Lights All Night was back for another amazing year this past weekend. We celebrated New Years Eve, Dallas festival style with the biggest EDM event in Texas! Lights All Night continues to be one of our favorite NYE festivals, and this year they did not disappoint. Lights All Night celebrated their eighth annual event at the Dallas Market Hall on Friday, December 29th and 30th, 2017 New Years eve weekend in Dallas, TX. The festival returned as the largest end of the year festival in Texas with over 30,000 attendees across the two sold- out days.
Photo credit: aLIVE Coverage
Lights All Night continued the tradition of providing top tier electronic music acts for both locals and traveling festival attendees to enjoy while celebrating NYE weekend. This year’s headliners included Bassnectar, Marshmello, Porter Robinson, Illenium, NGHTMRE, and Seven Lions – all of whom performed mind-blowing sets on the Supernova Stage.
Other performers including Ookay, who performed an out of this world rare live set; Liquid Stranger; AC Slater; Destructo; Drezo; and TOKiMONSTA, kept the party strong all weekend. With the rise of the mesh of these two genres, we were also very excited to experience some him hop this year at LAN, including Maxo Kream, Ugly God and Smokepurpp.
The immersive and visual art throughout the grounds was also outstanding this year. The two stages, the Satellite Stage and the Supernova Stage, were spectacular, each with their own vibe. The Satellite stage featured a European style dance floor and stage while the Supernova stage has a massive LED screed production spanning across the front of the stage almost as large as a football field. LAN also had several outdoor areas, some awesome food trucks and multiple free water stations throughout the expanded indoor / outdoor location.
There are several things we love about this festival and this year in particular:
Lets start with the talent; the artists we all know and love, and some to look forward to emerging even more in 2018.
The talent – The artists this year truly put on incredible sets.
VINCENT- A set that really blew me away was Vincent. The Canadian producer creates a variety of music, with recent tracks having huge vibey saw chords with big percussion. Playing piano since age 4, it makes sense why he crushes his tracks and his melodies and chord progressions are always amazing. This was my first time hearing him live and I must say that it was outstanding! He had the entire crowd dancing and engaged the entire time, with unprovoked chants emerging from the room on practically every track he dropped. I have been keeping up with his music for awhile now and was anxiously anticipating the moment when I was able to experience him perform live. He definitely exceeded expectations. Be sure to keep a close eye out for him in 2018.
CARLYLE- Each year keeps getting better for Dallas local Carlyle as he continues to emerge with his music. With a wide variety of musical influences to inspire him for his sets, Carlyle has developed his own, unique style with a mix of bass house, hip hop and high- energy tracks. His production is filled with dancey bass lines and unique sound design. His sets are filled with energy and keep the dance floor lively with beats you can’t help but move to. Carlye is definitely setting a new wave and gaining serious traction in the bass house family. I have a feeling he has a lot planned for us in 2018. With amazing music and a cool, edgy brand, the only place Carlyle is going is up.
M-A-R-S-H-M-E-L-L-O – Aside from his branding being on a completely different level, his sets are a filled with uplifting energy, crowd interaction, and loads of fun. With a variety of balloons and multiple blown up pizzas and donuts blasted into the crowd, [along with confetti, lots of confetti], his sets are a huge party where everyone honestly has huge smiles on their faces. His light- hearted, carefree, happy-go-lucky original productions were perfectly mixed in with heavy dubstep, trap, and hard house. His production is catchy, creative and unique and his sets are true reflection of this as well. His music selection is outstanding. The entire set, beginning to end is wonderful, and the only bad thing about his sets is you never want them to end! You almost feel as if you would like to live in Marshmello world forever when experiencing him live. Because I mean who doesn’t love a lit up Marshmello head telling you to scream with thousands of others?
Destructo – the legend. Celebrating his birthday at midnight while in the middle of his set,[December 30th leading into the 31st] Destructo threw quite the party. Being the king of never-ending 14 hour long parties and founder of Holy Ship and HARD, Destructo is an expert in keeping the crowd moving with his pulsing bass-lines and catchy rhythm. Honestly, when you are experiencing a Destructo set, you feel like you want to party for days straight with zero breaks. Seriously though, Destructo is extremely innovative when it comes to EDM. He has paved his own style, and we can’t wait to see what he has planned next!
