Living in New Zealand, we’re pretty accustomed to looking overseas with a little envy when festival season rolls around.
We get some incredible music events at home, but when you start watching videos from the huge international camping festivals, with enormous purpose-built stages, entire communities living onsite, art installations, themed costumes, wellness programmes, afterparties and production that involves an alarming amount of fire, it feels like a whole other world. Especially when our local December festivals revolve around rain, mud, and gumboots, we were excited to experience Elements Festival for the first time.
Located at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, Elements is a multi-day electronic music and arts festival centred on Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Calling it a music festival doesn’t really explain what happens there. The music might get you through the gates, but once you’re inside, the camping, people, costumes, art, weather and general chaos become just as much a part of the story.
We spent the weekend dancing beneath a giant octopus, discovering artists we’d never planned to see, getting caught up in spontaneous mosh pits, wandering through glowing gardens, and watching fireworks explode above sets.
If you’re planning an American OE, heading to the States next summer or looking for one huge international festival to build an overseas adventure around, Elements deserves a spot on the calendar.
Welcome to Elements
Our first impression was simply the scale of it. Even arriving feels unusual. You drive through Pocono Raceway to reach the festival campgrounds, and seeing this enormous site unfolding around us was the first indication that the next few days were going to be very different from a festival back home.
The weather, however, decided our initiation should be slightly more dramatic. Lightning delays left us sitting at the front of the camping queue for five hours. By the time we were eventually allowed through, the campsite situation had become something of a free-for-all. We’d paid for Premium Camping but were incorrectly directed to GA, so we eventually took matters into our own hands, found an available plot in Premium, and moved ourselves there without any trouble.
Once the tent was finally up, things changed quickly. Our neighbours were immediately friendly and offered to lend a hand if we needed anything. That interaction was a pretty accurate preview of the community we’d experience throughout the weekend.
And then we walked into the festival.
These Aren’t Just Stages
This is probably where the difference in scale hits hardest. Elements is built around its elemental theme, and its major stages don’t simply have different names. They have completely different identities.
Earth was an enormous deer illuminated with bright LEDs. Water was a huge 360-degree stage with an octopus perched overhead and tentacles reaching down around the crowd. The fire resembled an Aztec temple, with flames erupting from its corners. Air was nestled into a close-knit forest setting, creating an entirely different atmosphere again.
You weren’t simply walking from one stage to another. Each one felt like arriving in another little world.
The Water Stage was a particular favourite. Being surrounded by the tentacles of a giant octopus while standing around a 360-degree stage isn’t an experience we’re likely to forget quickly.
And the production was huge.
Lasers. Fire. Cryo. Fireworks. Massive sound systems. Visuals that completely enveloped the stages.
One of our group, Brett, a three-year festival veteran, described it as “the most crisp” sound he’d ever heard. The production was consistently one of the strongest aspects of the weekend, rather than something reserved exclusively for one or two headline performances.
Elements After Dark
Elements during the day and Elements at night could almost be two different festivals.
By day, everything was considerably more relaxed. People spread out across the grounds on picnic blankets and inflatable couches, and wellness activities, including yoga and sound baths, kicked off around 11am. The clouds gave us some welcome protection from the sun, although it also felt like everyone was consciously conserving a little energy for what was coming later.
Then the sun went down. The installations we’d casually wandered past earlier suddenly glowed in the darkness and the energy became electric. The Neon Garden was one of the best places to simply wander through. Hidden slightly away from the main walkway, it was filled with brightly coloured lights, glow-in-the-dark paint, hammocks, interactive exhibits and a sea of art installations.
Elsewhere, we stumbled upon people painting and unusual installations, including a run-down car and a mirrored room. That’s one of the things Elements gets so right. There rarely felt like there was nothing to do. You could arrive without caring who was playing for the next hour and still find something weird, beautiful or completely unexpected to explore.
