What makes a good festival? Big pyrotechnics? A dope VIP section? A killer lineup? While all three are great, we like a festival with a story.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many happy ones these days, with unpredictable weather, the post-COVID economy, and shifting interests leading to a haunting increase in cancellations.
So how do festivals stay alive in a market like this? How do you keep the dream alive?
First, you need to have a dream strong enough to weather the storm. And no matter how heavy, burdensome, or disastrous your pursuit of that dream gets, you need to hold on to it.
Two individuals who held tight to their dreams are Brett Herman and Timothy Monkiewicz, a duo with DIY roots in Brooklyn’s underground nightlife and warehouse party scene. What began as illegal, large-scale warehouse parties in the shadowed corners of New York eventually grew into a one-day experiment on the Gowanus Bay Waterfront in the Red Hook industrial area.
From its launch in 2013 up to 2016, Elements Music and Arts Festival existed as an art project as much as it was a music festival. From every inch of their curation, it was clear that the minds behind it celebrated creativity in every aspect of life. Fortunately for Herman and Monkiewicz, their timing couldn’t have been any better, as the electronic scene was undergoing a renaissance with names like Skrillex, Tipper, and Porter Robinson beckoning in a new era of dance music.
These early iterations did so well that in 2018, they expanded into a three-day camping festival in Lakewood, Pennsylvania – a destination that would ultimately lead to one of the most disastrous years in festival history.
The first couple of years were great – minus a few hurdles that new camping festivals face. They were booking top talent, including the likes of Disclosure, Big Gigantic, Liquid Stranger, and plenty of burgeoning acts that are now headliners.
In fact, they were doing so well, that they even were able to take COVID on the chin and come back in 2021 with their biggest lineup and boldest production to date.
Unfortunately, Hurricane Ida had other plans, with catastrophic flooding, a tornado outbreak, and roughly $20 billion in damage across the northeast.
The biggest pain point of this debacle was entry delays, with attendees stranded at offsite parking lot locations with the shuttles intended to pick them up stuck in the mud. Aside from that, it was grossly oversold, there were massive food and water shortages, sanitation issues, and to top it all off, artist cancellations because they physically couldn’t get to the venue.
But with all the lows, there were also plenty of highs, including the unveiling of some seriously sick production that I got to experience firsthand. In fact, it was the first article I ever wrote here at River Beats Dance as a staff writer 5 years ago.
While this could have easily been the end of the festival, organizers picked themselves up, washed off their mudcaked boots, and got back to the drawing board, ultimately making the decision to take their endeavor to Long Pond, Pennsylvania, the home of the Pocono Raceway.
Despite some of the chaos, attendees like myself were in love and were undoubtedly going to return for what turned out to be a beautiful redemption, year after year after year.
For their 2026 iteration, over a decade since the festival’s original concept was conceived, Elements returns to their new home in Long Pond for what is shaping up to be their biggest event to date.
Keep up with everything Elements Music and Arts Festival 2026 has in store with River Beats Dance!
What makes a good festival? Big pyrotechnics? A dope VIP section? A killer lineup? While all three are great, we like a festival with a story.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many happy ones these days, with unpredictable weather, the post-COVID economy, and shifting interests leading to a haunting increase in cancellations.
So how do festivals stay alive in a market like this? How do you keep the dream alive?
First, you need to have a dream strong enough to weather the storm. And no matter how heavy, burdensome, or disastrous your pursuit of that dream gets, you need to hold on to it.
Two individuals who held tight to their dreams are Brett Herman and Timothy Monkiewicz, a duo with DIY roots in Brooklyn’s underground nightlife and warehouse party scene. What began as illegal, large-scale warehouse parties in the shadowed corners of New York eventually grew into a one-day experiment on the Gowanus Bay Waterfront in the Red Hook industrial area.
From its launch in 2013 up to 2016, Elements Music and Arts Festival existed as an art project as much as it was a music festival. From every inch of their curation, it was clear that the minds behind it celebrated creativity in every aspect of life. Fortunately for Herman and Monkiewicz, their timing couldn’t have been any better, as the electronic scene was undergoing a renaissance with names like Skrillex, Tipper, and Porter Robinson beckoning in a new era of dance music.
These early iterations did so well that in 2018, they expanded into a three-day camping festival in Lakewood, Pennsylvania – a destination that would ultimately lead to one of the most disastrous years in festival history.
The first couple of years were great – minus a few hurdles that new camping festivals face. They were booking top talent, including the likes of Disclosure, Big Gigantic, Liquid Stranger, and plenty of burgeoning acts that are now headliners.
In fact, they were doing so well, that they even were able to take COVID on the chin and come back in 2021 with their biggest lineup and boldest production to date.
Unfortunately, Hurricane Ida had other plans, with catastrophic flooding, a tornado outbreak, and roughly $20 billion in damage across the northeast.
The biggest pain point of this debacle was entry delays, with attendees stranded at offsite parking lot locations with the shuttles intended to pick them up stuck in the mud. Aside from that, it was grossly oversold, there were massive food and water shortages, sanitation issues, and to top it all off, artist cancellations because they physically couldn’t get to the venue.
But with all the lows, there were also plenty of highs, including the unveiling of some seriously sick production that I got to experience firsthand. In fact, it was the first article I ever wrote here at River Beats Dance as a staff writer 5 years ago.
While this could have easily been the end of the festival, organizers picked themselves up, washed off their mudcaked boots, and got back to the drawing board, ultimately making the decision to take their endeavor to Long Pond, Pennsylvania, the home of the Pocono Raceway.
Despite some of the chaos, attendees like myself were in love and were undoubtedly going to return for what turned out to be a beautiful redemption, year after year after year.
For their 2026 iteration, over a decade since the festival’s original concept was conceived, Elements returns to their new home in Long Pond for what is shaping up to be their biggest event to date.
Keep up with everything Elements Music and Arts Festival 2026 has in store with River Beats Dance!
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