EDC Orlando 2024 Plus a Ride on the Brightline

Details: Written by Tom Snow; Created: 04 April 2025

Electric Daisy Carnival, also known as EDC, is one of the best-known electronic music festivals. While the longest-running instance happens in Las Vegas every May, there's also another one that happens every November in Orlando, Florida, as well as others outside the US, such as Mexico City. Because EDC tends to be rather flashy and commercial, without any camping, I hadn't really been in a hurry to go to one, but I had the time in November to do this and I did want to experience it at least once. And as a bonus, this trip gave me the opportunity to finally ride this new train, the Brightline, that I've heard so much about.

Friday, November 8, 2024

Getting to Orlando was pretty uneventful; there was the typical hour-and-a-half drive from Clovis, NM to the Lubbock airport, then two Southwest flights. First Lubbock to Dallas Love Field, and second from Dallas to Orlando.

My hotel was the Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Orlando Airport. Thankfully there was no need for a taxi or Uber or Lyft since bus 42 brought me right to the hotel. I quickly slid through the check-in process, dropped off my baggage in my room, and then started my journey across the city to the big event.

Orlando has a commuter rail system called SunRail, and I always want to use trains if they're there, which is why I wanted to get a hotel as close as possible to a SunRail station. It was still a little bit of a walk down McCoy Rd. and across the wide, multi-lane Orange Ave. On the way there was a Wawa where I got some coffee; I'd return to this Wawa several times on this trip. The Sand Lake train station was on the far side of a huge cluster of parking lots.

I reached the Sand Lake station at around 7:35 and waited something like 15 minutes for the train to show up. The train was identical to so many other commuter trains across the US and Canada, using octagonal two-level Bombardier cars, pulled by an MPI MPXpress engine. Remember when I visited Albuquerque a year earlier and rode the New Mexico RailRunner? The SunRail train looked exactly like it, except with a different paint scheme.

This isn't the SunRail, this is a New Mexico RailRunner train, because I didn't think to take a picture of the SunRail train. The SunRail train was painted with a completely different design, but other than that it was identical to this one.

The train ride was only ten minutes, less time than I spent waiting for it at the station and also less time than I was about to spend walking through the heart of the city. I stepped off the train at the Church St. station, only the second stop after Sand Lake where I had boarded. After that, it was a long hike down Church St. to the venue. There should have been a bus on that street, but it wasn't running that night due to the events I would walk past.

This long hike may have felt like it was lasting forever, but it was a little interesting. Orlando has no less than three huge stadiums right here in the city center. That's where I think stadiums should be, and not out in the suburbs surrounded by an ocean of parking lots. Right here on Church St. I walked right past the Kia Center, a basketball stadium, where people were arriving for a Magic game. Right after that I walked past a soccer stadium, Inter&Co Stadium, where the national anthem was being sung at the start of an Orlando City game.

By now the time was probably some time around 8pm, and I was hoping I wouldn't miss too much of the music. This long hike didn't seem to have any end in sight. Way off in the distance I thought I could see another stadium, the one EDC was next to, and maybe some colored, flashing lights? When I got much closer, there were plenty of food trucks; since I needed something for dinner, I bought some kind of rice bowl with chicken and vegetables from one of them. It was huge and I felt really stuffed.

Finally I reached the gates of the festival. EDC was staged on the grounds surrounding a football stadium, Camping World Stadium, but not actually inside the stadium. I walked through the gate, had my bag looked at, scanned my wristband, and at long last entered the festival. It was sometime between 8:30 and 9, so I still had a little more than three hours left.

The main stage where all the headliners played was called Kinetic Field. Way up there at this moment were Deorro and Timmy Trumpet.

This stage was called Stereo Bloom. I stopped by here for Noizu. You never realize you're in the moment until it's a memory.

Kaskade and Alison Wonderland put on a great B2B set at Kinetic Field. It was a little different from what I expected though. Their set had a rather dark, underground club kind of vibe. It sounded like what you'd expect to hear in a dark warehouse in Berlin, and I recognized more '90s rave classics, like Underworld's "Born Slippy," than any of their own tracks.

Fisher took Kinetic Field next. During this set, not only were there the usual visuals, pyrotechnics, and light show, but I saw a drone show for the first time that night...

On the way out I stopped at the Neon Garden stage nearest the gate. Carl Cox, a really legendary DJ, had been doing a three-hour B2B set with Vintage Culture.