Convenience – tons of hotels. The convenience factor of the location of Lights All Night at Dallas Market Hall made it super easy to navigate to and from the festival. We stayed at a hotel 7 miles away the Lyft ride were only $10 each way [w/ special promo codes]! There were several hotels even walking distance with incredibly reasonable rates. Transport, especially this time of year when the weather can be questionable is absolutely crucial, and they nailed it.
Transportation – LAN’s collaboration with Lyft – provided a $5 off code for everyone. Even if you have used Lyft before, you could still use this code for $5 off your ride. They had a Lyft meeting point which made it super easy for festival attendees, and Lyft drivers to find each other. Kudos to LAN on this one. Thank you for looking out for the festival attendees!
Stage performers – The stage performers this year were incredible! Decked out in NYE outfits, the performers on stage were incredible! There were also acrobatic performers, as well as interactive performers on stilts walking through the crowd. Lights All Night really stepped it up this year with the performers. The lineup is always killer, and this just enhanced and added to the entire experience.
The friendly staff – The security staff was feeling the love this year. They were friendly, attentive, and helpful. When first arriving to the festival, I asked my way around to get the lay of the land. One of the security guards had another guard take his spot while he assisted in walking me to where I needed to be. It’s the little things like that which truly make a huge difference. The bartenders were just as friendly. Honestly, I felt greeted with a smile wherever I went. I truly felt welcomed by everyone I came across, and we want to pass on our sincere appreciation to their team.
The festival attendees – Awesome! I went out into different areas of the crowd to catch the vibe and I truly felt the positive energy surrounding me. People weren’t pushing, fighting, or crowding one another. The attendees really were enjoying the music, dancing with one another, and all appeared to be very cognizant of the space around each other. As a seasoned festival go-er, and being 5’2′, getting pushed around can drown out an experience. This was not the case here, as everywhere I stood I felt like I could enjoy the artist, had my own space, and could really take it all in without worry. Which adds to the next point – there really was not a bad spot in the house. The sound system was great and basically everywhere you went in the venue sounded great.
Sound System – Sound is another huge important factor to me when attending a festival. As a producer and artist, you want your fans to truly experience your tracks to the fullest. There was no distortion, a solid amount of low and high end frequencies, and no issues occurred with the system. The speakers were great and the sound evenly distributed to where you could be standing pretty much anywhere and still hear the set clearly.
Visuals – I have always been a huge fan of the visuals. It’s an amazing way to enhance the experience, and for the artist to bring their performance to life. The visuals were clear, well planned out, and panned across the room for everyone to experience and see. Not to mention lots and lots of laser beams...everyone loves lasers!
Other perks: We loved how the festival chose to lower the capacity this year as it didn’t feel over-crowded. This made a huge difference for festival attendees. The lines were shorter, there was more room to dance and explore!
LAN has some incredible partners this year who contributed to making this year’s festival possible. Wells Fargo brought the official Wells Fargo Mobile Food Bank to collect non-perishable food donations for the needy before the festival doors open each day. Other sponsors included New Amsterdam Vodka; Mike’s Harder Lemonade; Bud Light; LYFT; Fireball Whisky; Pepsi; 99; Vixen Vapor; Metro PCS; Monster Energy Drink; Beat Box; and GLOFX.
Another great charitable donation from Lights All Night this year- LAN partnered earlier this fall with several of the performing artists for this year’s event to donate just over $22,000 directly to the Houston Food Bank in an effort to support the ongoing Hurricane Harvey relief efforts in the greater Houston area. Participating artists included Bassnectar, Porter Robinson, Illenium, Seven Lions, Ookay, Drezo and TOKiMONSTA.
Also, through its partnership with Texas Girls’ Choir – a local nonprofit which seeks to improve the lives of young women through the excellence of music and the official charity partner of the 2017 event – a portion of the festival’s proceeds this year has been donated to support various year-round initiatives at the organization.
For more information on this year’s event and to learn more about Lights All Night 2018 as details are unveiled in the months ahead, please visit the following channels:
WEBSITE: www.lightsallnight.com
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/LightsAllNigh
TWITTER: www.twitter.com/lightsallnight
INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/lightsallnig
OFFICIAL HASHTAG: #LAN2K17
Overall: Lights All Night located in Dallas, TX at the Dallas Market Hall seems to be getting better and better each and every year. Their team is attentive, passionate, and strives to create an incredible experience for all attending. Here’s to finishing off the year with Lights All Night, and to an amazing 2018!
By: Festpop Staff Writer, Suzy Matthews
