And if you are curious about my LED outfit, you can read more about it on my led peacock engineer medium post and if you'd like to read all my festivals or dreamstate, or clubbing posts, please click on the links higher on the page to get taken to those categories.
So last year, Dreamstate SF was a Cow Palace with 2 rooms until 03:00. The first obvious question, is which was best? Honestly mainstage was good at both, but Bill Graham definitely had better lasers, maybe because of Gareth :) As for the 2 stages vs 1, I'll be honest that mainstage last year had a fair amount of music that was not my favorite, including Eric Prydz/Pryda which I've never really enjoyed, and some DJs that sounded more like techno than trance to me. So last year, I spent a lot more time at the smaller Vision stage for my favorite trance sounds. Given that, I was delighted to only have one stage this year that was mostly music I enjoyed and on a much better stage. Also, it's kind of nice not to have to move stages and occasionally have to worry about set conflicts ;)
The one downside of Bill Graham was what I assume was an earlier curfew of 01:00 (Cow Palace last year ended at 03:00 instead of 01:00)
Did I mention that we got a few extra lasers likely thanks to Gareth? :)
Day 1
Since this year ended at 01:00, we started at 17:00 for 8h of trance:
Olly James
Nilsix
Jeffrey Sutorius
The absolute highlight of the day was Ferry Corsten playing a new Gouryella. Strangely he was not the last to play, which was weird as his set was guaranteed to be the best, and he sure delivered. It was another religious experience that surpassed the previous ones I had seen:
and yes, I caught the backwards easter egg :)
This really was the best set of the night by far, not that the other ones were bad, but this one was that good. I even caught the easter egg (clickme)
I did record the full set, although it wasn't with my best camera, apologies for this, but the music is still there:
W&W was last, but Ferry was a tough act to follow:
And that was it for Day 1. Here is the video summary:
I'm not sure what was going on after party-wise, nothing major I think, but given that I had just gotten back from 4 days ASOT, I was happy to get some rest to be there bright and early for day 2 :)
Day 2
our local TFSF boy, Sony opened day 2 again
TFSF represent!
Talla 2XLC was next, great set, great to see him again after just one week in Rotterdam :)
then Roman Messer, I also had seen just a week prior
Aly and Fila
Aly and Fila's full set:
Paul Van Dyk
Paul Van Dyk's full set:
And the night ended with Gareth, with muchos lasers, beautiful:
Yes, I have Gareth's full set here, enjoy:
Gareth was a great ending to day 2, here is a summary:
People
Of course I'm biased, but having just come back from ASOT, the crowds at Dreamstate events are much more festive:
A few pictures for fun as always:
Dave Dresden came to visit :)
shout out to the ground control teams, thank you
my heroes
and Gareth!
Thoughts/Conclusions
Artist-wise, it was likely a lower budget event than last year, only one stage, no Armin, no Pryda. But guess what? Honestly Pryda is not my thing, and while I do remember that Armin at least played trance at DS (which he did not at ASOT for the most part), he must not have been cheap. This is where I personally don't mind if we have DJs that don't cost as much and play music I enjoy just as much, if not more.
This time around it was a simpler event with single room, but we still had plenty of DJs and loads of fun without (I assume) spending as much money on the DJs as last year, which also left more money for the visuals, and they were definitely really good this year. I do not have access to any numbers like attendance or financials, but my guess is that this year the crowd was more trance lovers focussed, and that the event still made money, which of course is essential for us having more in the future.
The Artists we had played either mostly trance, or a reasonable mix of trance and other genres that I didn't find too hurtful to the ear :) (I did notice that both Fadi and PvD went a bit harder trance than they usually do, at the edge of techno at times).
Gouryella and Gareth's show both topped the best sets of last year as far as I'm concerned, so this was great!
In summary, we had a fantastic time, honestly I think it was a great combination of venue and artists. After Dreamstate Socal, this is the best Dreamstate Event in the world :)
π
2025-11-21 01:01
in Clubbing, Dreamstate, Festivals
Just like last years, delighted to be back: Dreamstate Socal is still an event I look forward to, all year :)
This is our third year at Queen Mary, you can read the first QM report for Queen Mary vs NOS where DS used to be before that. It is true that I still prefer NOS for a variety of technical reasons (from later curfew, shorter distances between stages, no bridge or underpass tunnel, megastructures that allow more kick ass lasers, and a few more...), but honestly DS like it is run, is still going to be (and was) lots of fun, regardless of where it's run. For the record, it's already been confirmed to be at Queen Mary for next year, so we can put that discussion to rest :)
10 Years!
If you like this report, and want to see others/future ones, you can go on these pages:
Let's go through the grounds again, starting with Passport for Insomniac subscribers:
cotton candy :)
if you pay enough, you get to come visit too :)
The Insomniac team still made those magical places:
the ring!
