With live music, a lush sunset, and a desolate but lovely desert setting just outside Jean, Nev., the Rise Festival captivated from the moment the music began.
Above, the Zack Gray band performs music that fit the site – a bit ethereal, a bit Coldplay-esque, the songs seemed perfectly timed to match the darkening of the sky. Other musical acts included Agina, Exes, and Ry X, taking the stage before the sun went down with lovely sets of their own.
While the event describes itself as a music festival that also includes the release, at three timed intervals, of biodegradable lanterns, it is the lantern release itself that creates the true sense of magic, and draws the crowds. We attended Sunday night – the other two nights featured fireworks and a crowd of up to 10,000; Sunday was a smaller group of attendees – a little over half 10,000 – but nonetheless a truly spectacular release.
The initial release was also a learning process: lighting the igniteable square in the center of the lantern and keeping the delicate paper that shapes it from also igniting while it inflates, is a two-person experience – even three; which makes it all the more delightful once mastering the technique is accomplished.
Once dusk fell, and crowds gravitated away from the tasty collection of food trucks and craft brew purveyors…
…once the sunset photos by the iconic “Rise” sign and colored moons and translucent colored columns were taken, attendees were asked to assist in lighting the rows of tiki torches laid out by sections — ticket holders were assigned to a section in a circular grid from Northwest to Southeast.
Following the torch lighting, and time to write any messages on the paper lanterns, there was a countdown to the actual lantern launch – and they were aloft. Some skittered too low, needed to be recaptured and reheated; others had first-time-mishaps as ours did; but in the end, they all went soaring into the sky, some seeming to pass in front of the moon.
It was glorious. It was beyond worth the drive from LA into the desert. The visual spectacle, the sheer art of the event was terrific, but it was the spiritual element of release, fire, prayers and wishes and names on lanterns, the ephemeral nature of the lanterns as they transition to ash, sink, and fade into the desert sand that made the Rise Festival as special as it was.
We saw participants of all ages – from children to the elderly, enjoying the event.
Side note: the lanterns are biodegradeable, but even as we were leaving, the Rise Festival staff was waiting on horseback, foot, and cart to collect lantern detritus when the flames burnt out and gravity did its thing.
Before it did, thousands looked up, enjoying the light, flight, and spiritual flames — Rise Festival is both a participatory performance art event and a meditative experience rolled into one.
- Genie Davis; photos by Jack Burke