Insomniac Takes Moonrise Festival on an Epic Journey Through Space for 2022 Edition

With the help of Insomniac, Moonrise Festival gave fans an out-of-this-world experience this year.

Fans from the entire east coast gathered for Moonrise Festival at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore this past weekend to be blasted off to the moon. With three massive stages and tons of space-themed art exhibits, it truly felt like a mission into space. With a weather forecast of scattered thunderstorms on both days, attendees were blessed with absolutely no rain and beautiful sunny skies.

Although this was the first year that Insomniac was a part of Moonrise festival, it was the festival’s seventh edition. Each year. the stage production and the venue itself have always improved, but with Insomniac’s help, this year saw an increase in interactive activities like art domes in between the Solar Tent and Stellar stage. The festival grounds also featured lots of astronauts, spaceships, and even a few aliens scattered around, which helped take the space theme to the next level. 

The energy in the crowds this year was palpable with love and good vibes. People were trading kandi left and right, asking for nothing in return but a smile and maybe a hug. Even the moshpits had good energy–people were helping those that fell and no one was too aggressive. It did help that there was a “rave ref” making sure the pits stayed friendly and they even helped a few people find things they had dropped in the pit. Totems this year were super creative featuring characters from Avatar the Last Airbender, Spongebob, Hasbulla, a few booty-themed totems, lots of space totems, and even a tide pod-shaped totem, not to mention many more incredible works of art. 

All three stages saw a wide variety of music throughout each day, and as the day continued and the moon began to rise, the production on each stage expanded. The Solar Tent, which housed a lot of the bass music acts like Boogie T b2b Dirt Monkey, SvddenDeath, and many more talented artists, switched from dubstep and drum & bass to house music at the end of the night. The evening featured Wax Motif, Dom Dolla, and Tchami closing out the tent on Sunday. The Lunar Stage, which featured huge moon panels across the stage, saw artists like Kayzo, Subtronics, Zeds Dead, and RL Grime b2b Bauuer. It was closed by Rezz on Saturday and Excision on Sunday. The Stellar stage had artists like Jason Ross, Air2Earth (Sunset set), Adventure Club, Fisher, and Tiesto. Each stage had its own unique lighting rig, lasers, and pyrotechnics that were displayed throughout the weekend.

The festival grounds also saw significant improvements in its market areas, with the addition of a general store where fans could buy necessities like sunscreen, gum, and chapstick. There were also more vendors this year. Ravers could buy everything from pins, pashmina, diffraction glasses, tapestries, and many other works of art. The food and drink selection was spectacular as well, with many different options to choose from. It was easy for everyone to keep their bellies full and their bodies hydrated. Let’s not forget the official merch booth that had tons of creative Moonrise merch, as well as merch from all the amazing artists that played all weekend. 

Moonrise Festival 2022 truly felt like a place where wooks and kandi kids alike could truly be themselves because they were surrounded by like-minded people (and a few aliens). The vibes were immaculate all around, even in the parking lot while everyone was leaving. The hardest part of festivals is always saying goodbye to friends who may have traveled from far to be together, but leaving this year seemed more like a see you next year than a goodbye. 

Make sure to Follow Moonrise Festival on Instagram to keep up to date with Moonrise 2023 announcements, and relieve some of the best sets of this year. 

Featured photo courtesy Tania Hauyon for Insomniac Events.

Exron Music Staff

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