Of course, the water is always nice:
And then, there is the boat, it does look quite pretty from the outside. Unfortunately inside, especially behind the scenes, is literally falling apart. I didn't want to break the magic with pictures there, but honestly it's not looking great.
Generally, my thought this year on the venue:
the layout and footprint looked almost identical to last year
thankfully we mostly avoided the rain this year, but it's still 3 years in a row with rain and mud
It looked full with some choke points with this year's crowds, it wasn't unbearable, but I'd say it was close to the limit
Void was still felt too far even if it's half a perception issue, to the point that I only really went twice, too far for stage hopping.
Sequence was lovely but it felt like a 15mn walk from dream, it's really far end to end. NOS felt more compact while offering bigger and better stages. Not being able to reasonably stage hop between sequence and dream was unfortunate. This did benefit Vision though as it was in the middle :)
barely any lasers at dream, maybe a safety/logistical issue with the location, but disappointing for sets, especially Gareth. What is Gareth without real lasers? :)
but apart from limited lasers, the dream stage was beautiful
Weather
It was reasonably cold this year, but thankfully we barely avoided the rain this year. Obviously this location is much more subject to and affected by rain than NOS. It did rain a good amount just before the event, which sucked for the setup crews, but thankfully attendees were spared. They did a good job getting rid of most of the muddy mess with a better floor they installed:
People say a little rain has never killed anyone, and it does make the lasers look nice (that part is true), but they also forget how the first year at QM, we had a deluge of rain during the boat party that would have simply cancelled the event had it been a few hours earlier. That also made for a muddy mess the next day. So yeah, this honestly makes me nervous every year compared to San Bernardino that is a lot more dry, but I guess for now we just need to keep hoping to remain lucky :) (DS has already been confirmed to remain at QM next year).
The Queen Mary Boat After Parties
The boat had 3 rooms this year again, I think they may have been moved so that 2 of them were on the top floor which was convenient for stage hopping, but they were also the farthest you could be from bathrooms that were all the way down outside the boat, with no working elevator. It was a serious amount of steps to go up and down, and sadly the one working elevator was guarded by someone who made sure no one would get on it without an ADA wristband, and let's be honest, I didn't see many people with ADA wristbands on the boat, it was not ADA friendly in my opinion. So I was not impressed with that person denying the elevator to someone whose legs/knees were hurting but didn't have the ADA wristband. Her answer was to go down a lot of stairs and back up to somewhere not close to try and get an ADA wristband in the middle of the night :-/
I know (from having seen it) that parts of that boat are falling apart, the internal elevators are non functioning and virtually all bathrooms were non functioning too, which is why they were closed. This cruiseship is on its last legs indeed. The corridors with cabins were ok enough, as long as you were not hoping to sleep before 06:00, because the bass was shaking everything (unless you're a burning man veteran that can sleep next to speakers :) ).
People
Like every year, it was fun to see friends and nice costumes:
Pictures with friends:
Finally got to meet Federica/the_roving_raver
Marc from led2rave4
Pystrancemom who gave me lovely kandi, thank you
And the obligatory pictures with DJs :)
Superstrings
Roman Messer
Billy Gillies
My man, Fadi!
Neptune Project
Will Atkinson
Trancewax
John 00 Fleming, OMG his set was so good again
Ferry!
David Forbes, amused to see me yet more more time this year :)
We also organized and took some Trancefamily pictures:
Anyway, let's go through the 2 days of festival:
Day 1
Last year, DS started surprisingly early, 13:00, which was announced late and definitely a surprise. This year it went back to 16:00. I'm fine with anything (even if I want 3 days, haha), but hope the start time gets announced as early as possible so that people can get the right flights (both last year and this year, I had to do a difficult last minute plane change after an unexpected start time was announced).
