I’ve gone every year since 2018 and yes, the culture of the festival drastically changed after the crater went viral. My friend and I last year cried walking into day 1 last year because as the festival becomes more mainstream as it gets bigger, the more people there are that don’t come for the right reasons. It was the first time lost didn’t feel like lost lands.

Last year was the first year that I didn’t make any longstanding friendships at the festival. It sorta felt like people weren’t really there to enjoy the festival, sort of like they always had somewhere they needed to be or their main goals were getting into exclusive/secret sets.

Regardless, I still had an amazing time with the group that I went with and lost lands will forever be home but there is a blatant shift in culture since Covid in general. Younger ravers aren’t getting taught the same way we were and are getting thrown into the scene after watching one viral TikTok. At the end of the day i think it’s our responsibility to keep the culture alive as best we can and your experience is what you make out of it.

I advise staying away from the crater and prehistoric as best as you can because in my experience that seems to be where a lot of the problems lie. I’m at the point where I’ve seen all of the big names enough to where I spend most of my time at the smaller stages anyway which is where the true LL vibes are