Review # 11: Lost Lands 2023

LOST LANDS: YIN & YANG FEST

Buckle up bc this one was a roller coaster of emotions for me…..and I have finally gathered my thoughts. 

I have been going to this festival for six years now. It has always been one of my absolute favorites to return to. There were so many things this year that blew it out of the water, and there were so many things that made me question what the future of this festival will become.

I want to start off by saying the production is untouchable and unmatched. I have never seen production so insane at any festival I’ve ever been to. the pyrotechnics the lights the lasers, the sound, the bass, the stage designs visuals, every little detail was absolutely insane to witness. Just when you think it can’t get any better, excision tops it. 

Let’s start off with camping. the camping spaces this year were bigger than last year but not by much I went in a 15 person van with nine people and had two more show up so we were 11 in total. I bought five camping passes and that was enough for 3 tents and four canopies and we even had a little more room. I love that they let you buy multiple camping passes as long as you are using the space appropriately. We got there at 5 AM on Wednesday morning and got a pretty decent spot. We were right around the corner from the village marketplace.

Security was definitely diligent but not over the top which I appreciated. They definitely went through our bags and made sure they searched the car appropriately. That being said I had a fuck ton of shit in this van for nine people and at first they wanted to pull everything out it would have taken forever so I’m really glad that they went , with the approach to go through our bags that were accessible instead of pulling every single thing out of the van. 

Security inside of the venue was good, but I was still a little uneasy due to the crowd. The metal detectors they had were top-notch. They were the ones that Disney has, where you really don’t need to take anything out of your bag. This being said I was bothered because I heard stories of this guy and his friend, taking out cotton balls, and placing a substance on them to take advantage of a girl who is passed out on the ground at Subtronics. Somebody ended up stepping in an intervening, but the fact that that person was able to even bring that into the venue is something that makes me uneasy. the lines were great because they didn’t have to check bags and they were looking for weapons but I still don’t think that the crowd that was there should just be let off that easily.

The restrooms were always clean and had toilet paper all the time. They were constantly cleaning the bathrooms, and constantly making sure that they were usable. In and out of the venue, GA definitely had more porta potties this year, even though I was in VIP but I still had the opportunity to use both.

The Village marketplace was awesome. The stage was really great and the sound was fantastic. I love that they had all the vendors around here and the food was pretty good just wildly expensive. Thanks inflation. I also really liked the added stage that they put in the grove. The trees were awesome shade and I loved how that whole areas vibe was. The stage and production on both campground stages were awesome.

The food inside was a little better than the food outside the venue, but both were overpriced. 

The venue itself was absolutely insane. All of the added additions were amazing. The side stages were phenomenal and the improvements to Wompy Woods was awesome. 

However I was upset at the lack of vendors inside of the venue mostly because you are spending a lot of time in there afterwards as well I do feel they did this to increase the flow at the Village marketplace but I think they could have definitely had a couple booth set up inside as well. 

The sound camps did have low volume as always, but there was a lot of room to move up close and enjoy them.

The staff was still as clueless as ever. If you ask them a question, they pretty much never knew the answer to it. I enjoyed the fact that they had cops and security walking around. That was really cool and I think they had something along the lines of ground control. I saw people with helper shirts on and they were giving out water at the rails and walking around which I thought was really cool.

I liked the fact that there was a general store, not only in the campgrounds, but inside the venue as well.

End overdose, dance, safe, and bunk police were all present there, which was really awesome. End overdose was giving out free Narcan and teaching people how to use it.

Someone told me there was around 80,000 people there this year I saw on Reddit it was 57 to 60,000 I don’t know the full amount of people but I do know it was way too many fucking people. It was way too overcrowded you didn’t really feel this when you were at the stages but you felt this when you were moving from stage to stage especially after main stage closed. Unfortunately when a festival reach this capacity, you not only have all of the good people that go to festivals, but you start to have more prominent and shitty people there. 

This brings me to the vibe this year was yin and yang. As many people as I met that were really cool and awesome there was a fuck ton of negative energy roaming around and it was really sad to see it Lost Lands. I truly felt like I was at Edc Orlando based on the crowd. I heard a story of peoples tents getting broken into the locks on their tents being broken people ripping into peoples tents. I had my phone stolen Sunday morning around 730 to 8  AM along with two of my friends phones they were taken from right next to us while we were sleeping. I had a friend say that he helped his neighbor set up and everything and she ended up stealing a bunch of stuff from his car while they were sleeping in it she left the next day really early with all of his stuff. This lady that was working in the VIP section a little older she told my sister and my friend that somebody shoved her down the stairs out of their way. They were asking people if they were together in the VIP bathrooms at  Wompy because the girls were feeling uncomfortable in them. They asked my sister if she was with her boyfriend and that her boyfriend should wait for her outside of the women’s restroom. They would not let you take your phones into the showers or have them out because they said people were recording people in the showers. Wtf?? 

