Ellefest: The Best Festival Lineup. Ever.

It was only a matter of time before I put together my festival dream team. My ultimate, utopian lineup of music that I would love to see over the course of a beautiful 3 days in a location very convenient to my house (Prospect Park, maybe?). The festival that I would put together if I won the $1.3 billion dollar Powerball (Step 1: play the Powerball).

Putting this lineup together was actually harder than I expected, for a few reasons:

1. I wanted to create an all-genres festival, a la Lollapalooza, Governors Ball, or Coachella. However, my music tastes are not actually super diverse, so I really had to reach to the far depths of my music libraries to get inspiration across the board. I could have easily put together an electronic only festival, but this was more fun and more challenging.

2. Even though this is festival fantasyland and in theory I could have anyone I wanted, I tried to keep it realistic. This meant it had to be a mix of well-known and up-and-coming artists, old and new, and only artists who are actually touring or who at least occasionally do one-off performances. This meant that my initial idea of having a dedicated Diva Stage featuring Beyonce, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Madonna, as amazing as that would have been (right?!?), was nixed pretty early on.

What I ended up with is a weird blend of artists, every one of whom I’m excited about. They aren’t all my absolute favorites, but I would love to see every one of these live, whether for the first time or the 15th.

And now, without further hesitation, I present: ELLEFEST! (Named after a series of theme parties I hosted in 2005 and 2006)

You’d all go to this festival, right? Of course you would.