Splash House returned to Palm Springs and delivered a desert oasis experience filled with quality house and techno grooves over two weekends.
Southern California has been blessed with many festivals all summer, but few have been as special as Splash House. Over the past decade, this festival in Palm Springs has long been at the forefront of many dance music lovers’ minds as it’s historically offered top-tier lineups and a boutique atmosphere. While previous years have featured an edition in June, this year saw Splash House focus on two back-to-back weekends in August to maximize the experience – and we were there to catch all the action.
In the past, I had only attended Splash House for a single weekend, packing as much as I could into the two-day, three-night experience in one blast. This year, the stars aligned for me to attend both weekends, allowing me to approach the boutique experience differently. This allowed me to pick up on separate dynamics that surfaced at the festival this year.
Related: Interested in knowing which sets stood out at Splash House this year? Check out our top performances from both weekends.
First, let’s dig into the similarities.
Both weekends were hotter than hot. After all, even though you’re at the pools, you’re smack dab in the middle of the desert. The first weekend reached a sweltering 115 during the hottest parts of the day, and the second was slightly cooler by about ten degrees. This still led to attendees to seek shade whenever they could and gulp down as much of the free water and Electrolit as possible.
Speaking of Electrolit, the partnered brands were also prominent. Electrolit and Takis were handing out free samples for anyone who wanted extra hydration or something to munch on during sets. BeatBox was a huge part of the party at the Renaissance pool, handing out free visors and other goodies. And if you needed a dose of energy, you could swing by the Bang Energy booth for a free can at Margaritaville. It was also nice to see how integrated these were with the cocktails offered at the pool’s bars.
The two weekends also featured quality artists in the house and techno realm, with a sparse amount of bass. This was a bigger switch-up compared to previous editions I’d attended, which featured a touch of dubstep, trap, or experimental bass artists added into the mix. As someone who loves multiple genres, it was great to see acts like Levity get added in and have some artists spin drum and bass in their sets. It’d be great to have a more rounded representation of those sonic realms in the future.
There were some differences between the two weekends of Splash House, though.
The first weekend’s lineup was a bit more esoteric, bringing some unique sets like Alesso’s Body Hi, Green Velvet b2b Gorgon City, AC Slater and Chris Lorenzo’s Fly With Us, and Odd Mob and OMNOM’s HYPERBEAM, as well as deeper artists you don’t often see in SoCal. That said, the second packed its punch with established and rising artists alike, with sets from Meduza, John Summit, Disco Dom, Patrick Topping, and more.
There was also a starkly different crowd experience during both weekends. Wherever I went during the first weekend, whether at one of the pools or the afters at the Air Museum, I had plenty of room to dance and groove. Outside of Saguaro reaching capacity once, it never felt like any hotels were overpacked. The crowd was mixed, but it felt like an older demographic was attending, as many who I spoke with throughout the weekend were longtime veterans.
This changed dramatically during the second weekend. From the jump, the opening party at the Air Museum was teeming with people who made their way to the desert to see John Summit, but this dripped into the rest of the festival. Perhaps it was just my luck, but each set I attended seemed more full than the previous weekend, and the crowd was increasingly frustrating to move through with each passing set.
While I spent most of my time at the stages during the first weekend, others I knew in the scene who went the second weekend gave me a glimpse of what life is like at the hotels.
This was the biggest personal difference I experienced between both weekends of Splash House. While the first weekend was a trip dominated by jumping between hotels and trying to catch every set, the second weekend was far more laid back for me. I found myself hanging out in different rooms of the Renaissance, chilling on the balcony and enjoying the sets from a distance as the crowds swelled below. I thoroughly enjoyed dipping my feet in the pools, but nothing could beat getting a dose of AC to cool down during the hottest part of the day.
Doors were opened to a different side of Splash House than I had previously experienced because of that change in the company. There’s nothing wrong with going to the event and staying off-site, but this festival is at its best when you stay at one of the hotels, namely the Renaissance. That’s how you immerse yourself in the community that’s grown from Splash House, and the fun moments, conversations, and more have left a lasting impression – even if I missed a handful of artists I wanted to catch.
What stuck out most about the die-hard Splash House attendees was that they didn’t care about who took the stage; it was about reuniting with friends and letting loose in the desert for a weekend or two. I know that’s how I’ll approach the festival in the future. See you in the desert next year!
