Key Takeaways

• Weather Impact: High winds and dust disrupted the Rise festival, leading to delayed entry and canceled events.
• Attendee Experience: Many attendees reported long wait times and limited food options during the festival’s first night.
• Performance Highlights: Despite challenges, artists like Emitt Fenn and LP Giobbi delivered memorable performances under tough conditions.
• Lantern Release: The lantern release became a poignant moment, symbolizing hope and collective experience for attendees.

As Stone Temple Pilots once said, so much depends on the weather.

On Friday in the Mojave Desert, roughly 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Rise festival learned this the hard way, which is to say the weather did not cooperate. High winds and attendant dust forced Rise organizers to open the gates almost three hours late, with the night’s set times subsequently shuffled and the evening’s centerpiece event — the release of thousands of paper lanterns into the sky — canceled entirely.

Meanwhile, reports of hourslong wait times for attendees arriving from the Vegas Strip by shuttle, plus sparse food options, were posted on social media by many incensed pass holders in the time during and after night 1.

The internet pile-on was swift and harsh, and the vibe on the grounds Friday night was, in many moments, challenging. The wind and dust got in eyes and nostrils, for many necessitating face masks, with chilly winds adding a bite to the air. Some waited in long lines for drinks and food while others (like us) sailed right up with no problem. As many in the crowd stood protecting their eyes while standing amid hundreds of unlit torches, reminding us that the night’s core activity wasn’t happening, in moments the experience felt more like one to endure rather than enjoy.

Still, the show went on, with the thousands of attendees on site doing their best to make the best of it. A member of the crowd handed ski goggles to singer Emitt Fenn during his evening performance so he could continue playing without hazard. (“Getting sick, having all my gear broken, and destroying my voice was definitely not in my bingo card but I still had the time of my life,” the artist later wrote in a post about his set. “Thank you everyone who still came out to Rise festival and howled at the moon with me through a sandstorm.”)

Fenn was followed by LP Giobbi, who heroically just danced in the wind during her characteristically spirited set on the Compass Stage, with Ben Böhmer and Rüfüs du Sol both putting on memorable (for them probably as well, given the conditions) performances Friday night on the Horizon Stage. Though the night ultimately wrapped with the most-anticipated acts successfully performing their sets in full, online chatter was ablaze with refund requests, complaints on the festival’s social media pages, and even nicknaming Rise as “Dustpocalypse 2025.”

Taking place on the Jean Roach Dry Lake Beds, an expanse of flat desert tucked between the I-15 and rolling hills of the Mojave, Rise bills itself as the world’s largest paper lantern festival. It was heavily advertised on social media, with ads also flashing on digital billboards along the Strip, with the vibey time on offer being a stark contrast to the mega-clubs and magic shows. This year, the selling point was also an eye-popping lineup featuring big-font names Ben Bohmer, Rüfüs Du Sol, Disclosure, Calvin Harris, Goose and John Mayer.

Given its desert location, Rise altogether gave a feeling of a smaller and more metropolitan-adjacent Burning Man, complete with various art installations, desert fashion and an intentionality-focused mindset, albeit one that divided attendees into silver, gold, platinum and diamond tier hangout areas depending on the investment they made in tickets.

All of the aforementioned elements worked significantly better on Saturday when the winds died down to a pleasant flutter and the night sky was clear of dust. These improvements by Mother Nature were accompanied by much smoother ingress and egress experiences thanks to the work that staff put in between days one and two. (And a big shout-out to the entire festival staff at large who were perpetually friendly and helpful even when the winds were rough.)

By the time thousands of lanterns were glittering in the sky on Saturday it was easy to forget about how tough Friday was or better yet it was easy to remember that sometimes life isn’t entirely pleasant but that challenges make special moments shine brighter. (Although this sentiment is perhaps less easy to accept for attendees who’d only gotten a single-day ticket for Friday.)

Adding to the collective-experience approach Rise only put on one musical performance at any given time with shows happening across two stages. The Compass area was located at the center of the site and the Rise stage which rivaled that of any major festival appeared like a sort of surreal apparition in the distance when arriving at the site.

While there were long lag times between sets, sound was pristine and infrastructure at large — safari-style tents linen couches art installations multiple bars a kitchen slinging sliders mac and cheese with ribeye and other included snacks for platinum and diamond pass attendees — altogether created a luxe aesthetic that was particularly impressive considering that festival site is typically just a flat swath of empty land outside Las Vegas.

Or “Las Vegas-ish” as John Mayer called it on Sunday night when he greeted crowd gathered before him. The stage had been warmed up by always-excellent jam band Goose; their pairing with Mayer creating Sunday demographic shift that saw dance fans of Friday and Saturday transition to generally older crowd. Mayer opened with “Last Train Home” before acknowledging that audience had been on site for awhile “So I’m going to give you my absolute best.” He then traversed his catalog while playing songs like 2009’s “Who Says” and 2012’s “Queen of California” while delivering guitar solos that reminded us that he’s simply one of best guitarists of generation.

The shows on Saturday were more party-focused with main stage first welcoming Disclosure who opened with 2013’s “When a Fire Starts to Burn” (a song included on Billboard‘s recent list of best house songs of all time) before tearing through ever-widening arsenal of hits that included “White Noise” this year’s Anderson .Paak collab “No Cap” and of course their all-time banger “Latch.” The show felt like less warm-up for Harris but double billing for show by Scottish dance architect who ripped through his own expansive catalog until climax moment that saw genuinely wild amount fireworks light up sky.

But by Saturday and Sunday there were light sources vying for top billing. The first was bright nearly full super moon which rose gorgeously over hills each day of fest helping remind one that while festival site (which was accessible by just one road) wasn’t easiest to get in and out of there were rewards for making effort. The second of course was marquee experience: lanterns.

On paper experience sounds quite straightforward: write some personal sentiments on paper lantern release it into sky alongside thousands others. In practice it’s hard to put into words how awe-inspiring it was — not just dazzling image thousands twinkling lanterns seeming to move slow motion as they lifted into sky classical music played through speakers but glimpsing some messages written on them: “Let’s go on more adventures together,” one implored. “Peace on earth,” requested another. “I will see you in heaven Roger,” read one while another asked for “clean oceans.”

The lantern components each lasted for about 90 minutes or so on Saturday and Sunday creating real emotional center each night particularly as one considered idea every single lantern represented not just person but their greatest prayers dreams. Children were seen playing amidst torches several engagements happened people cried friends embraced couples kissed for at least few moments in this perpetually distressing world there was awe mood felt peaceful.

It’s delicate premise when festival’s focal point depends on wind. When it didn’t pan out effects were distinctly deflating but when it worked it was elevating every level.