House heads unite: Day Trip Festival returns to Downtown Long Beach for pure dance ecstasy

Dance festival giant Insomniac is returning to the Queen Mary-as-a-backdrop for its annual house-centric Day Trip festival, where tens of thousands of house lovers from around the country will gather on Long Beach’s southern shore to dance the nights away come June 23 and 24.

Day Trip Festival is one of Long Beach’s largest music festivals—and the organization behind it is cultivating dance culture despite criticisms

The Spruce Goose dome. The Queen Mary. The Downtown Long Beach skyline. It is a space like no other—and something Insomniac has grown to love and appreciate for its festival goers as it continues to move festivals to the Long Beach waterfront. With its removal from residential areas and a ton of easily accessible hotels and transit, it is no wonder that the Burbank-based festival organizer is moving more and more of its events to Long Beach—a much-needed and appreciated boost to local festival going after Goldenvoice vacated the space after a slew of pre-pandemic events that drew in massive crowds.

While many of the indie electronic acts frown upon Insomniac’s corporate culture and lack of love for the authentic raver scene—overselling and dangerous conditions of the event organization’s cornerstone event, Electric Daisy Carnival, prompted the event to be suspended in the L.A. region, moving it to Vegas, for instance—the one thing they cannot deny is that they have turned Long Beach into an EDM festival haven.

Taking over the Queen Mary Waterfront (where they’ve been no strangers: the Electric Daisy Carnival made steady appearances there during the 1990s and 2000s), they’ve brought househeads together for Day Trip and, for the first time last year, the tranceheads of Dreamstate as well as the drum’n’bass-meets-dubstep crowd for Apocalypse.

And it’s not just Insomniac that’s interested in the space: Mayor Rex Richardson’s proposed budget for 2024 included looking at the feasibility of building an outdoor amphitheater—think Greek Theater in capacity and Hollywood Bowl in style—by the Queen Mary, the DTLB skyline as its backdrop and the potential to draw from a larger pool of artists with such a distinctly unique venue.

And that feasibility study is moving forward: Packaged as part of his “Elevate 28” proposal to focus on the 2028 Olympics and its reach into the public space of Long Beach, the study should ready around July, with an additional 60 to 90 days for City staff to present the study to City Council.

The 2024 Day Trip Festival Lineup

The 2024 Day Trip Festival will once be broken into three stages: High Tide, the main stage, located at the eastern nexus where The Queen Mary and Spruce Goose Dome meet; the Deep End stage, at the opposite western end of the festival grounds; and the Shoreline stage, the smallest stage in between the two larger stages.

Highlights include Duke Dumont, Dom Dolla, John Summit, Diplo, Meduza, Fisher, Eli Brown, Nore en Pure, Bob Moses, Robin S, and more.

High Tide stage lineup

• CID
• DOM DOLLA
• DOMBRESKY
• DUKE DUMONT
• FRIENDLY FIRE
• J. WORRA
• JAMES HYPE (SUNSET SET)
• JASK
• LOW STEPPA
• LUPE FUENTES
• MAJESTIC
• MAX LOW
• MIANE
• NOIZU
• SIDEPIECE B2B LEE FOSS
• TITA LAU
• WALKER & ROYCE (EXTENDED DAY PARTY SET)

Deep End stage lineup

• ARCHIE HAMILTON
• BELTRAN
• BLOND:ISH
• CLAPTONE
• ELI BROWN
• JADEN THOMPSON
• JOSH BUTLER
• KAYSIN
• MEDUZA
• MR. V
• NORA EN PURE
• NORA EN PURE B2B TINLICKER
• ODEN & FATZO (LIVE)
• ROBIN S (LIVE)
• ROBYN BALLIET
• SECONDCITY
• TINLICKER

Shoreline stage lineup

• AIMMIA
• ALEX ELENA
• BINGEWATCH
• DAROH
• DAVID BULLOCK
• FREAKY DEAKY
• GURU REZA
• HAAVI
• JASK
• JENESSA ACOSTA
• KAYSIN
• LONDONBRIDGE
• MANOLO
• MIKE THOMAS
• MR. V
• NAAR
• NONFICTION
• NOVACANE
• ORLY17
• RICARDO TORRES

For more information on the Day Trip Festival, including tickets, click here.