Near the end of the night I walked out of the same gate through which I had entered. A few blocks outside the gate on Church St. there was a craft beer brewpub, Broken Strings. At this place I had a pint of their Social Graces Kölsch, and it was pretty good.

To get back to my hotel I had to use an Uber, which ended up being two Ubers since the first mistakenly took me to the wrong Days Inn which I didn't notice until after I stepped out.

Saturday, November 9, 2024

I woke up pretty late, which isn't a problem when you're on a vacation like this. The hotel's breakfast was rather sparse, so I walked down the street to the Wawa where you can get some much better food. I used to think they were only in the Northeast, but it seems they've expanded all the way down the East Coast. Wawa is more than a convenience store; they're a takeout restaurant too, where you can get some great food, like croissant sandwiches, grilled right in front of you. And their coffee is a cut above what you'll find in a 7-Eleven.

I may have been on vacation, but I was still a community college student and still had some class work to do. Since my laptop was temporarily out of commission, thanks to an OS update gone wrong, I had to do a weekly psychology quiz on my phone. As usual, two of the questions were "essay" questions requiring me to write a little paragraph as an answer, and that was frustratingly difficult "typing" with my thumbs on an iPhone screen.

With homework out of the way, I wanted to get into the festival now that it was the early afternoon. So I loaded my bag with all the bracelets, Perlers, water bottle, and such, and headed out the door. Like the night before I walked past the Wawa, across the wide four-lane stroad, and to the transit center. And this is where I discovered that the trains weren't running on weekends! Seriously? What's up with that? Apparently SunRail is primarily for people going downtown to work Monday through Friday. So if it's a Saturday, you're stuck with the bus.

Sand Lake Station isn't just a train station, but also a hub for buses, so I looked all over the bus stop signs to see which route to take. Unlike most other US cities' bus systems, the bus stops in this parking lot all had route maps on their signs. It's not like that in other parts of the city, apparently just here in Sand Lake which serves as a junction for several different bus routes, but it was still a big help that would be an even bigger help in certain other cities.

Bus 11 was the one I needed. The fare, for one trip plus one transfer, was $2. Shortly after I sat down, the bus began steadily working its way north on Orange Ave.

During the bus ride, a building that looked somewhat familiar caught my eye. It was the former Pulse nightclub. It hasn't been used as a nightclub since the tragedy in 2016, and is now surrounded by a fence that is used as a memorial.

I stepped off bus 11 at the Lynx Central station, a huge bus hub in which each bus stop has a digital sign telling you when the next few departures will be. It's also a train station, and I'll bet the train would've gotten me there faster if the trains had been running. So now I had to wait a few minutes to get on bus 21. This felt real inefficient, though more than worth the $2. Bus 21 brought me, and several other EDC-bound people with loads of bracelets, west on Central Blvd. straight to Camping World Stadium.

Now we're seeing the festival grounds for the first time in daylight. On Saturday, the Neon Garden was "taken over" by Club Space, a flashy nightclub in Miami. At this time, Airrica, who I don't know much about, was on the stage.

Unlike the night before, I needed to eat something and for the first time started looking around the food selection. It was as wide-ranging as you'd expect. Island noodle bowls, quesadillas, açaí bowls, pizza by the slice, chicken tenders, loaded fries, teriyaki bowls, cheesesteaks...for my very late lunch I got a veggie lo mein bowl.

My first must-see artist for the day was Netsky at Circuit Grounds. This is a Belgian drum 'n bass producer/DJ I'd wanted to see for several years. I first discovered him around the time I went to Tomorrowland back in 2019, but he's been around for much longer.

Here behind this VIP deck was the closest I could get.

Ray Volpe was on Circuit Grounds after Netsky, so I could relive the experience of Bass Canyon two and a half monts earlier.

After Ray Volpe I bounced around a bit. I caught the end of Ahmed Spins and Jaden Thompson's B2B set at the Stereo Bloom stage; that was a great set and there was room to move. Near there at another food stand I got a delicious and juicy Italian sausage.

I also spent some time over at Neon Garden. This was during Mochakk's set.

Back at Circuit Grounds I saw most of Sullivan King's set. I think Circuit Grounds had some kind of "bass" theme that day. This wasn't too different from Ray Volpe's set, but being a Sullivan King set, it had a lot of flame-jet pyrotechnics, metal guitar riffs, and screamo vocals.

After Sullivan King there wasn't much left so I stopped by Kinetic Field for Tiësto's headlining set.

