Desert Hearts- The Good Vibe Festival

Desert Hearts originally started as a gathering of 200 people who wanted to create their own Burning Man like festival that combined good vibes with non-stop house and techno beats. 10 years later, the event has evolved into a 3,000 person festival where crazy adventures are the norm and anything goes on the dancefloor.

Set on Los Coyotes Reservation, a 2 hour drive from San Diego, Desert Hearts is completely off the grid with no cell phone and wifi service. Leave No Trace is an important tenet of the festival, and the organizers work with local Native American law enforcement to ensure that everything runs smoothly and festivalgoers respect the land.

What sets Desert Hearts apart from other festivals is that there is only one stage where “House, Techno, and Love” are pumped from the speakers 24 hours a day. The San Diego-based DJ crew of Mikey “Mikey Lion” Leon, David “Porkchop” Leon, Ryan “Deep Jesus” Orey, Matthew “Marbs” Marabella and Lee Reynolds  created Desert Hearts with the intention that there would be only one stage so everyone could be on the same wave-length. One stage, one vibe, one family.

This year’s Desert Hearts sold out before the lineup was even released- demonstrating that for the Desert Heart’s tribe, the vibe and community itself are more important than the headliners.

Co-founder Lee Reynolds

Although I’d never been to a Desert Heart’s event before, I had been following the festival for a few years and heard great things about the vibe. My friends who had been in the past raved about the energy, saying that it was the best festival vibe they had ever experienced outside of Burning Man.

My first night at Desert Hearts definitely proved that true. As we drove our van to the parking lot after setting up our vending booth, a random guy knocked on the window and asked if we could give him a ride. We let him into the car, and he introduced himself as Amadeus, “You guys,” Amadeus said, “that would never happen in the real world. If some random person knocked on your window and asked for a ride you would either ignore them or tell them to fuck off.”

Everyone acknowledge that was true. Festivals bring out different behavior in people and demonstrate what a utopian society would be like if everyone was friendly and unsuspecting of strangers.

We told our new friend Amadaeus that it was our first Desert Hearts and he said, “Welcome to the Desert Heart’s family!” To thank you guys for being so nice, come park by my van. We have tons of alcohol and snacks to share. I always buy double what I need, because why not share with everyone?”

And with that Desert Heart’s popped off with shots of rum and Cheetos.

The theme of Desert Hearts Festival,  is “Bring the Weird” and the festival definitely lived up to that statement. I’ve never experienced a festival with so many people proud to be weirdos. I don’t think I saw anyone dressed “normally” or what would pass as normal in the default world. Even the food vendors ended up decked out in funky hats and glitter by the end of the festival.

“It was my first time vending at a West Coast festival and I definitely noticed a difference from the East Coast scene.  The festival style in NYC is more refined and elegant- Desert Hearts was anything goes- the weirder the better. I’ve never seen a festival where attendees put so much effort into their looks- the trippier the outfit the better.

Desert Hearts had a style that was unique to their festival:  unicorn glam, rainbow mermaid, sequin addict, fluff lovers, and androgynous divas abounded. Multiple psychedlic patterns, a myriad of colors, and sequins seemed to be the standard look.

Going against the standard electronic music DJ uniform of black v-neck tees and fedoras, the Desert Hearts DJs brought it with their unique outfits styled by Desert Hearts vendors.

Desert Hearts is the only festival that puts on a festival fashion show in the middle of the dancefloor. Produced by best friends and festival fashion specialists,  Tessla and Ash (a.k.a as the Glitterpies), the fashion show not only showcased vendor outfits, but allowed models to fully express themselves and feel at home on the runway as the crowd cheered them on.  Attendees could volunteer to model designs from vendors or create their own funky looks to parade down the runway.

I had a great time people watching while vending. Frankly, the festival was so much fun I regretted working 75% of the time and wished I had just gone to enjoy the vibes.

For the first time, Desert Hearts included several East Coast designers in their repertoire of unique vendors. Our NYC crew of designers included Sam Enriquez of WhoCaresWhyNot, Gustavo Matos de Lima of Dr3amer D3signs and Bruce Lindsay of Electric Candy Couture.

Vending at festivals is hard work. Flying across the country with hundreds of pounds worth of merchandise was definitely a challenge, and I wasn’t prepared for the amount of dust there was at Desert Hearts. We had to constantly dust off our merchandise to keep it clean. I had a newfound appreciation for Swiffer dust wipers which came in handy, but by the end of the festival I gave up and just let the sequins lose some sparkle and accumulate dust.

Night time was a struggle. Normally Desert Hearts takes place in March, but the festival organizers moved it back a month hoping that the weather wouldn’t be so frigid at night. I can’t imagine how much colder the festival was in past years when it took place in March, because even in April it was still freezing. Temperatures fell to the mid-30s at night. I couldn’t believe that Southern California was colder than NYC. The cold weather definitely influenced the festival fashion. People were bundled up at night in fluffy coats and someone told me that they had brought 3 days worth of outfits and ended up wearing all 3 at night to stay warm.

Huddling by the bonfire helped warm you up a bit. It was far from the dancefloor, but it was a good place to make new friends and bond over toasted marshmallows. A pro tip for going to colder festivals is buying handwarmer packets on Amazon.  They take 30 minutes to warm up, last for 10 hours, and are a lifesaver when your fingers are cold.

Walking through the Vendors Village and coming upon the dancefloor was like entering an alternate reality where everyone was going wild. The 24 hour stage was popping off at all hours of the day.

Whether it was night or day, people went hard. Damian Lazuarus’ 4 hour sunrise set Sunday morning was the highlight of the festival for many. My personal favorite was Tim Englehardt’s melodic techno set. It’s the mark of a good DJ when you’re exhausted at 9am after dancing all night, but you can’t leave the dancefloor because the music is so good.

There were several talented artists doing live painting by the dancefloor. I don’t know how they could concentrate with so much awesomeness going on, but by the end of the festival they had created lots of beautiful paintings.

Desert Hearts was set up like a mini Burning Man where participants could band together to form theme camps that built lounges or gifted services or food/drinks to festival attendees. Pile Palace and the NYC based Burning Man camp The Cat’s Meow were two camps from the playa that contributed to Desert Hearts.

Three days of 24hr partying takes it’s toll and the scene Monday morning resembled a strange refugee camp full of fabulous, glittery, dust-covered people wearing layers of fur coats, psychedelic bodysuits, and sparkles. The festival was scheduled to end by 4pm Monday, but 8pm still saw people on the dancefloor reluctant to return to the default world.

After 4 days of baby wipe showers and portapotties, I  was looking forward to returning to indoor plumbing and hot showers. While I loved everything else about Desert Hearts, the portapotty situation was the worst I’ve experienced at any event. By 6pm the portapotties were full and remained dirty until the morning. Each stall you opened seemed to be worse than the one before. Although it was a Leave No Trace event, many festivalgoers unfortunately ended up squatting behind trees and cars because they couldn’t deal with the mess in the bathrooms.

Aside from the shitty situation, Desert Hearts was an amazing festival that brought something unique to the American festival scene: an atmosphere where everyone was encouraged to be different yet still felt like a part of one big family. If you missed this annual spring event, the Desert Heart’s crew takes their good vibe show on the road throughout the year with City Hearts events in major American cities and a fall City Hearts  festival in Downtown LA.