I had a cop come up to me and address me saying that my friend needs to sit up on the moon matt. it was after hours and we weren’t even in the crowd we were off to the side and we were all standing around it. He comes up and says that she needs to sit up. I asked him why and he then proceeded to say “ because I fucking said so”. I woke her up with a baffled face on and said hey you need to wake up he wants you to wake up. He looks at her and goes you need to sit up waving the flashlight in her face so rudely. He then leans into my ear, and says “ I know you can’t wrap your tiny brain around the fact that she might get trampled but that’s the difference between my brain and yours you fucking idiot”. 

LOL

like what is the actual reason to speak to somebody like that. I understand you’re a cop and you’re on a fucking power trip, but in a responsibility position of authority, you would think that these people have some kind of decency to be a little nicer. That was like the most insane interaction I’ve ever had with anyone at a festival talking to me like that. The best part was there was a ton of people laying down and chilling next to us and he was just deciding to be a fucking dick. I didn’t respond to him because I knew he was trying to start a problem but that was that. And this was at 12 AM after the festival was already done on day three super fucking weird. 

Yeah, you could just tell by the way everybody was that the vibes were super weird. You could literally look around the crowd and feel that they were so different from even last year when I felt like last year was starting to get a little weird. Unfortunately, Lost Lands is becoming mainstream as fuck.

Now let’s talk about VIP. 

Still a shit show disaster. The best perks about VIP are your own bathrooms and this is only at main stage because at Wompy the VIP restrooms were not in the VIP area. I’m going to talk about VIP main stage, and then VIP Wompy. 

VIP main stage had way too many people in it if you wanted to get a spot for one of the closers you had to sit at mainstage all fucking day just to have a good spot that is literally fucking stupid because I paid over $600 to not deal with people. They definitely improve the restrooms by adding a fuck ton of them so they could still shove a fuck ton of people in VIP and get away with it. We had a concierge which was pretty fucking cool and we had our own VIP merch which I also thought was really cool. I also enjoyed the fact that we had our own insurance in our own security line and we did not have to wait near the GA lines. We also had our own freewater in our own bar in the main stage VIP. You could also enter from both entrances and exit from both entrances on the main stage VIP. the stairs going to the pit are one of the best parts of this VIP area. 

Wompy VIP on the other hand was a fucking disaster once again. Not only was the VIP section so small, the entrance was at the top of it, and the exit was at the bottom and you could not exit or enter from either one you had to go to the top to enter, and there was always a fucking line to get in and you had to go to the bottom of it to exit, which was so fucking annoying, I wanted to go to the forest stage which would be closer to get out through the “entrance” area, and they told me I had to walk all the way to the bottom of VIP and go out the other side to walk all the way back up the hill to go to the forest stage. Why the fuck does that make any sense in any fucking universe. I literally did not use this at all when I was over at Wompy. There was plenty of room in GA. The VIP bathrooms over here always had a line and a shit show. Stupid stupid stupid. 

VIP did get free showers which was awesome.

The dinosaurs were awesome. They had more of them and they were all over the campgrounds and in the venue of course people were disrespecting them and climbing on top of them like I said, the vibe was very weird this year.

Were they really wasn’t a lot of people that did not bring it this year. Every set I saw besides a handful were absolutely insane. Every time excision was on the stage it was AWESOME. Honorable mentions for me were Zingara and Ravenscoon. Fucking awesome. 

The pickpocketing was definitely a fucking problem this year, and they even had a picture of a pickpocket or on a sign next to security like what the hell is going on. 

Medics was fucking on it and thank God they were because people were dropping like fucking flies. So many medic carts were going around. 

The weather was really nice at night, but it was fucking hot during the day which sucked because of course the weekend before and after it was cold. I think we just got a little unlucky this year with the weather. It’s usually really nice.

The wristbands were a super nice material :) 

The bridge was an incredible addition. Made everything so much better. 

I will say they should be stricter on getting into camping. 

They also let you walk to the gas station and had a check point to come back in. Super cool.

I really enjoy the fact that excisions team reads every survey submitted.

My group was so much fun and made this year the best year yet. I love them. 

All in all, this festival will always be one of my favorites. I’m praying that the energy is not going to continue to get worse. I’m not really sure how he can fix it but I just hope that this is just a wave of people that dissipate soon. No regard for the culture is just so upsetting to see especially with this festival at the magnitude it is at. No festival is doing what this festival is doing from the ones I’ve been to. The production really was the most insane thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to see where this festival goes even though I am also scared lol. 

As always, thanks for reading! Next up for me is Hulaween 🖤