Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

2015 EDC Las Vegas plays out as an imperfect spectacle

2015 EDC: Night 3

Steve Marcus

Festivalgoers wait for the gates to open as the sun sets during the final night of the Electric Daisy Carnival on Sunday, June 21, 2015, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

2015 EDC: Night 3

Fireworks explode over the Las Vegas Motor Speedway during the final night of the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) early Monday morning, June 22, 2015. Launch slideshow »

2015 EDC: Day 2

A camera man films the crowd during the Above & Beyond set at the Kinetic Field stage during the 2015 Electric Daisy Carnival at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Saturday, June 20, 2015. Launch slideshow »

The two gals holding the inflated phallus were shot.

Sydney and Sabyr Owens were their names. They are sisters visiting VegasVille and EDC Las Vegas from Palm Springs, Calif. The attendees at the fifth EDC festival at Las Vegas Motor Speedway alternated possession of a 4-foot-long prop with the message “#PLURPENIS” written with a purple Sharpie on the side.

Aside from serving as an entertaining conversation piece, the big balloon extolled “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect,” which is the official acronym of the Electric Daisy Carnival.

Asked how she would improve upon this year’s event, if they were to be invited to an Insomniac post-mortem meeting, Sydney Owens said, “More water stations and colder water. When you’re out there dancing and it’s 100-something degrees, the water gets hot fast. We need water everywhere.” Her sister piped in with, “Everything is too expensive. Everything. A margarita costs $18. That is too much for a margarita. Hats are $30.”

EDC Las Vegas, at this writing, has just about played out in its fifth installment at LVMS. Once more, the event has been marred by the death of an attendee; a 24-year-old man died overnight on Sunday morning, according to Metro Police.

The most recent fatality notwithstanding (the man’s cause of death will not be determined for weeks), safety is atop the list of priorities at EDC. In its five-year run in Las Vegas, it has become apparent that it is impossible to ensure that a festival that draws 135,000 fans per night is going to culminate without a tragedy.

Otherwise, fans who trudged to the speedway Sunday night talked of myriad methods to make future events more efficient and user-friendly.

Yesenia Loza and Gio Diaz, in town from Lake Elsinore, Calif., talked of transportation woes from Friday’s opening night.

“They need to work on the organization of the parking lot,” Diaz said. “It took us three hours to get from the parking lot here to our hotel room on Friday night.”

The couple is staying at Westgate Las Vegas.

“When we were leaving, we heard the parking guys yelling to each other, ‘Just be safe! Let them go wherever they want!’ ” Loza said. “It was really disorganized … there is a lot of trash around, too, like they haven’t cleaned up the place since Friday.”

The condition of the facility is a constant concern. Unlike the Rock in Rio USA festival in May, when crews were continually attending to the grounds, the LVMS infield is showing some serious wear and tear as the event closes. Even restrooms in areas not open to the general public are thrashed after three nights of EDC activity.

“I’d like to see the entry take less time,” said Kaleb Smith, part of a group of 10 visitors from Littleton, Colo. His state affiliation was evident by the giant State of Colorado flag he carried through the festival. “It is so hot, and we were under the tent at the entrance for more than an hour, and that was before we even got inside.”

Smith’s wife, Bethany, also noted the glitch in the Bass Pod stage Friday night, when the power went down for an hour about 9 p.m. and wiped out the set by TrollPhace and Getter, as the DJs seemed to overload the circuit and rendered the stage silent for about an hour.

“We were here to see TrollPhace,” Bethany Smith said. “It’s like they didn’t properly test all of the equipment.” (It would be fair to note that the Smiths stayed at Circus Circus, saying, “We liked it much more than we expected.”)

Visiting from Albuquerque, Akwinano Barnes said that he would focus improvement efforts on transportation.

“Shuttles! More shuttles, or a quicker shuttle service,” he said. “On Friday, I didn’t get back to my hotel room until 9 o’clock.”

That’s 9 a.m.

“I’m at the Excalibur, and I left here at 5:30, and it took me 3 1/2 hours until I walked into my room,” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to do anything but sleep and come back out here.”

But Barnes was having a bangin’ time.

“Other than that, it’s great,” he said. “EDC is cherry, bro.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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