LOST LANDS 2017!!! Talk about giant f**king dinosaurs everywhere! Wow, this festival is one that everyone should look into when planning your next festival adventure (especially if you're a bass head). Whether you are planning to go by yourself, with a giant group of dinosaurs, or maybe you're an event producer yourself, trying to see how you can improve your own events, whatever it is, do not overlook what Excision and his team have created!

Let me start by giving a HUGE thank you to Excision and every single person on his team who helped bring Lost Lands to life. The festival was hands down the best one I have ever attended. It was planned in the best way possible and you could tell the team did extensive research on how to organize a good festival to ensure everyone had a great time. Even at the end, Excision wanted everyone’s feedback to make sure they make Lost Lands 2018 even better. HUGE round of applause goes to Excision and the team! Also, GIANT congratulations for selling out the first-time festival! Which, by the way, also had ZERO drug-related medical transports. Great Job!

Legend Valley, Thornville, Ohio

The venue was absolutely beautiful and quite functional for a bass-heavy two-staged festival. This outdoor venue was one that was made to handle the 750k watts of bass they promised. And with temperatures in the high 70’s with some humidity, it was the perfect weekend weather. The venue had trees, grass, and hills that made for the perfect landscape for prehistoric headbanging. They even set up hammocks throughout for those needing a little break during their cavemen journey. The hilly walk from one stage to the next was a little much if you didn’t wear proper shoes or if you were struggling on the third day, like myself. Fellow headbangers got their calf workout for the weekend after the first day if they had traveled from one end to the other to discover over 40 life-sized dinosaurs scattered across the venue! 

There were only two bathroom areas. One was between both stages an the other was at the top of the hill by the Cave of Souls, but the trek was worth it. The Lost Lands team kept the bathrooms clean, there was barely any wait and there were plenty of stalls for all festival goers to use. They even had giant boxes of toilet paper to make sure the bathrooms were fully stocked all weekend. The porta potties even had air filtration as well as a light that automatically turned on when you opened the door to make sure you could see how great these bathrooms were compared to other festival bathrooms. And if you were unable to attend this bass filled weekend, well there was no shortage of social media post from everyone that was there, but Excision made an incredible Facebook Live stream for everyone to watch and enjoy! I know plenty of friends who watched it and were amazed at how well it went all three days! What ideas doesn’t Excision have, he thinks of everything!

Prehistoric Paradox and Cave of Souls

You could tell, the team put a lot of thought into the production and visuals of both rib cage rattling and head spinning stages. Each stage brought high watts of bass you could feel the closer you got. I personally like having a hard time breathing because there’s that much bass (bass is supposed to be felt rather than heard). No matter which stage you were at, whether you were breaking your neck on the rail or in the back with flow arts you could feel the bass. Prehistoric Paradox was built for you to feel the bass as soon as you walked through the trees. The stage included two life-sized dinosaurs between two GIANT volcanos and was made to be stared at for hours. There was so much going on I couldn't keep up. One minute the volcanos were spewing fire, then lasers, and then projected visuals would make them look as if there was real lava flowing. Then one caught fire. Most people would be surprised, but as a loyal Excision fan, I am not. I was next to the part of Basspod that caught fire during EDCLV 2016 and I was also at his set in 2017 when he set an electrical surge through Circut Grounds. It's alright though, this was Excision's festival. If he wants to set a part of his stage on fire, well he can with a little help from Destroid!

During the fire, security and Lost Lands staff, did an amazing job with getting everyone at a safe distance, letting people know what was happening, and handling the situation in the best possible way. It took about 20-30 minutes to get everything up and running again. The volcano didn’t have too much damage as far as the fans could tell so that seems to be a bonus!

The Cave of Souls was different than what I had imagined. It was described to be a 360-degree experience enclosed stage with a lot of visuals, but I felt it could’ve utilized the space with more projections and lights. It made you feel so small being all the way in the front as well as all the way in the back, but I felt they should have utilized the cave drawings and dinosaurs like they had outdoors. Both stages were absolutely amazing in their own way and they each brought so much to Lost Lands.

BASS ON BASS.

The lineup curated for the weekend did not disappoint in ANY WAY! The only thing I request is more hours of bass! No day was better than the last, each brought something different that was incomparable. Day 1 gave us a TWO HOUR Excision set that was absolutely outstanding, largely because he started it with the perfect Jurassic intro taking us into full Lost Lands mode. He also finally played Robokitty and that was the one thing I NEEDED to have a perfect festival. Day 1 also gave us AFK, LAXX, Seven Lions and just an overall great start to the festival. Day 2 gave us a heavy stacked day including Kai Wachi, Sullivan King, Spag Heddy, Trollphace, and DESTROID! I had never seen Destroid before and all I have to say is WOW. They were amazing, it was insane to see. They completely added to the whole festival in such an unbelievable way. They even played Excision’s Robokitty before they set the stage on fire and I couldn’t have asked for a better set. Day 3 my entire body was struggling to power through, but it was worth it! Excision gave us a detox set, Space Jesus made us laugh, Dubloadz killed his set, Illenium was incredible, Rezz blew our minds and Excision B2B Datsik was perfect. Come on, talk about an amazing last day!

An unforgettable festival for the books and definitely more to come from the team behind Lost Lands. They did so much in three days that can’t be topped until Lost Lands 2018! WOMP. The only negative feedback I have for Lost Lands is minimal; I asked a few friends in camping their thoughts since usually that is where most issues come up.

Bathrooms: The two spots for bathrooms were good for those spots but anyone that was on the left side of Prehistoric Paradox or even far front of that stage would've liked to have bathrooms to the left of the stage. 
Water Station: This is singular because there was only one. It was great for those coming in early, but in the middle of the fest that line was so long there you were left with only one option of buying a $2 water bottle unless you wanted to miss an entire set. There were multiple ones set up in the camping grounds, but just ONE more inside the festival would’ve been awesome. The $2 water was very much appreciated though.
ATMs: There were a few ATMs around the festival grounds but they seemed to run out of money or were malfunctioning.
Camping: The showers in Dino Den ran out of water every day. The lines were almost 2 hours long as soon as they opened. People weren’t considering how long of showers they were taking and no one stopped them till they ran out. They need more hot water as well. They also needed after festival hours for people to shower between maybe 1-4 am so they could shorten the lines and not have everyone waiting to shower in the morning. There were not enough food options in Dino Den, many had to walk to GA for food. And lastly, the bathrooms were absolutely disgustingly gross. Always clogged, not taken care of and need to be kept up with to be functional. Quite the opposite of the bathrooms inside the venue.

After a long recovery, I finally have my mind back together after having had it blown to pieces from this festival and my entire body is finally healing from all the headbanging I did. It is a full body workout and Lost Lands had me breaking every part in my body. Thanks again to Excision for creating such an amazing festival. It connected so many beautiful basshead fans and a community together that is hopefully set for many years to come! Thank you to the whole Lost Lands team, security, medical, everyone involved to make this festival perfect! Thank you for great vendors, $2 waters, beautiful weekend, great venue, unforgettable sets and free earplugs I should’ve worn! My number one feedback opinion for you, Excision and your team of 1500+ people making Lost Lands possible is PLEASE MAKE SURE IT IS AS PERFECT AGAIN NEXT YEAR (also save me a ticket)! It was the best festival I have ever attended. I know Excision is as excited as we all are, he has kept the Lost Lands website up for 2018 info. He even dropped a hint that info should be coming next month! Make sure to sign up for their newsletters and keep up with his social media accounts!

Come get lost with me in 2018!