Escape Halloween 2024: a hauntingly unforgettable weekend of music and thrills

Escape Halloween brought spine-chilling energy during this year’s recent production, leaving attendees begging for more and counting down the days until the 2025 edition.

Escape Halloween 2024, held at the NOS Events Center in Southern California, showcased Insomniac’s signature blend of high-caliber music, eerie atmospheres, and seamless event production. With headliners like Martin Garrix, Ludacris, and Afroki (Afrojack and Steve Aoki’s collaborative project), this year’s festival proved to be an extraordinary fusion of music and Halloween festivities that thrilled electronic dance music enthusiasts and Halloween lovers alike.

This year’s edition, held October 25-26, saw exciting upgrades to the layout and stages, giving the entire festival a more immersive feel that solidified its standing as the top Halloween event for EDM fans in North America. The festival has long been recognized for blending EDM with Halloween themes, creating an atmosphere that fully embraces the spooky season.

This year, the design team at Insomniac elevated the haunted vibes with elaborate staging, horror-themed installations, and meticulously planned lighting displays. The main stage, aptly named “The Grimm,” embodied the event’s eerie energy. Featuring a massive skeleton figure looming over the crowd with arms outstretched, the design gave attendees a sense of being welcomed into an otherworldly dance arena.

This skeleton, surrounded by mystical orbs and fog, was also fitted with enhanced laser systems and vast LED panels, making it one of Insomniac’s most visually impactful main stages to date. Festival-goers were treated to an expanded setup of “The Grimm” stage this year, with Insomniac announcing that this will be the final year featuring this iconic design.

For those looking to explore, the redesigned layout inspired by EDC allowed fans to seamlessly navigate the grounds without congestion. The additional stage, Sewer District, emerged as a highlight of the festival. Taking design cues from industrial settings, Sewer District was constructed to look like an underground warehouse, complete with shipping containers, exposed piping, and strategically placed lighting, creating an authentic, grungy feel that resonated well with techno fans. This area became a favorite due to its spacious setup, allowing fans to dance and enjoy the music without feeling cramped. 

The festival’s stellar lineup included world-renowned acts across various EDM genres. On opening night, Afroki turned up the energy with a genre-bending set that combined Afrojack’s and Steve Aoki’s signature sounds, creating an electrifying experience. Martin Garrix, who closed the festival, brought the crowd together with a mix of classics and recent hits, creating a sense of unity as the audience sang along in a rare moment of collective enjoyment. Garrix’s set stood out as a powerful moment of connection and celebration, reminding fans of the communal aspect that festivals foster.

Featured image courtesy of Escape Halloween