A festival story. The characters are imagined; the clothes are real.
Three songs left, and the eye on your pole is blinking at nine percent.
You can read the number on the battery pack taped to the grip, glowing green in the dark. Ten feet above it, the eye: four months of kitchen-table evenings, neon tube bent by hand around an acrylic iris, magenta and lime and violet spiraling in toward a pupil as black as the gap between songs. Every few seconds it blinks. Slow. Like something waking up.
Half a mile downhill, the headliner's voice booms across the valley, big enough to bend the grass. "THREE MORE. ARE YOU READY?"
The whole sold-out valley answers. You feel it in your fillings.
"Never happening," Dev says, licking cinnamon sugar off his thumb. "The camera crew films the first ten rows. Back here you're a moth with a stick."
"Camp dishes," you say. "Until next September."
"Deal." He grins. "Bring sponges."
Your phone buzzes. Yara, who has ridden the rail since gates opened and won't give it up for food, water or true love:
3 SONGS. I CAN HOLD ONE SPOT. RUN.
Under it sits an older text from Gabe, twelve years old, cross-legged on the couch at home with the stream on the big TV:
count your fingers lol
You almost laugh. Five years ago he slept with the hall light on, and you taught him the old trick: in a dream, count your fingers. If there are too many, you're dreaming, and in a dream you can fly. He drew an eye with rainbow lashes on the back of a cereal box and taped it over his bed. If I see the eye, I'll know.
In May, you traced that eye onto the acrylic.
The first song drops.
✦
The hillside becomes one machine. Thousands of heads snap down on every snare, hoods and bucket hats and sweaty hair, a field of headbangers bowing to the subs like wheat in a storm. The riddim sounds like a chainsaw made of velvet. The ground hums up through your sneakers.
You go.
"Totem coming through!" Pole high, elbows tight, you slide sideways through the gaps: past a couple stacked in kandi to the elbow, past a guy waving a laminated photo of his grandmother captioned NANA WANTS RIDDIM, under a pool-noodle sea serpent bobbing on its own pole. The air tastes of cut grass and fog-machine sugar.
Forty-six degrees. Your breath smokes in the lasers. You pull up the hood of your cloak, the fleece closes warm around your ears, and the wind finds nothing to grab. On your back rides Gabe's pick: neon rainbow mandalas, magenta and orange, violet and lime, folding in on themselves like a dream. He jabbed a finger at your laptop in July. That one. It looks like the eye from the inside.
At the bottom of the hill, the crowd parts around a triceratops.
Twelve feet tall, the color of wet slate, glow sticks knotted to its horns, the river of people bending around it like water around a stone. You pass close enough to brush its knee. Its eye is a dark glossy dome as big as a dinner plate.
It follows you.
You stop. You look at your hands on the pole. One, two, three, four. Then the strobes hit, your knuckles flash white, and the count scatters.
Song one rolls into its outro. You're halfway there.
Above you, the eye flickers. Flickers again.
And goes dark.
✦
Black pole. Black sky. Two songs left.
You twist the battery pack. Nothing. Song two opens with a siren, and ahead of you the pit spins open into a circle, dancers whirling around its rim like a galaxy around its center. Thirty yards to the rail. No gap anywhere.
A hand lands on your arm.
A woman in a cap so armored with pins it clinks when she nods, a hydration pack on her back, already looking up at your dark eye. "Totem down?" She digs in a side pocket and comes up with a battery bank and a cable. "Bass family. Plug in."
The eye stutters. Then it opens, brighter than before.
All around you, other totems swing toward the light: the sea serpent, Nana, a cardboard brachiosaurus, an inflatable alien with its arms flung wide. "TOTEM UP!" someone bellows, and the call ripples outward until a dozen poles are climbing into the lasers.
You pat your wrists for kandi to trade and find only cloak sleeve. She slides a bracelet over your hand anyway, beads clicking into place. "Trade me in your next dream."
You tilt the beads toward the light. They spell GO.
You look again. FLY.
Your phone clock reads 1:11. You blink. 1:17.
Then the bass cuts out in the middle of a phrase, and the silence rings like a struck bell.
"LAST ONE," says the voice from the stage. "MAKE IT COUNT."
Thirty rows still stand between you and Yara.
✦
Song three starts soft. A single warm pad, wide as the sky, and a whole valley breathing in.
The circle closes. The crowd packs shoulder to shoulder, solid as a hedge. You can't push through it.
You can only lift.
So you lift. The pole rises over your head, and someone's hands take it. Then someone else's. "PASS IT UP!" The eye floats forward over the crowd, hand to hand, like a lantern carried down a river, and the people beneath it turn their shoulders to let you follow. Excuse me. Thank you. Love you. A snare roll starts climbing like stairs.
Yara's arm shoots out of the front row, her legs wrapped in the same neon mandalas as your cloak, because she flatly refused to be left out of the color scheme. She hauls you into the gap. Steel rail, ice-cold under your free hand. The subs so close the wind off the speakers blows your hood back. Somebody passes the pole down into your hands, the eye still burning.
You raise it.
The build climbs. The camera crane swings over the rail, past the alien, past Nana, past the serpent.
And stops.
On the screen behind the headliner, sixty feet tall, the eye opens.
The valley roars. Somewhere behind you, Dev's text lands: buying sponges.
