The inaugural Lost Lake Festival launched yesterday at Steel Indian School Park in central Phoenix. The festival is a 3-day event that includes an enormous amount live music along with a local artists creating murals, terrific food, a crafts marketplace, an adult playground and a lot (a lot) of alcohol. And with Chance the Rapper headlining day 1 and The Killers Headlining Day 2, festival organizers have stocked it with a number of high profile artists across 3 stages.
Initial Impressions:
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Local Artist Clay Halling (Photo (c) Greg Cohen) It’s HUGE. The festival grounds cover an enormous space. Be prepaid to walk because there’s a lot to see and there’s a lot of ground to cover to see it all.
- The music is diverse. There’s a huge number of bands playing a wide variety of music so it doesn’t matter what your taste in music is, there’s most likely a band here playing.
- Sometimes you have to make tough choices. When Ludacris and the Pixies are playing at the same time, difficult choices must be made.
- It’s actually really cool to watch paint dry. The artists enlisted by the festival to paint large works at the festival created a really interesting group of paintings and, as someone who can’t draw a straight line, it was fascinating to watch them paint and admire their abilities as their pieces developed throughout the day.
- Festival attendees a diverse bunch. There was a tremendous range of people and ages at the festival which seemed like a broad cross-section of Phoenix, which was wonderful to see.
- The food is amazing. It goes way beyond what we’ve previously seen as standard festival food in Phoenix. Festival organizers did a great job of attracting an interesting array of local restaurants and food trucks who offered, again, something for everyone.
- Access by light rail is actually pretty easy. I parked by Thomas and Central and used the light rail to get to the festival, which was much easier than I expected.
Festival representatives said that they were really pleased with both the turn-out for the Day 1 and that Day 1 had essentially gone off without a hitch, which is impressive for the first day of a new festival. If there were any problems they weren’t obvious to me – it looked to me like everyone was having a good time and enjoying themselves.
Single day tickets are still available for Saturday and Sunday. At $89.50 they may seem a bit expensive, but understandably so for the sheer scope of entertainment the Lost Lake delivers
The Music
The highlight of a music festival, though, should always be the music. Lost Lake delivered throughout the day. Again, it doesn’t matter what you listen to, it seemed like Lost Lake had it.
Headliner – Chance the Rapper
Ludacris
Haim
Calexico
Broods
