Considering the “town hall” style Q&A sessions that Pasquale Rotella hosts, we assumed his latest Reddit AMA would be a hotbed for more valuable info. Lo and behold, a myriad of topics was covered and SEVERAL questions, even some personal and miscellaneous ones, were answered.

WHY THE NEW DATES?

The biggest factor in their move to May was the cooler weather. It allows Insomniac to do camping, have extended hours, and the temperatures are way more comfortable for Headliners. It also takes it off of Father’s Day, which is great for all the other rave Dads. Some may be wondering why they chose that weekend when college students still have finals that week? Rotella claims the Insomniac team did lots of research before picking the date and found that most colleges — 85-90% — are actually out. Of that 10 or 15% of students who do have their finals, most would have had their finals before EDC weekend.

CAMPING:

In relation to EDC itself, Rotella had a lot to detail about the first year of the camping program. The grounds themselves will be located on the surrounding properties outside the Speedway grounds and will only feature Insomniac provided tents that’ll have artificial grass with air conditioning. Camping passes will be between $450 to $2,500 for 4 days of camping. This will all be laid out clearly before they go on sale. Those who would like to bring an RV have that option available as well. Costs will be between $250-$275 to bring in your RV, and Insomniac will have hook-ups available for an additional fee.

In terms of activities to be offered, ideas are being thrown around in terms of how to involve DJs with the already planned fitness and mindfulness classes as well as guest speakers and expect to see pool parties inside the grounds too. The best part though? INS AND OUTS ARE ALLOWED for campers, each person MUST have a camping wristband in order to go in/out of EDC. And in terms of checking into camping early, he’s looking at the possibility of starting on Wednesday so you have more time to travel and less traffic, if not the Thursday before the festival 100%. Checkout will be Monday at 7pm.

SHUTTLES:

Rotella has confirmed the third party company they’ll be using for shuttles, they provide transportation for the largest live events in the world. He’s excited about collaborating with them to make it the best it’s ever been. The prices will not be going up but shuttles will be immensely improved and all stops will be announced before the shuttles go on sale. Shuttle operations are gonna be completely different next year.

EDC 2018 STAGES:

On the main grounds, headliners should see a big change in the stages. For one, the Dreamstate curated QuantumVALLEY stage is going to be open air. In addition, the megastructure might possibly be back but will be something different than the behemoth that is CircuitGROUNDS. Other stages that will see a change are kineticFIELD, bassPOD, wasteLAND, neonGARDEN, circuitGROUNDS & the upside-downHOUSE.

THE FUTURE OF OTHER INSOMNIAC FESTIVALS:

Though HARD may not join in curation at EDC, it looks like Insomniac is handling HARD’s main Summer event from now on as they’ll be taking full operations of HARD moving forward.

EDC New York is NOT canceled. Rotella decided to not continue producing it until the right venue was found. Once they do, get ready New York.

The future of Middlelands? Rotella’s still searching for the right venue. The plan is to 100% bring it back but not before finding the right place.

Despite always being Wide Awake, Pasquale Rotella prefers Indica. That’s far from all, folks!

Check out our Twitter thread and the Reddit AMA itself to check out more details.

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