The drop hits.
Your phone buzzes against your ribs. Gabe. Video.
You answer one-handed. His face fills the screen, lit blue by the TV, under the brim of the Lucid bucket hat you gave him for his birthday so the two of you would match on the stream. He's shouting something you can't hear over the subs. You don't need to hear it. He holds a square of cardboard up to the camera: corners gone soft, tape gone amber. A cereal box. An eye with rainbow lashes.
He kept it. Five years.
Behind him, on the TV, the eye fills the frame, and beneath it stands a small figure at the rail, neon mandalas spilling down their back.
Gabe lowers the cardboard. He spreads his fingers at the camera and mouths it slowly, so you'll catch it: Count.
Up on the hill, the triceratops turns its great head toward the stage.
You look at your hand wrapped around the pole. One. Two. Three.
The second drop lands before you reach five. The whole valley leaves the ground, and so do you, hood flying, the cloak on your back blazing in the same colors as the eye, the same colors glowing on a bucket hat in a living room a hundred miles away, every mandala folding in on itself like a dream that knows your name.
You don't come down. Not yet.
The colors on the big screen
Your cloak, Yara's leggings and Gabe's hat all carry Magus Fawn's Lucid design: neon rainbow fractal mandalas in magenta, orange, violet and lime, perfectly symmetrical, like a dream folding in on itself. The Lucid women's festival cloak ($250) is the hooded rave cloak for the hour when the valley turns cold; the Lucid women's yoga leggings ($70) stretch through a whole night on the rail; and the Lucid bucket hat ($50) is classic bass-crowd headwear, ready for your pins.
- Cloak: micro-mink poly outer · ultra-soft fluffy microfiber fleece lining in black or white faux fur · listed fabric weight 200 g/m² · double front zipper · heavy drawstrings · four pockets (two interior stash pockets, one zippered, plus two deep side pockets) · unisex fit, XS–5XL.
- Leggings: microfiber, 75% recycled poly / 25% elastane · listed fabric weight 225 g/m² · 4-way stretch · raised waistband · XS–XL · happiest kept away from rough surfaces.
- Bucket hat: dye-sublimated print · sizes XS–XL.
Everything is made to order (7–11 business days of production), and US orders of $70 or more ship free. Build the rest of the look from our women's cloaks · men's cloaks · crushed velvet · joggers.
What do you wear to a bass festival at night?
Wear bold, comfortable layers you can headbang in for hours: an oversized hoodie or crushed velvet top, joggers or stretchy leggings, chunky sneakers, a bucket hat and a hooded layer for after midnight. Magus Fawn's bass festival outfit pick is a fleece-lined festival cloak over leggings, because fall valley nights can slide into the 40s °F.
- The bass dress code: oversized hoodies and joggers are the uniform, crushed velvet is everywhere after dark, and bucket hats double as pin boards. Bold, neon, all-over psychedelic prints read beautifully under lasers.
- Rail riders: choose a zip-front layer you can open as the front rows heat up and close for the walk back to camp, plus pieces with real stretch for hours of holding the rail.
- Totem culture: a custom sign on a pole is how your bass family finds you. Each festival sets its own totem rules, so build to the event's guidelines, add lights for after dark and pack a spare battery bank.
- Dust and kandi: a bandana or buff for dusty fields, kandi on the wrist for trading, and a hydration pack for the long sets.
For the real thing, Lost Lands fills Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio, with dubstep, riddim and life-size dinosaur sculptures in mid to late September, on nights in the 50s °F that sometimes dip into the 40s; Wakaan brings experimental bass to Mulberry Mountain near Ozark, Arkansas, in early October, with nights of 45–55°F; and Shambhala's Village stage anchors the bass at Salmo River Ranch, BC, in late July, where mountain-valley nights fall to 45–55°F.
Frequently asked questions
Is it cold at Lost Lands at night?
Yes, cold enough to pack a warm layer. Lost Lands runs in mid to late September at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio, and nights usually sit in the 50s °F, sometimes dipping into the 40s. That's genuine hoodie-and-joggers weather, so bring a hooded cloak or heavy hoodie for the headliner's late set and the walk back to camp.
What are good Lost Lands outfit ideas?
Lean into the festival's prehistoric theme and its cool valley nights. Dinosaur touches, neon all-over prints, bucket hats covered in pins, kandi, chunky sneakers and an oversized hoodie are classic Lost Lands outfit ideas. Add joggers or stretchy leggings, and keep a fleece-lined festival cloak handy for the late sets, when the temperature slides through the 50s.
What to wear to a dubstep show?
Dress for movement and a warm crowd: a breathable tee or hoodie, joggers or leggings with stretch, closed-toe sneakers and earplugs. Dubstep crowds headbang and ride the rail, so pick pieces that move with you. For outdoor shows after dark, a zip-front layer like a Magus Fawn festival cloak opens on the dance floor and closes for the walk out.
Written by Magus & Lylyth Fawn, the Los Angeles artists behind Magus Fawn. Magus makes VR and digital visionary art and produces Psy EDM. Lylyth makes fractal digital art and runs design and customer care. We've been selling wearable art since 2020 on Etsy (4.7★ from 144 reviews as of October 2026) and here at magusfawn.com. Come say hi on Instagram @magusfawn.
0 comments