I did start at Sequence to see Kristina Sky
then went to check out dream
This lovely b2b was quite early in the day
happy my friend Asteroid got a slot to play at Vision before Darren Tate
TFSF's Jonny Atom at Boom box
We also got all the superstrings :)
Anyway, back to dream for Giuseppe Ottaviani, beautiful stage like I said:
And vision:
And dream :)
for this epic PvD b2b Aly & Fila
Of course 01:00 was not the real end, next was the boat party. The lineup was great again, but I had a hard time enjoying the cramped and hot rooms (they did add fans, but it was still not very comfortable):
Asteroid again
FactorB and Neptune Project
One more chance to see superstrings
Day 1 Summary Video:
Day 2: and yes Tiesto Played Trance ;)
Day 2 also started at 16:00 which was no problem to manage:
TFSF's Khromata
Thanks to winter, it got dark quickly, just one hour later:
Trancewax
nice sunset
Many stages, many DJs, let's skip to the end, Dream got packed at the end when many went there to see Tiesto:
So, what happened? ;)
Honestly I just wanted to be happy, and it's just been 20 years since I got to see Tiesto play trance at Tiesto in Concert in LA:
Yes, I was there in 2005
I got the official T-shirt
and I was wearing it for Tiesto's set this DS :)
And yes, I saw him before that even, this was 2004 in New York:
Some people didn't like the first 15 minutes, I did. Some didn't like the rest which was more old school trance he used to play, because it was "the same thing" or "nothing new". I was "Hell, Tiesto is playing real trance, at Dreamstate! Can't we be very happy about that?" ... I was :)
Here's the full set:
So there you go, I had a great time, I was happy! :) But seriously if you're not happy enough with Tiesto, I was not happy with him leaving us for close to 20 years for commercial stuff that I sure don't care for. If he comes back, we have to welcome him back and the people he will bring to trance with him, that's a good thing!
The rest of the night was spent on the boat to finish the fun until we were exhausted:
Day 2 Summary Video:
Aftermath and Conclusion: Should this not be 3 days and with a bit more sleep?
Yes, I'm lazy, I kept the same headline as last year, but it's still fitting :)
DJS and music:
they were somewhat different from previous years, while keeping some favorites, not a bad thing
Some DJs were not able to come because the US has made it fairly expensive for them to get work visas and they can apparently take more than 6 months to be done unless you pay another "go faster" fee on top which is a few thousand dollars more. Sad :-//
And yet, great to see some new DJs like Roman Messer or Asteroid, both I knew from Europe but not everyone gets to go there.
Speaking of visas, I don't even want to know how much it cost to get all of superstrings :)
Queen Mary looks pretty from the outside, but inside:
It's hot as hell, to the point I had to remove my entire outfit to remove layers. They added a few fans, but still uncomfortably hot and humid.
The 3 stages were 4 very tall floors apart with only a single working elevator (the other ones have been broken for a long time and are part of the ship that is falling apart). I already explained above that having staff denying use of the one working elevator that was pretty much unused to people who could really have benefited from it, was poor.
The rooms on top of being too hot and cramped, were not big enough for everyone: on the 2nd day at 04;00, you couldn't get in Grand ballroom without waiting in line long enough for people to get out :-//
I mentioned the boat falling apart behind the scenes: if you get to see behind the curtain (I did), there are so many things that are very broken and left unfixed, we're talking broken walls, barely safe stuff. It's not meant to be guest facing, but not inspiring. So I guess my advice is don't look behind the curtain :)
Last year, DS started surprisingly early, 13:00, which was announced late and definitely a surprise. This year it went back to 16:00. I'm fine with anything (even if I want 3 days, haha), but hope the start time gets announced as early as possible so that people can get the right flights (both last year and this year, I had to do a difficult last minute plane change after an unexpected start time was announced).
From last year, it was similar:
still two days but enough DJs for 3 days, easily.
art was was still 5th stage and passport had its secret 6th stage.
Even moving back the start time from 13:00 to 16:00, it was still a lot of hours, although I'd have preferred more of them outside the boat.
And for anyone asking, Jeff Ryan from Insomniac has confirmed that DS will be at Queen Mary again next year, so he's saving us the time to talk about NOS vs QM :)
Should you go? Would I go Back?
I think I don't need to write a long essay to say "hell yes"
It's still the best night trance festival in the world production wise
Yes, too many DJs all at once in not enough hours, but well, better than the opposite problem :)
Where else do you get all those lovely costumes and nicely decorated LED totems? (for the flags in the smack middle of the crowd, blocking the view, maybe we can do without those, though :) ).
The insomniac crew continues to run a well oiled machine and did a great job this year again.