By the end of the night, I'd had several--at least two or three--of these "Electric Dance Mojitos" available at all the drink stands. These were made with Bacardí Superior Rum, mint syrup, lime juice, and soda water. With that syrup they tasted really sweet and minty, which masked the strong liquor. For an extra $20 you could get it in a special reusable Insomniac cup which lights up whenever it has any liquid in it. The first time I got one of these cocktails, I got it in one of those cups, which I refilled with every subsequent cocktail, and I still am drinking water out of at home today.

I've suspected for a long time that I've become allergic to large amounts of sugar, a substance which I usually avoid in more than small amounts. This is something I've wondered about since the end of 2020, when all the bars and restaurants were closed and I was drinking at home a lot, and in an effort to cut back on liquor I was doing shots of sweet liqueurs like Frangelico, Kahlúa, and peppermint schnapps. Every time I did this, I noticed my arms and hands becoming slightly swollen and breathing becoming just a tiny bit difficult. Four years later this was happening again after throwing back all those Electric Dance Mojitos with their super-sweet mint syrup.

After I walked out of the festival that night, I once again walked into Broken Strings, the craft beer bar. Once again I had another Social Graces Kölsch, but when I lifted the pint glass, I saw my right hand was shockingly swollen. Both of my hands and all their fingers looked like overinflated balloons! Was this because of all those mojitos?

Sunday, November 10, 2024

When I woke up Sunday morning, I was quite relieved to find my hands had deflated back to normal size.

I got breakfast at Wawa again: a delicious croissant sandwich with turkey, cream cheese, avocado, tomato, onion, and spinach, with their above-average coffee. It's really too bad there's no Wawa out west.

No raving until you finish your homework! I had a psychology "lab" assignment to do, which was really a lightly-researched short essay. Since I couldn't use my laptop, I went down to the hotel lobby where they had a couple public-access computers. But...the computers' outdated web browsers couldn't open the Canvas class website. I still could do the essay though! I wrote it in a draft email in Gmail, then on my phone accessed that draft and copied and pasted it into Canvas.

Now, back into the festival for one more night. Transit failed me again, though. Not only were there no more trains but apparently the buses weren't running on schedule. The bus I needed didn't even show up at Sand Lake so I had to call an Uber.

When I first walked into the festival, there was someone playing on the Neon Garden stage who I'd never heard of, Patrick Mason. He was playing a seriously intense dark techno set, and not only that, he was dancing his ass off behind the decks. Really, he was raging harder than anyone in the crowd! Sadly there's no video of this anywhere, but I did find this very similar set he played at another festival in Serbia.

Just who is Patrick Mason anyway? There's not a whole lot of information out there, but this interview is interesting.

In some spots I saw a lot of dust being kicked up, and I wondered if the last night's allergic reaction may have been due to that. Was it the dust or the sugar? Maybe both... Not wanting to deal with any more swollen hands or labored breathing, I avoided anywhere with a lot of dust, and also only drank water, beer, and shots, staying away from any sweetened cocktails.

The afternoon and early evening was mostly bouncing around. From one food stand I got a falafel wrap. Then on Kinetic Field I saw a bit of Maddix, who was playing...hardstyle I think? (I'm still bad with labels)

Maddix on Kinetic Field

Much later after sunset, Galantis played the Kinetic Field stage. I hadn't kept up with Galantis in the last few years, though right now I'm trying to fix that. Trying to avoid breathing in dirt and dust, I had to stay at the edge of the crowd. It seems Galantis is only one man now, no longer the duo I remember seeing in 2017, and his set included plenty of stuff I loved from the 2010s, their own and others'. Of course, the last song was "Runaway" as it always is.

Slander followed Galantis on Kinetic Field. I liked this one too.

There were four headliners, playing on each stage. Who was I going to see? This was a tough decision. Illenium would be on the biggest stage, Kinetic Field. John Summit would be on Circuit Grounds, Amelie Lens on Neon Garden, and ATB on Stereo Bloom. Illenium would have been OK, but I liked the other three better. John Summit would have been good, but I already saw him twice, at Electric Forest 2022 and Hulaween 2023. Amelie Lens I've only ever seen on YouTube, and liked, but...

ATB (André Tannenberg) is a German DJ/producer who had made some classic tracks back in the late '90s and early 2000s. He's best known for "9PM (Till I Come)," which came out in 1998, and I think it was around 2002 when I first heard it and a few others he had back then. While those other three artists certainly played great sets, I figured that the version of me from 20 years ago would've wanted to see ATB, so that's where I went.

