Known as one of the oldest dance music festivals in the world (its promoters, Netherland’s ID&T, will claim it is), Mysteryland’s presence in the United States is an extremely new and telling move for the franchise. In last year’s inaugural year stateside, the festival put on a strong lineup at a beautiful venue yet suffered from inevitable new festival woes: the festival had not developed any sort of reputation with American festivalgoers and therefore failed to draw the kinds of crowds it had hoped to. Similar fate fell to on Tomorrowworld on its first year as well.
This year, Mysteryland seeks to change all that, with an even more diverse and, dare I say, “Americanized” lineup and with heavy promotion far and wide. In fact, I’d venture to say you’d be living in a cave if you hadn’t heard about this year’s event somewhere by now. Returning to Bethel Woods, New York, the infamous site of Woodstock ’69, the festival is poised to welcome tens of thousands of festivalgoers this Memorial Day weekend looking to ring in the summer right.
Taking a look at the lineup, it’s hard for an electronic music fan of any disposition to not find something they’d like. While the festival has definitely strayed from making itself too mainstream, it has brought along heavyweight acts like A-Trak, Dillon Francis, Diplo and Kygo. But the real meat of the lineup is comprised of disco acts like Classixx, Moon Boots, jackLNDN, Oliver and Skream, funk freaks Gramatik, Griz, and Manic Focus, techno from Adam Beyer and Martin Buttrich and sexy tropical house from Bakermat and Klingande. In fact, every little niche of dance music seems to be covered, with DJ’s like Minnesota, singers like ILoveMakonnen and bands like Beats Antique filling all the gaps.
With the fact that ID&T is behind such epic, internationally-renowned events as Sensation and Amsterdam Music Festival, the production value is sure to be through the roof. Even with the baseline energy that could be had only at the site of one of the most historic music festivals of all time, with monster sets imported from halfway across the globe, beautiful bring-on-the-summer weather and a long list of fresh and fun music to look forward to, Mysteryland is sure to solidify itself as one of the definitive electronic camping festivals in the United States this year.
Tickets are still available for those that don’t yet have them but the event is very close to sold out, so be sure to grab yours soon on the Mysteryland website. Peep the entire lineup below and we’ll see you in just a few short weeks.
