Electric Daisy Carnival or EDC is one of the biggest electronic dance music (EDM) festivals in the world, with the main one now held in Las Vegas every May.  I have been to the Las Vegas event back in 2015 and 2016, and wrote about my experiences here.  Although I had a lot of fun back then, the Vegas event has gotten even bigger and busier since.

A friend and I decided to try EDC Orlando for 2021 since it was smaller and wanted to make a Universal Studios and Disney World trip out of it.  EDC came to Orlando for the first time ever in 2011 and started out as a 2 day event on Friday May 27th and Saturday May 28th.  Only 12,000 people attended the first day while 20,000 people went the second day.  It was held at Tinker Field from the very beginning and moved to November in 2012 and to a 3 day event starting 2019.

General admission weekend passes do start at $149.99 plus taxes/fees when they do presales months in advance and gets more expensive as time gets closer to the event.  There is a limited number of tickets available at each price point until it sells out.  The event runs from 1 PM to midnight each of the 3 days.  The 2021 edition took place November 12 to 14 at Tinker Field and features Kaskade, Tiesto, Armin van Buuren and many more.

Getting There

We stayed at Rosen Inn on International Drive, which is about a 20 minute drive to Tinker Field.  Lucky for us, I had a friend who has a wheelchair accessible van and was willing to drive us for 5 of the 6 trips for the 3 days at Tinker Field.  I was really happy with this because trying to get an accessible taxi or an Uber after the event would be very hard to do because it was so crowded and difficult to get into the area.

Only on the first day, we had a difficult time time trying to find a wheelchair parking spot near EDC and eventually found a spot for $20.  The other 2 days, my friend just dropped us off at EDC and had to leave.  Leaving the venue took a while because of the massive crowds leaving right when it ends at midnight.

We would always leave between 15 minutes to 30 minutes before closing and it was still crazy.  The one time that we had to call an Uber to leave Tinker Field, it took over an hour to arrive and they had surge pricing which was a bit annoying.  This was the only negative part of the whole EDC experience.

Tinker Field

Tinker Field opened in 1923 and was an outdoor baseball stadium in downtown Orlando, Florida.  In 2015, the grandstands and the buildings were removed and the venue has since been hosting different yearly events including EDC Orlando every November.

The venue consisted of grass and roadway everywhere.  There were either curb cuts or ramps where it was needed so I never really had any problems going anywhere.  The grassy field areas did get a bit messy and muddy when it rained but my friend could still manage pushing my chair around.  Some of the stages even had a hard plastic flooring covering the grass close to the stage.

Good To Know

Just like almost every other major music festival that I have been to, EDC Orlando had designated wheelchair lines to get inside the venue.  It can be easier and quicker to get in so it’s very convenient to look for them.  Once we picked up our wristbands at “will call” and were inside, we directly went to the ADA Accessibility Services booth.

This is where we get our ADA wristbands which allows a wheelchair guest and 1 companion to the ADA raised viewing platforms and accessible bathrooms.  These areas are usually monitored by 1 to 3 staff members who check for wristbands and keep things in order.  More info about accessibility can be found here.

As with most music festivals, there was no same day re-entry to the festival if we were to leave.  That means, we made sure we brought our jackets, ponchos, labelled medications and an empty water bottle for the day.  A complete list of what you can and can not bring inside the festival can be found online here.  There is a lot of food options at EDC so no worries about getting hungry staying all day.

6 Music Stages

There were 6 music stages with varying sizes at EDC Orlando.  Starting from the main stage which is the biggest stage and going in decreasing size, the 6 stages are: Kinetic Field, Circuit Grounds, Stereo Bloom, Neon Garden, Corona Electric Beach and Rynobus.  The 4 bigger stages do have ADA raised viewing platforms with it’s own designated locked and monitored wheelchair accessible porta potty.  At these areas is where I could lean back in a chair to pressure relief.

With Kinetic Field stage being the first main stage and being the biggest stage, the ADA raised viewing platform here is also the biggest.  It is a bit further back from the stage but the view was still good.  I could still see the artists and didn’t have to be in the huge crowd if I choose not to.  Just like every festival I go to, I also get right up to the stage to hang out with everyone and get a closer view.

Circuit Grounds and Stereo Bloom stages were the next 2 main stages and they both still had a decent size ADA raised viewing platform that was within a great distance of the stage.  We ended spending most of our time at Circuit Grounds since the majority of the artists we liked were playing at that stage.

I would have to say that the ADA raised viewing platform at Neon Garden was one of the worst I’ve seen in any festival.  It is so far back, that I could not even see the stage.  Luckily, we did not see many artists at this stage and only visited the once to review the accessibility.

The last 2 smaller stages did not have any designated ADA viewing areas.  Corona Electric Beach had a big sand pit in front of the stage which made it harder to go in so we just stayed to the side which only had a little bit of sand.  Rynobus was just an artist playing on top of a party bus where everyone there was just surrounding the bus.

Final Thoughts

EDC Orlando was definitely a really great time and I would go again for sure.  We did not join any of the after parties at Home Bass as the special hotel and party package has already been sold out.  Overall, I think I prefer the Orlando event over the Las Vegas one because the Las Vegas one is just too huge and over crowded.  Hopefully this year can continue the trend of having large outdoor music festivals.  It was well worth the trip to Orlando just to go to this.