And Then There’s the Music
Dubstep and techno were everywhere in 2026. It was difficult to catch a set without hearing at least one track dipping into either genre, but the lineup felt intelligently curated, with genres flowing into each other across the different stages.
Subtronics delivered one of the weekend’s defining performances.
The crowd reaction was enormous, his stage presence was incredible, and the energy around the set made it easy to understand why he’s become such a major name in EDM. There was also a little hometown significance to the performance, with Subtronics born in Pennsylvania, and three new IDs became one of our favourite music moments of the weekend.
GRiZ at sunset was another standout, featuring live trumpet, saxophone, and trombone, with ProbCause rapping live. Watching that combination unfold as the sun went down was one of those festival moments where everything seemed to line up perfectly.
Crankdat fully committed to his fire theme, bringing out fire dancers whose performance was synchronised with the music. Excision surprised us by straying from his more typical dubstep sound and bringing more techno into his set.
Porter Robinson delivered some of the weekend’s most memorable visuals, incorporating a compilation of words sourced from platforms including Discord, Twitter and Google to create lyrics within his background production.
Excision took a different route, incorporating his own branding alongside internet memes and references to games including Minecraft and Overwatch.
And throughout all of it, mosh pits had an uncanny ability to materialise immediately beside us. Not once. Not twice. All weekend.
Don’t Just See the Artists You Know
One of our favourite discoveries was completely accidental. Of The Trees was playing immediately before Subtronics. We didn’t really know his music, but we wanted a good spot for Subtronics, so we headed along early.
It’s amazing how you can find your next favourite artist by complete accident. He ended up being very good live, and we would all absolutely watch him again. At a festival this big, don’t spend your entire weekend running from one familiar name to another. Leave gaps in the schedule. Stop at a stage because something sounds good. See the artist before the artist you actually came for.
Interestingly, the energy wasn’t exclusively reserved for the headliners either. People brought it throughout the festival, early and late. The huge crowds surrounding the biggest acts obviously changed the feeling, but there wasn’t a sense that everyone was simply killing time until nighttime.
Come for the Music, Stay for the People
The community might have been the biggest surprise of Elements. The age range was huge. We met brand-new 18-year-old festival-goers alongside neighbours who had been going to festivals for more than 25 years. Despite that mix, the overall atmosphere felt uplifting, and people genuinely appeared to be looking out for each other. Strangers were willing to jump in when somebody needed something, and conversations regularly ended with: “Happy Elements!”
Maybe getting rained out together twice creates some sort of accelerated friendship, but there was a real sense of community in the experience. One of the sweetest moments of the weekend came at the end of Subtronics’ set. His parting advice to the crowd? Drink some water. Eat some food. If you didn’t wear earplugs, wear them next time. And: “BE NICE TO EACH OTHER.”
Pack the Outfit. Then Pack Another Outfit.
Now, let’s talk about what everyone was wearing. If you’re travelling from New Zealand, Elements is your opportunity to fully commit to American rave fashion, because getting dressed here is almost an event in itself. We saw matching sets, elaborate group costumes, glitter, face rhinestones, stickers, wings, tails, colourful boots, flowy pieces and plenty of skin. Hydration packs were almost ubiquitous, which is probably the most practical fashion trend you could adopt.
And importantly, the costumes aren’t incidental to Elements. The festival actively encourages them.
For 2026, the official theme days included Party Animal on Friday, Elements Day on Saturday and Glow Up on Sunday, with attendees encouraged to interpret each theme through their outfits. There was also an official Theme Days competition tied into the festivities.
Saturday’s Elements Day was particularly fitting because the elemental identity extends throughout the festival. Festival-goers could discover their element through a questionnaire, and we saw people turning Earth, Air, Fire and Water into outfits, handmade kandi and elaborate totems.
Then there were some very specific micro-trends. Tiny plastic ducks appeared everywhere, in seemingly every size. So did little decorative sprouts clipped onto hat brims, although the interpretation of “sprout” had become increasingly loose. We spotted plants, cheese, eyeballs, artist logos and some significantly less printable versions.
