I Fell in Love with Electric Forest
As I reflect on my first journey to Sherwood Forest, I feel nothing but an extreme amount of love and gratitude. Electric Forest has been my dream festival for as long as I can remember and I am still trying to process the magic I felt this weekend. This place has left me with the greatest memories that I will cherish forever as well as friends that will last a lifetime!
One of my favorite parts about Electric Forest is that you camp at the venue! Having a week-long sleepover with friends that turn into family is something so indescribable. You quite literally had to be there to understand the sense of community and love that was radiating around the whole campground. I had the pleasure of being a part of a very large group within camp that had over 60+ members. Our camp was the real life definition of the more the merrier and I could not have done it without them all! As soon as we arrived on site to set up our camp, many of the newly met group members were kind enough to help set up our area just out of the kindness of their hearts. As the weekend went on, I just felt more and more love and kindness from the people around me. We laughed together, we ate together and even cried together when the rain shut down the festival two of the nights! Group camp was all about togetherness and this is something I will choose to do every year! I would recommend group camping to everyone planning on attending this festival in order to create a little home of friends for the weekend. There are other camping options including GA camping, RV camping, Lucky Lake camping, Good Life camping and a few other amazing camps that you get to choose from!
Leaving group campgrounds, you will stumble upon main street, which is a place filled with unique vendors and 24/7 food and drinks! It was great having access to not only yummy food at all hours but also a general store that contained necessities such as ice and medicine. After you walk through main street, you will find the big “Electric Forest” arches that indicate the festival entrance. The first open field that you enter into is home to the Tripolee stage. This stage has a variety of different artists but its main event was the Bassrush takeover on Friday night, with back to back headliners: Alleycat, Level up, Caspa, Boogie T, Dimension, ATLiens, Wooli and BTSM. After a show stopping presentation Friday, the show was put on pause due to rain storms on Saturday. Due to this, we unfortunately missed huge headliners on this stage like Sammy Virji and Mau P. However; on a better note, it was fantastic to see that Electric Forest had scheduled some performers twice or more throughout the weekend so if by chance one or your favorite DJs got rained out, you still had a chance of catching them at another stage on another day!
Moving closer into the forest, you find one of the Forest’s most beautiful treasures: The Giving Tree. This massive willow tree is a representation of the connectivity between all of those in the forest. If you are feeling generous to give an item, then you may also take an item in return. It’s called The Giving Tree for a reason! You can find almost anything you can think of at the base of this tree, including kandi, trinkets, toys, stickers, homemade gifts, gum and more! Promoting love and kindness, The Giving Tree is a MUST SEE, I promise you will not regret it. A known fact is that the forest always provides! Whether it’s receiving, healing, meeting a new friend, or an item from the tree, you can always find what you need in the forest.
The next big stage you’ll see is called Ranch Arena. Surrounding this stage you could find endless food options, in addition some unique venders including glass blowing and even suicide help booths. With lots to do at this stage, you’d be surprised that we only saw three sets here. Day one, we saw Green Velvet, who brought great energy with his OG tech house set! Later in the night, we saw the new duo, Everything Always (Dom Dolla b2b John Summit). This was one of my favorite sets of the weekend because the energy in the crowd was unmatched! Ranch is such a huge space and was great for dancing and meeting new friends. The last set we watched at this stage was a performance by Pretty Lights. This was a very visually pleasing set that allowed for some relaxation time compared to other high energy sets.
Walking past Ranch, you will suddenly find yourself in the heart of Electric Forest, known as Sherwood Forest. It is safe to say that this is the most gorgeously constructed and jaw-dropping space I have ever seen at a music festival. Surprises around every corner include pop up parties with wacky characters, huge electric art installations, and epic light displays that make the trees come alive. The beauty of Sherwood is endless and I found that exploring new places is when you find the most beautiful treasures. As we were wondering, we found a small house that had picture frames hanging all along its outer wall. Inside each of the frames was a new material to touch. One was fluffy and the next one was very smooth like silk and another was almost like bubble wrap. After touching these frameworks, we walked around to the other side and found a colorful bar run by workers wearing aprons with small kinetic sand trays at each barstool. It was astonishing that we could’ve potentially missed this little hands-on magical place if we hadn’t let the forest lead us.
There were many other beautiful spots we found in the forest including “The Ocular Organ” which was an organ instrument that was often played by a new person each time we walked by it. There are three small stages inside the forest called The Honeycomb, The Observatory, and the secret stage The Grand Artique. With how crowded these stages were, we didn’t spend too much time at them but did catch about 30 minutes of Levity at Honeycomb which was a vibe and a half(even if extremely crowded). There are many treasures to unlock in the forest and I know we didn’t even scratch the surface of finding them all! With two of the nights being rained out we lost a lot of time for exploration but that only means there will be more new treasures to discover next year in the forest!
When you emerge from the trees along the North edge of the forest, you will find the second main stage called Sherwood Court. This stage was lined with a screen that allowed for awesome visuals. When the stage was resting, the screen displayed a beautiful blue mosaic glass with butterflies moving their wings bringing life to the stage. This was also where LSDREAM presented “Lightcode” which is his meditation sound bath set and let me tell you, I was cleansed and thoroughly enjoyed that relaxation time.
To the left of Sherwood Court, you will walk right under the big hands of love to find Carousel Club. This stage is in a tunnel and was great for catching some shade in the hot day time or staying dry during the rain showers. Hanging in the tunnel were light beams that changed colors making for a great visual experience. We had the pleasure of catching It’s Murph at this stage, who played all of his bangers including ”Food for the Soul”. Carousel Club was a great stage for dancing and positive vibes as well.
Neighboring Carousel Club was a space called “The Dream Emporium”, which is most likely one of the wackiest areas in the festival. When entering you’ll see many doors on the left and right filled with different themed rooms to explore. My favorite of the rooms was the cloud room that not only looked like a cloud on the inside but also felt like you were actually walking on a cloud. The cloud room was so enjoyable, that we decided to lay down for a few minutes to take in its full beauty. We found another room with a body of water that had a kayak with riders rowing across. Some other honorable mentions included the car wash, the boat room, the wrestle mania room, and the Prawn shop (shrimp themed pawn shop). Overall, The Dream Emporium was another MUST SEE when at Electric Forest.
In conclusion, my first trip to the forest was all I could have ever imagined and more! Even through all the severe rain and mud, the energy was always so positive! I want to thank every single soul I met this weekend whether we camped together, traded Kandi, danced in the crowd, or shared a “Happy Forest” moment, I am so blessed to be a part of this community that is filled with so much love. Electric Forest is one of those places that really makes life so much more worth living and I can see myself coming back every year! It is so sad to say goodbye to the Forest but so exciting to know we can all be back together again next year! HAPPY FOREST <3