Forbidden Kingdom Pulls Festival Dates Forward One Month for 2026

For the first time in its eight-year history, the 2026 edition of Florida bass music festival Forbidden Kingdom will take place in April.

Forbidden Kingdom has endured as a beloved fixture of the bass music landscape — but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. As Insomniac‘s Bassrush event brand continues to fine-tune the event, it has announced that next year’s festival dates will fall on April 25-26 at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando.

To celebrate the festival’s eight-year run so far, Forbidden Kingdom is kicking off its official presale on October 9, with a limited-time flash presale for two-day GA passes at $88.88 or layaway plans for $8.88 down at the time of purchase. These passes will only be available for eight days, so you’ll want to make your purchase before October 17 at 11:59pm ET.

As for the new dates, the move to May marks something of a departure for Forbidden Kingdom, which has taken place in late May or early June every year since 2021. Prior to the pandemic, however, its debut and sophomore editions in 2017 and 2018 both took place in February.

In their announcement, organizers did not mention any reasoning for the date change, but online commentators have speculated that it was to help attendees avoid the late spring heat. Insomniac famously pulled EDC Las Vegas’ dates forward from June to May for this very reason ahead of the world-famous festival’s 2018 edition.

No lineup details have been shared publicly for Forbidden Kingdom 2026 at the time of writing. Organizers shared the phase one lineup for the 2025 edition in February, rounding out the rest of the bill with a phase two lineup in March. Artists like Excision, TroyBoi, SVDDEN DEATH, Zomboy, and Wooli lent their visceral styles of heavy dubstep for the cause. Other acts, such as deadmau5, have played drum and bass, while projects like JEANIE and Vampa’s Witching Hour, and Black Tiger Sex Machine and Kai Wachi’s Skull Machine, have been featured at the festival.

Forbidden Kingdom passes go on sale at 1pm ET on Thursday, October 9, via Front Gate, and fans can secure them for $88.88 all in or a down payment of $8.88 at the time of purchase for layaway. Sign up for early access on the Bassrush website.