Our advice? Whatever you’re planning to wear, go even further. This isn’t the festival to travel halfway around the world for and then decide your outfit is “jeans and a nice top”.
The Very American Festival Extras
Another thing that feels different when you’re coming from New Zealand is the scale of the brand activations. BeatBox had a truck on-site showcasing flavours, alongside a tent where festival-goers could pick up merchandise, including bandanas, small hand fans, and, rather conveniently given the weather, rain ponchos. Superlyte also had a truck and photo booth with branded props and giveaways including sunglasses and drink cosies. Superlyte and Jell-O shot stands also seemed to be everywhere, with stands positioned around the festival and near the different stages.
It’s another layer to the experience that makes Elements feel less like you’re visiting a field containing several stages and more like you’ve entered a temporary city.
What Do You Actually Eat?
You won’t struggle to find food. There was a surprisingly broad selection spread throughout the grounds, including breakfast options, smoothies, burgers, fries and even caviar, alongside the usual festival fare and additional food trucks. The food we tried was generally good quality, though it’s one area where you’ll want to budget accordingly. A slice of pizza could set you back US$10. A lemonade was around US$10. Plates of fries were going for somewhere between US$16 and US$22.
Once you’ve mentally converted that into New Zealand dollars, perhaps don’t. To be fair, it is completely expected that festivals have higher prices, so you just need to keep it in mind for your trip.
What Is Camping Actually Like?
Once we were settled in, the campsite itself was well thought out. Showers, food and general vendors were concentrated in a central area, while bathrooms and water stations were spread around the site. Essentials were also conveniently available around the festival, with food, drinks and bathrooms close to the stages. The signage was generally good and, importantly, illuminated at night.
There was a slight learning curve in understanding the map, but the large physical markers around the campsite helped enormously. Our reference point was a giant clown emoji on a pillar near our site, which sounds ridiculous until you’re trying to find your tent again at night amongst thousands of other campers. Then it becomes excellent urban planning. And seriously: download the festival app. It was a lifesaver.
Wellness Isn’t Just a Buzzword Here
There was also a noticeably conscientious side to Elements. Beyond the yoga and sound baths, sustainability was visible around the campsite. We were provided with recycling bags, while festival-goers could receive free merchandise for collecting a full bag of rubbish from around the festival. None of that magically eliminates the environmental footprint of putting on an event this size, but it did mean sustainability felt incorporated into the experience rather than simply appearing as a word on a website.
The Element Isn’t Just a Name
One observation from the weekend stuck with us: “The element isn’t just a name, it’s part of the culture and more than likely a part of the weather.”
It’s funny, but it’s also strangely accurate. Earth, Air, Fire and Water aren’t simply names attached to four stages. They’re in the costumes. They’re on the kandi. They’re represented by enormous pieces of stage design. They’re part of the art. People identify with them. And yes, when lightning and rain roll through the festival, they’re apparently also capable of interfering with your camping plans. That commitment to the concept is part of what makes Elements feel like its own little universe rather than another stop on the festival calendar.
Is Elements Worth Travelling From New Zealand For?
Yes! Especially if you’re already planning time in the US. For Kiwis, Elements offers a chance to experience an enormous, immersive camping festival that feels worlds away from a standard weekend music event.
Our advice is to embrace the whole thing. Don’t put yourself in a box when it comes to the music. See artists you’ve never heard of. Talk to people. Explore the art rather than racing through stages. Make the trek out to the afters in the outer campsite. Download the app before you arrive. Check the theme days and actually dress up. And express yourself. That’s the point.
OUR RATING:
4.2/5
Would we go back? Absolutely.
Sometimes the best souvenir from an OE isn’t something you can fit in your suitcase. It’s three days of very little sleep, ridiculously loud music, new friends, giant octopuses, thunderstorms and stories you’ll still be telling when you get home.
