues@moonrisefestival.com with what happened to you so that the people responsible can be dealt with. The right people need to be brought to justice, as it’s not fair to the victims of the events: both the attendees and the organizers who put so much effort into this festival happening for all of us to enjoy.
We’d like to thank the organizers of Moonrise Festival for having us this year as many of us call the DMV home, and we look to seeing what next year brings.
Connect with Moonrise Festival:
https://www.facebook.com/moonrisefest
https://twitter.com/moonrisefest
https://instagram.com/moonrisefest
http://www.moonrisefestival.com
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