Elements Music Festival

A beautiful mix of forests and fields in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, is set to be the new home for the illustrious Elements Music & Arts Festival. After years of hosting the event at Lakewood in Pennsylvania, this change in scenery brings new hope for bigger and better production. Slated to take place from August 19-22, 2022, this live music event is the perfect summer festival camping experience for passionate thrill-seekers.

What started as a one-day adventure in 2013 on the Brooklyn waterfront, from the wonderfully inventive minds of co-founders Timothy Monkiewicz and Brett Herman, has grown to be an immersive, majestic, and self-sustaining three-day music and arts festival. Through the year,s Elements has remained purely independent and has established itself as a staple name of the festival circuit. In 2018, DJ Mag nominated Elements as one of the best boutique festivals in North America. This accolade serves as a testament to how much this event has grown. It is currently the Northeast’s only car camping and dance music festival, and its new location is conveniently close to all major cities on the East Coast.

This year Monkiewicz and Herman are capitalizing on their spacious new home by building larger stages equipped with more mesmerizing sound systems, production, and theatrics than ever before. 

The four eponymous Elements stages are returning, each designed to represent Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. In addition, larger-than-life interactive art installations and 3D video projection mapping will accompany each stage, coupled with the music, to create authentic and unforgettable experiences.

Driven by exploration and excitement, The Fire stage keeps the party blazing. Those who seek intense beats with dirty bass drops and funky rhythms can find them at this sizzling, red-hot stage.

For guests who want to embrace the symbiotic relationship between festival and nature, Earth is where you’ll want to be. This natural landscape of a stage will take over your entire body with bass music, psychedelic tunes, world music, and jam bands.

Air, the dreamiest element of the festival, will allow you to enter a state of interstellar consciousness with techno, house, afrobeat, and ambient music. This setup allows fans to groove to the music while participating in a yoga or meditation class or tickle your creative spirit by immersing themselves in the interactive art.

And finally, the Water stage will feature the sounds of disco, house, funk, and reggae. This colorful stage will have you embracing your playfulness as you fluidly sway along with costumed performers with the musical backdrop of the forest and lake.

Elements stands out among small festivals for their ability to blend different music subcultures, as reflected in their bookings. Their lineups are known for being all-you-can-eat buffets for four-on-the-floor fans. But also deliver dubstep, ambient, experimental, jam, and much more. 

Event organizers involved their fans in this year's decision-making process in creating a more synergetic experience. They emailed surveys asking for input about which DJs festival-goers wanted to see on the lineup, genuinely making it a fan-led experience. Early this year, Elements released a statement thanking fans for their input, sharing that some of their top picks were already booked, and more were added to the list after receiving their suggestions.

At the top of the bill, playing at the Fire Stage sits Kaskade, who will be performing a special Redux set. The deeper sets are a nod to an earlier era of his career when he was a resident at San Francisco's early 00's deep house night, Remedy. He's joined by tech-house superstar Fisher, heavy-hitting Canadian duo Zeds Dead, a hybrid set by the experimental Sofie Tukker, dreamy, beguiling sounds by the dazzling masked Claptone, and the technical prowess of J. Worra.

The Earth stage will feature a hypnotic set from Rezz, heavy bass from TroyBoi, and wobbling bass and dazzling rhythm from The Floozies. Fans can dance along at the Air stage to a mesmerizing set from Seth Troxler, music by MOOD Records owner Nicole Moudaber, and a light ambient set from Lauren Flax. Dominating the Water stage is Dirtybird imprint owner Claude Vonstroke, along with breakout Miami duo Black V Neck, the soulful brother-sister pair Shermanology, and master of bootleg remixes, The Golden Pony. This is only a taste of the entire lineup, boasting over 100 artists.

Memories are certain to be made in many ways at this festival, from the interactive art installations and gorgeous murals to tiny enclaves of relaxation, curated activities, and dedicated spaces for wellness. Elements’ will bring out the best of dance music culture, in all its weirdness and wonder, out to rural Pennsylvania. This three-day, life changing event will electrify all six senses, and might even leave fans with a new outlook on life. 

In the words of Elements’, “Whatever you wish to call this phenomenon, Elements Festival is so much more than just a party.”

Words by Melisa Yuriar.