While it may have been sad for all the bae's out there that the year of "Netflix and Chill" was coming to an end, we were more than excited to ditch our unexciting lives and embark on a journey to the winter paradise known as Snowglobe. Even though the temperature was well below freezing most of the time one must not be fooled, Snowglobe was an experience that couldn't be matched by any other NYE festival.

I woke up at 6am to a cold morning. I can't help but fret the 8 hour drive I have head of me as I hop into my car and onto the 5 freeway. The seemingly endless field of cows remind me that I am driving across California in order to basically freeze at a music festival, luckily there were plenty of other SoCal friends who would be doing the same. I quickly snapped out of that once I put on Louis The Child's Snowtape and remembered what awaited me at my destination, the beautiful scenery of Lake Tahoe. 8 hours later and we arrived at our cabin where we were greeted by the chilling bite of the snowy weather, luckily we warmed up with good drinks and good friends before the epic weekend.

I was surprised to see how quickly we got into the festival grounds on our first day. After some fairly heavy snowfall leading up to Snowglobe, walking out onto the Lake Tahoe Community College campus felt like entering a completely different world. The fresh powder covered the trees surrounding the venue that created a surreal environment to experience some of the best music that a festival could offer. After exploring the venue, we quickly made our way to the Igloo tent to get our feet moving as Will Clarke and Justin Jay threw down the fresh, funky underground house music that the Dirtybird crew is known for.

After getting our groove on, we left before I got too nostalgic over Dirtybird Campout and made our way to the Sierra Tent to catch Vanic. I knew that we should expect an epic set, but little did I know just how epic it would be. As we huddled together, our minds were blown as Vanic played his signature melodic dubstep that was making countless people slip and fall in the snow as they were headbanging. With our faces properly melted, we headed over to the main stage to catch Galantis’ set. It was at this point that I was able to really appreciate the beauty of Snowglobe. Galantis played their euphoric uplifting tracks which complimented the stage lights that lit up everything from the trees, to the audience, and the snow. After an overwhelming amount of feels, we finished off our night with Duke Dumont. The warmth of our cabin kept the party going as we made the excuse of celebrating our survival of the first day of Snowglobe.

Day 2 came and after finishing up our breakfast of pop-tarts and screwdrivers, we made our way to the festival once again, this time starting out the day turning up with Lil Dicky at the main stage. Lil Dicky was easily the most fun set of the entire weekend, keeping the crowd energized as he performed songs like $ave Dat Money. At one point Lil Dicky paused the music to point out how he couldn’t, “believe that he was getting paid to spray people in the snow with water.” After getting silly with Lil Dicky we realized that it was time to start tripping with Jai Wolf. We were immediately pulled into the crowd by Jai Wolf’s energetic set and forced to stay by all of the people that were piling into the Sierra Tent to catch him. This was one of the few times that I actually enjoyed being in such a packed crowd because you could literally see how excited everybody was by the way that they moved together. The audience resembled a series of waves crashing on a beach, except we were far from it.

Pushing out of the crowd, we made our way back to witness an epic set from one of the OGs of the house world. Eric Prydz delivered a phenomenal performance taking us on a journey that had us all vibing, dancing, and some even tearing up at some points. The epicness was brought to a new level as Kaskade came on early for a quick B2B with Prydz. Filled to the brim with feels, it was time to crank the energy levels up with the one and only Alison Wonderland. Alison has had an amazing year, currently contending for a spot on Triple J’s Hot 100 in Australia and consistently playing shows around the world. Alison’s stage presence and energy was unmatched by any other artist. We admired her passion and how she insisted on playing up-coming producers’ remixes of her songs throughout the performance. While everyone was telling me how amazing Kaskade was (I don’t doubt it one bit), I do not regret seeing Alison Wonderland instead as her set turned out to be one of my favorites from the whole weekend. We turned down the raging a bit and warmed up our souls after Alison’s set with some Cashmere Cat to bring Day 2 to a perfect close.

We kicked off New Year's Eve with our homie Rami Dearest aka Londonbridge, who frequently plays at the most lit weekly LA party known as Space Yacht. I was pleasantly surprised by how many people came to catch Londonbridge’s bass house set given that he was playing so early and it made me very happy to see a promising new face get the support that he deserves. Given that this was his first ever festival set we set up an interview with Londonbridge that will be posted later this week to see what he has in store for us this 2016. Up next we had Moving Castle All Stars (who released a killer Snowtape that you should check out if you haven’t already). Their set had all of the wonkiest beats and freshest future bass that one could ask for and it was the perfect set to keep you warm from the raging as the sun set.

Once the Moving Castle All Stars were finished destroying the Sierra Tent I made my way to the mainstage to watch Dillon Francis’ set. Even though I had seen Dillon Francis before, his set still kept me dancing and seeing him at night in the snow with all of his insane visuals left me with no regrets. After watching everyone twerk as best as they could in their snowpants, it was time to get a little weird with Slumberjack. With the new year getting closer and closer, you could just feel the anticipation growing amongst the crowd . With midnight closing in, we were ready to hit the mainstage again to bring in 2016 with none other than Australian producer What So Not. While his set was very energetic and overall amazing, nothing tops What So Not at the countdown. While I could sit here and try my best to describe to you how it felt to be there, I feel that no words could do it justice so I’ll just leave this picture here to give you a better idea.

When I finally committed to attending Snowglobe I had already heard so many great things about it from friends who raved on and on about how amazing it was. Some of them have even been religiously attending the frigid festival for 3 years now and swear by it. While it was an admirable effort by my friends to attempt to describe the wonders of Snowglobe to me, there wasn’t anything anyone could have said for me to really know what I was in for. Snowglobe 2015 was one of the craziest and most surreal festivals that I have experienced so far. I met so many amazing people with whom I got to enjoy one of the best NYE lineups at one of the most beautiful venues in the world. Some may think that it is crazy for anyone to want to go out into the mountains in the middle of the night with temperatures consistently staying below freezing just to listen to some music, but after experiencing it first hand, I have to say that you’d be crazy to not want to do that. If you are thinking about whether or not you should go to Snowglobe 2016, then stop thinking and just go for it. It’s an experience you’ll remember for life. 

Huge shoutout to the Snowglobe team for inviting us out and to everyone that helped make this NYE the best one yet!

Photographer: Austin Braunschweiger