We joined other Electronic music fans in a 3 day event at one of the biggest events in Orlando this year with over 80,000 people attending the first night of the event. EDC Orlando 2021 was an amazing event and we felt safe even with covid still going around. Electric Daisy Carnival was held at Tinker field and had 4 stages with artists starting on Friday night and playing till midnight for the next 3 evenings. It was surreal to see large groups of people congregating again, letting your mind imagine that we are already living in the post covid world.
It was a Friday and our friends had received the tickets in the mail for EDC and we paced excitedly all day, unable to contain our excitement. Once Michael punched the clock for the day, we were more than ready to go! The plan was for us to stay at their place for the weekend because they lived closer to the event and would give us a basecamp for an after party each evening. Tim and Jessica picked us up as planned and as we headed back to their place to drop off our stuff and get ready for the night ahead, we all chatted excitedly in the car like kids heading for a slumber party. We also discussed how we were a little concerned with the tickets as we had ordered them online and got an extraordinarily good deal, but we were protected by the FB market policy, so we were feeling safe. Once we arrived at their place, we unloaded our stuff, made some drinks, put our wristbands on, and put on these flashing earing’s. Feeling groovy and looking like a million bucks, we were ready to go.
Our first night at the carnival, we hopped into an Uber and were whisked away without any difficulty, arriving around 8pm. Michael charged through security, like a kid in a candy store he got all the way inside before turning around to make sure he did not totally lose the party. The festival had attracted thousands of people to the grounds but with the venue being as large as it was, you never felt cramped or unable to move. We decided to stay together, but had our emergency meet up location since phone service was spotty at best with the network being overloaded with all the people there. Is this what a microwave dinner feels like? We were able to get texts out to each other throughout the night, but when you are in the cellular sea it oftens feels like you’re casting out a message in a bottle, never knowing if it will reach shore. Luckily, we never got separated so we didn’t have to use the meeting point, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry, especially when journeying into another dimension.
We were off and it was fairly easy to navigate around, we found there was always someone carrying a large pole around the party, if you fell in behind this individual you could ride the wake and cut through the sea of people without trouble. First stop, and clearly the most important one, was the bar. There was no line to be seen, the bar was extremely well provisioned, and the prices and drinks were clearly marked. But those prices were crazy high at 18 bucks for a small mixed drink, Michael hit the h20 hard that night. There were of course people sneaking in their own drinks but that’s not our style, so we stayed hydrated and indulged here and there. Closer to the end of the night some of the bars did run out of drinks, showing how impressive the attendance for this event was.
Drinks in hand we began to roam through the event, taking in the displays and checking out all of the beautifully dressed people. Our flashing earrings were a hit, so many people complimented us on them and wanted to know where to get a pair, it was fun to be noticed in the sea of people. While each DJ has their own sound and style it was difficult to tell one artist from the other for the uneducated ear. We spent our time walking from stage to stage enjoying every minute of it, stopping to check out a specific sound or take pictures or a video. For an event of this size the lines were reasonable at every bar and most importantly at every porta-pottie. If waiting in line for the toilet isn’t your thing though, you could pay $100 to have VIP bathroom access, aka a trailer port-a-potty, we opted not to pay that, so not sure if they were any better. We recommend bringing hand sanitizer and your own tissues, though we always felt safe and sterile at this event, it is a good idea to be self sufficient and responsible.
Our crew mobbed around together for the entire evening, taking in djs across the festival who all started pettering out around midnight, we took that as our queue to depart and made our way home. This is where a glaringly obvious problem in the event showed up, the public transportation system in Orlando is nonexistent and suddenly the outpouring of people from the event are outside with insufficient cabs and ubers to get them home. We planned to walk to downtown Orlando from the event to minimize the surge charge on rideshares.
After walking all night, the walk to the place we had chosen, The Patio, was longer than Onalea could handle so a little under halfway there the two of us decided to take a bike trolley for the remaining distance. It cost us 60.00 for the two of us, more than we wanted to pay, but when your dogs are barking you oughta give those puppies a rest.
Day 2
We realized that we were not going to walk downtown again; the distance was just too far. We also did not want to be stuck there all-night waiting for a ride after it closed, forced to pay the super surge charges. Pro Tip we scheduled our uber to pick us up 30 minutes before the event closed down avoiding surge pricing and a long wait for a ride. We took another uber to the event, the second uber Onalea reserved and not being from around the area had the incorrect address. This was close to the event and while we do not expect an uber driver to know every event and location, the driver should have known we were headed to the wrong location seeing how he had dropped people off at that event and it was the main thing going on in town that weekend. When your brain is on autopilot, you end up in some unfamiliar destinations. We did get to the event about 15 minutes later than planned so not a big deal. Tonight we decided to spend some time together and also to spread out on our own to explore the event and get some me time in. We set a rendezvous point for later and headed off into the night beneath the lights.
Michael spent most of his time sitting on the edge and talking to people. He found a lot of fellow cyber security and web designers, which created some very natural conversations. He had an amazing conversation about the future of hardware development versus AWS or another cloud-based platform. While he truly enjoyed spending time with friends it was amazing just diving into the crowd and getting lost in the music with 1000’s of strangers. The rhythm of the dancefloor is truly hypnotic and it is so easy to lose an hour in the mix of motion and music. The feeling of safety and welcomeness that exudes from this place is so magical, for the first time in so long he felt comfortable to open up and talk to strangers and to remember what that feels like.
Onalea walked around a little bit on her own before finding a place to settle for a while to drink it all in. A people watcher at heart and in the absolute best place to do so! She really enjoyed the uniqueness of style that each person came with, the atmosphere was so warm and inviting and everyone could really express themselves free of judgement or learning looks. It was truly a place to let your hair down and to celebrate your body and vibrancy. When the atmosphere of an event like this is as safe and inviting as EDC, you can really open up and express yourself as you truly are. There was a group of people on stilts letting people pose with them for pictures, just the thought of having to mount those large extensions puts Onalea into a state of wonder. Onalea tracked down our friends a little while later and we decided to dive into the crowds and to get close to one of the stages. Weaving through the crowd is such a fun game, watching for pockets that you can fit through, sliding between dancers and people locked in embraces which each other, the thud of the bass making your entire body vibrate, it is so much fun and exhilarating. It also will make you glad for earplugs, especially quality ones, one of our friends didn’t wear them and his ears were still ringing on Monday.
When we all came back together, we asked a security guard where the rideshare pickup area was, they stated we had to go to the other side of the park. We decided it would be quicker for us to leave the event and walk around outside than to try and weave our way through the crowd once more. Once there we asked another person working the park and she said we had to go back to a different place that we had already passed by. There seemed to be very little foresight put into transportation for this event, both by the event planners and the city of Orlando. Having a few shuttle busses heading to and from the downtown area to the event would have gone a long way. Instead they left everyone to be beholden to the ride sharing apps, jockeying for lifts hither thither and yon. Didn’t wreck the event for us but certainly showcases one major area for improvement.
Day 3
We did not go back. We did really want to spend another night dancing and to check out the rest of the stages but the difficulty of travelling back and forth each day, paired with the prohibitive cost it comes with, really curbed our enthusiasm. So we decided to skip the final night, which was probably for the best as each of us began to feel very ill in the subsequent days. Michael was hit the hardest and ended up completely wiped out, so we decided to order a rapid covid test off Amazon just in case. Back in the real world and Covid is once again on our minds, so Michael sucked it up and went through the uncomfortable process of swabbing himself. We anxiously waited for the testing time to be up and fortunately received a negative result.