New York brims with summer entertainment, and that includes more choices than ever for those whose idea of it is to escape into a 'lost weekend' of music festival revelry. Nearby options include the freewheeling Mountain Jam at Hunter Mountain (June 5-8), the folk and singer-songwriter hub Clearwater's Great Hudson River Revival in Croton-on-Hudson (June 21-22), the hip-hop- and rock-centric Made in America weekend in Philadelphia (Aug. 30-31) and many more. Here are six of the most-anticipated destination festivals in the region.
MYSTERYLAND U.S.A.
Bethel, N.Y.
This electronic-music festival has run for 20 years in the Netherlands, expanding to a second event, in Chile, in 2011. Its first American installment stakes a flag in hallowed rock ground: Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, N.Y., on the site (formerly Max Yasgur's farm) of the Woodstock festival in 1969.
THE LINEUP The international electronic lineup emphasizes both fast-ascendant, trendy young D.J.s (Nervo, Nicky Romero, Dillon Francis) and older, more seasoned radio and club veterans (Kaskade, Pete Tong, Moby, Steve Aoki).
DON'T MISS Pete Tong, a champion of new and niche electronic music in his native England, with a Cockney rhyming slang derived from his name to his credit. ('It's all gone Pete Tong,' popularized in the late 1980s, reflects a situation that's gone awry.) The host of programs on BBC Radio 1 and iHeartRadio and the founder of the dance imprint FFRR Records, Mr. Tong delivers kinetic, inventive live sets that skip glibly from deep house to minimalist techno to British garage.
'The idea of being on the Woodstock site is very poetic to me,' said Mr. Tong, 53, who is now based in Los Angeles. 'Aside from Glastonbury, I can't think of a more legendary brand, in terms of festivals, than Woodstock.'
THE SCENE Nodding to its bohemian predecessor, Mysteryland U.S.A. will offer meditation centers and art installations. A 'healing garden' will feature group yoga (with earplugs available, we hope). The British visual artist Angus Watt will create a flag work for the grounds; works by Dadara and Kate Raudenbush will be featured.
Mysteryland will operate on Birdie Bucks, a cashless system of payment for which concertgoers will upload credit to wristbands equipped with electronic chips and tap them on sensors to buy souvenirs, drinks and food. (Birdie Bucks have their own mystifying conversion rate: Nine Birdie Bucks equal $10, according to the event website.) Smorgasburg, the popular food fair in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will travel upstate for the weekend to sell snacks. Camping is available.
(General admission weekend pass is $199; mysteryland.us.) ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL NEW YORK
East Rutherford, N.J.
One of the largest dance music festivals in the world returns to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey after last year's event at Citi Field in New York. (Other iterations of Electric Daisy Carnival are held in Las Vegas and Mexico City and just outside London .)
THE LINEUP Heart-pounding bass drops, frenetic beats and scores of lasers are standard fare at any Electric Daisy Carnival event; New York's will feature modern dance-music stars, including Afrojack, Calvin Harris, Tïesto, Boys Noize, Thomas Gold and Bassnectar.
DON'T MISS Thomas Gold, a Berlin D.J. with an international following. In 2013, he sold out a headlining performance at Roseland Ballroom, bringing live brass players and drummers onstage, a welcome addition in the mostly recorded dance world. Since releasing his first tracks in 2006, he has steadily encroached on the pop sphere with his dance remixes; he recently reworked Lady Gaga and Adele singles.
Mr. Gold, an Electric Daisy veteran, said he looked forward to seeing the flamboyant costumes - realistic animal heads, neon jumpsuits, glow-in-the-dark body-paint designs and wild hairstyles - worn by festivalgoers. 'I love this enthusiasm people put into one weekend,' he said. 'That's what makes this crowd unique in the world.'
THE SCENE Electric Daisy is known for its elaborate art installations and décor, for which the New York organizers have devoted a budget of about $2 million this year. Its most popular recurring art piece is a towering illuminated daisy sculpture. This year, organizers expanded the festival's annual Discovery Project, a talent search for unknown D.J.s and producers, to include visual artists. The winner, Sabrina Dani, will unveil her entry here: three tall, single-lettered cubes of the festival's initials, E.D.C. The work plays on the popular 'kandi' bead exchange culture of modern raves, in which attendees perform ritual hand gestures and trade beaded bracelets and necklaces as symbols of good will. Carnival rides add to the festive atmosphere.