ATB playing the headlining set at Stereo Bloom. The crowd was unsurprisingly thinner here than at the other stages, which is why I could get this close to the stage and still have room to move.

ATB's set featured mostly tracks from the late '90s-early '00s era, like Everything But The Girl's "Tracey In My Room" and Planet Funk's "Chase The Sun." The most recent thing I recognized was Porter Robinson's "Language" which I believe is from 2012. Every now and then he would play a snippet of "9AM (Till I Come)" and go right back into what was playing before, saving that whole track for the very end.

EDC Orlando had now ended perfectly. Getting back to the hotel would be a hassle, though. With everyone heading straight to the exits in huge crowds, I was soon out in the streets of Orlando with hundreds of other people, many of whom were trying to summon Ubers and Lyfts at the same time. So of course every time I tried to, neither app could find me a ride. And this didn't change no matter how far away I walked, no matter how many city blocks I put between myself and the stadium.

Eventually I had to do something I almost never do: hire an unlicensed taxi. This was about as risky as I was desperate. And we had to make one stop along the way, at a convenience store so I could use an ATM, since this driver would only accept cash or Zelle and I had neither. I safely made it back to my hotel, though, so everything worked out in the end.

Well, looking back, I loved this festival. This was my first EDC, and it made me want to go back for more. There's not only Orlando but Vegas, Mexico City, and I think they've started a new one in Thailand. Great music, great atmosphere, everything I wanted.

Before I go on to the train ride that ended this trip, here's all the live sets I found on YouTube:

Monday, November 11, 2024

The main purpose of this trip, EDC Orlando, was now over, but there was still one more thing left to do: a ride on the Brightline train! I'd heard so much about this train, the first privately-owned passenger train in the US in many decades, and had for years been looking for an excuse to ride it somewhere. Since Brightline had recently expanded from its original south Florida route all the way up to Orlando, I planned my return to New Mexico by flying out of Fort Lauderdale, with a ride on the Brightline to there from Orlando.

Monday morning I got one last delicious breakfast and coffee from Wawa, along with three bags of coffee grounds to take home. Then I checked out of the hotel, and attempted to ride the bus to the airport, where the Brightline station is, but the bus never showed up, and I ended up having to call an Uber.

The Brightline station is part of the Orlando airport. This is one drawback to Brightline; since they've built their own rail network from the ground up, instead of using existing rail infrastructure, they have all their own stations completely separate from Amtrak and commuter rail stations. Also, you actually have to go through a security checkpoint, but it's nowhere near the hassle of airport security.

After the security checkpoint, there's a nice lounge with a souvenir shop and a café. From there you can look down at the tracks:

A Brightline train sitting on the tracks. In the top right you can see it has a Siemens Charger engine, a new model of train engine that in the last four years has been gradually adopted by certain Amtrak routes, like the Cascades, as well as a few commuter/regional rail systems like MARC. So this Brightline train is pretty state-of-the-art.

Then it was time to board the train and we just had to walk down some stairs...

Inside the Brightline. Pretty nice, isn't it? The train ended up pretty full, and I had to sit next to someone, but as I've written many times before, I was OK with that because if the train is full, that means that people are riding trains.

During the ride someone walked by taking orders for lunch. I ordered a caprese focaccia sandwich with Sahale pomegranate pistachios. Definitely better than anything I've had on Amtrak! Something else that's better than Amtrak: as the train zipped southward, outside my window I could see cars driving on a highway that ran parallel to the rails, I think it was US-1, and the train was moving faster than the cars on the freeway! Too bad they didn't have the speed posted anywhere.

The train had taken off from Orlando at 11:50am, and it wasn't until 2:01pm when it made its first stop, West Palm Beach, which used to be the northern end of its route. All subsequent stops were pretty close together. It stopped in Boca Raton at 2:25, and then my destination Fort Lauderdale at 2:43. After I stepped off there, it continued on to its last two stops, Aventura and Miami.

That was the best train I've ever ridden in the United States. The same company is currently building another route, Brightline West, from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. If this is the future of American rail transport, I like it!

And that was about the end of the trip. A shuttle bus brought me from the Brightline station to Fort Lauderdale's airport, from which I flew on United to Houston and from there to Lubbock, from which I drove back to Clovis.

Fort Lauderdale skyline seen from the airport