EDC Las Vegas 2018 Recap – First Timer – Tips and Tricks!

Electric Daisy Carnival, I love you ❤

I now understand why people go back each year, this past May long weekend was the most incredible 3 days of my life. Walking up those bleachers and seeing EDC for the first time still gives me goosebumps.

I’m going to break down this post into my whole EDC trip AND tips and do’s & don’ts on what I did and what I would recommend. Hopefully, this helps ALL the first timers out!

November 2017 – Buying our tickets

On a last minute whim, we decided we were going to make the splurge and go to EDC 2018 in Las Vegas!! Thinking back I can’t believe that we did it 6 months beforehand. It flew by quick! So make sure to start planning as soon as you get those tickets bought.

Ticket Tips:

• Do – Buy your ticket straight from Insomniac’s website. The last thing you need is to get a fake tickets/bracelets from someone online.
• Do – Download the app Radiate – It’s a combination of Facebook and Tinder. You can create a profile and select which festival’s you’re going to! It’s great because you can meet people online that are also going to EDC (or other festivals) and pre-plan ahead to meet up before EDC if you’re staying at the same hotel.
• Don’t – Waste money on VIP, some of our friends got VIP tickets and complained about how it was a waste of money. VIP allows you access to a few higher up stages for a more clear view but apparently, that was the only positive side. They all ended up in the general admin area after the first day anyway.
• Do – Buy your festival tickets separately. Buying them together for EDC results in only one book and one of each of the items inside. It doesn’t matter the sequence you buy them in just as long as you’re both buying them!

Shuttle Passes

A few months went by and EDC announced ‘Shuttle Passes‘, these passes are extra BUT they guarantee your transportation to and from the festival. Now there are TWO types, ones a shuttle pass and ones a premier shuttle pass. The difference? Premier buses are larger, air-conditioned AND have bathrooms. They did advertise that you’ll receive a goodie bag each day… it’s a Ziploc bag with a lip chap, bracelet, and candy.. the AC on the bus is worth it alone.

When you arrive at the festival grounds, the premier bus stop has bathroom trailers, there are 4 – 5 bathrooms in one trailer with sinks and hand soap etc. The rest of the festival you’re going to be using outhouses.

Shuttle Pass Tips:

• Do – Get the premier shuttle pass!!! Whether we left the festival at 3:30am or 5:50am I was able to walk directly on the bus at any time, NO LINE-UPS!! The basic shuttle pass… expect 40 – 60 minute waits… just to get on your bus, keep in mind its 45 – 85 minutes to get back to your hotel and after dancing all night the last thing you want to do is stand and wait in lineups
• Do – Select pick up/drop off times correctly. By choosing a later hotel pick up time (8:30pm – 10pm) you have the option to head into the festival earlier then what’s on your pass. By choosing a time earlier than that, say 630pm and you miss your pick up time, you have to wait in a standby line. Same with leaving the festival. We chose 8:30pm pick up time and 6:30am take home time, which was awesome because we normally finished off the last set around 5:45am and could walk to our bus stop and jump on, if we had an earlier time say 4:30am, we would have had to wait in a standby line for who knows how long.

Hotel & Flights

We booked these quite a bit early, through Expedia and I’m actually not sure why (I’m taking full responsibility on this one) We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel just off the strip. I believe we thought they had a special on and to walk to the strip was only a quick walk.. but looking at what others paid AND that they were on the actual strip.. noted for next year we’re going to correct this and book at a cheaper hotel located on the strip. The hotel was great for what we needed it for, we had a STUNNING view over Las Vegas and the huge bathroom and toilet that were in a separate room from the bathroom (This was a life saver!)The hotel was HUGE and apparently, all the hotels in Las Vegas are like that. We had to walk past two coffee shops, a tattoo parlor and a clothing shop AFTER the casino inside the lobby before we even got to our elevator to get to our room.

NOW one thing I learned within 2 hours of being in Vegas is, Clothing is optional. I wore a nice summer dress while we were waiting for our room to get ready… and I felt overdressed. Women were walking around in bikini’s and men were either in swim shorts and an open button up top or just swim trunks. Needless to say, once we got our room I changed into something a bit more ‘Vegas Friendly’

Airport pickup, we went a tad boujee on this with no regrets! Paul, our private limo driver was there at the gate waiting for us and helped us get our luggage into the car. Highly recommend this as the limo driver got discounts off at a few places and offered to stop at a liquor store too for no extra charge.

Tips:

• Do – Book with a hotel that’s ON the Vegas strip. Walking in the heat is only fun for a short time and taxies were $10 – $13USD.
• Do – Make friends! There are tons of club promoters that allow you to get into clubs free almost every night. Almost all the major hotels had clubs or pool parties every Thursday to Monday.

Pool Parties

Depending on how long you’re actually in Vegas for and what your budget is, I highly recommend hitting up a pool party. Almost all the top Dj’s headline at one and there are so many pools to choose from! Wet Republic is the one we ended up going to on Friday.

Pool Party Tips:

• Do – Pre DRINK! Drinks are VERY expensive at the pool parties, like $45 USD for a slushy drink. YES $45… and beers are $11 – $15.
• Depending on if you’re there for EDC Week or EDC itself, this is up to you. Getting there right when they open is great because its empty and you don’t have to wait in line. BUT the main Dj doesn’t play until after 2:30pm, so if you did what I did and get there at 11am.. you avoid lines but you also spend a lot of $$ on drinks and by the time the DJ comes out you’re tired, hot and starting to get hungry.
• Don’t – Worry about bringing in sunscreen or a towel. They have these in the bathrooms (well the cleaners have a little station with phone chargers and sunscreen that you can use for a tip) and they also have lockers if you bring clothes (men have to wear a shirt into the pool party women don’t)
• DO – Get your tickets months in advance. We only paid $20+tax and by the time EDC week came they were around $70+tax.

ALSO depending on the size of group you have at the pool party or your budget going VIP or getting a VIP section maybe worth it. It starts at $1500 USD, which includes alcohol and snacks and the booth becomes basically free after you drink a certain amount. There isn’t anywhere’s to stand or sit so having a VIP booth where you can relax is nice, especially with that HOT Vegas sun!

Outfits

For all my tips and information on where I got all my outfit pieces, check out my blog post here.

FOOD & Drinks

Before we got to Vegas I read a few blogs that talked about buffets at the hotels and how they were your cheapest option. Well, our hotel didn’t have one but they did have 4 restaurants… Needless to say, we spent a little more then we expected. Drinks were also very pricey at almost all of the places we went to. Although we did come across a little place called ‘Fat Tuesday’ more or less a slice of heaven, that had $1 shots (YES PLEASE) and giant slushy’s that you could fill and walk around with on the Vegas Strip, a great start to any day walking around Vegas really.

Tips:

• Do– Stop and get some liquor for the room, pre-drinking is highly recommended before any activity in Vegas because of how expensive drinks normally are.
• Do– Research and go on sites like Groupon to get coupons for buffets and other places to eat. We spent about half our money on food and alcohol. (No regrets)

All in all, we had an incredible trip and we’re already looking at going back. The experience is incredible and honestly, you can’t really understand unless you experience it yourself. Here we thought this was going to be just a single year trip… now we’re thinking about making it a yearly one, just not spending as much this time.