(A general admission pass for the weekend is $245; http://ift.tt/1ndOLQi.) THE GOVERNORS BALL
Randalls Island
Just a ferry ride from Manhattan, or a trek across the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the Governors Ball Music Festival on Randalls Island is the premier single-weekend festival in the five boroughs.
THE LINEUP Rock (Jack White, Vampire Weekend, the Strokes), hip-hop (Outkast, in its first local performance since the two reunited; J. Cole; Tyler, the Creator), pop (Wild Belle, AlunaGeorge, Tanlines) and electronic music (Skrillex, Disclosure, Axwell and Ingrosso) all receive due attention.
DON'T MISS Wild Belle, the brother-sister duo of Elliot and Natalie Bergman, who combine the reggae beats and rock-steady instrumentation of the Caribbean islands with jazzy, 1970s-era American pop. The siblings' first album, 'Isles,' was released by Columbia last year.
Wild Belle is spending most of the summer touring and completing its next album, which does not have a release date. The new material is 'generally darker, a little bit more spooky,' Ms. Bergman, 25, said. The two plan to play several tracks live for the first time in their Governors Ball set.
THE SCENE Last year, the Governors Ball was marred by torrential rain on its first day, but organizers recovered swiftly, rescheduling that evening's headliners, Kings of Leon, to late afternoon the next day. Organizers installed drainage systems on Randalls Island and are hoping for better weather this time around. Nonmusical activities include bocce and a life-size Connect Four game, along with an array of food trucks including the local favorites Crif Dogs, Hill Country BBQ, Momofuku Milk Bar, Porchetta and Luke's Lobster.
The festival's ferry system departs from Lower Manhattan and is hit or miss. A better option is a shuttle service from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. City buses from Harlem are also a quick option. Buying a kayak from the Target directly across the East River is inadvisable but not yet proven inefficient.
(Three-day general admission is $230; governorsballmusicfestival.com.) FIREFLY MUSIC FESTIVAL
Dover, Del.
This four-day festival is held at the 154-acre Woodlands, on the grounds of the Dover International Speedway. Savvy talent booking and increased leisure activities have raised the festival's profile significantly in recent years.
THE LINEUP The mostly mainstream rock, pop and folk offerings take up seven stages and include Outkast, Foo Fighters, Jack Johnson, Imagine Dragons, Beck, Tune-Yards, Band of Horses, Weezer, Sleigh Bells and Arctic Monkeys. A new electronic music presence sneaks in, courtesy of Pretty Lights and A-Trak.
DON'T MISS Tune-Yards, the mercurial art-pop project of the singer-songwriter Merrill Garbus. Begun in the mid-2000s as a lo-fi solo project of ukulele strums, live electronic looping and feral yelps, Tune-Yards has bloomed into a thoughtful, more richly orchestrated blend of African-derived polyrhythms, playful refrains and unpredictable song structures. Ms. Garbus, 35, and her main songwriting partner, the multi-instrumentalist and singer Nate Brenner, 31, wrote 'Nikki Nack' (4AD) the third studio album of Tune-Yards, which was released this month. New backup singers have joined them in recent performances.
'In her latest songs, she can unfold longer melodies and backup voices can talk back to her and sing words along with her,' Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times, reviewing a recent performance. 'The music can jump freely from section to contrasting section, giving songs even more ways to knock down typical structures or take wild tangents.'
THE SCENE Firefly features several clever solutions to typical festival conflicts. For concertgoers who wish to keep raging into the early morning, the official campsites host headphone disco parties in which participants can dance to synchronized music on their individual listening devices as their neighbors sleep. Campers who wish to eschew the usual high-calorie festival grub can eat healthfully by buying produce at a farmers' market.
Nonmusical hubs on the grounds include an air-conditioned tent where you can play vintage arcade games free and a large shaded area with hammocks strung between the trees, a popular meeting and midday nap spot. Dogfish Head Brewery of nearby Milton, Del., runs a pop-up sports bar with brews on tap; as this year's festival coincides with the World Cup, the pub will broadcast matches. A coffeehouse serves up caffeine and acoustic sets from festival performers and is a good nighttime vantage point for watching actual fireflies.
(Four-day passes are sold out; a Thursday day pass is $49; Friday, Saturday and Sunday day passes are $109; fireflyfestival.com.) THE HUDSON PROJECT
Saugerties, N.Y.
The Catskills are poised to get louder this summer with the inaugural Hudson Project, a four-stage music festival at Winston Farm in Saugerties.
THE LINEUP Casts a fairly wide net, from hip-hop (Kendrick Lamar, Atmosphere) to electronic (Moby, Flying Lotus, Bassnectar) and rock (the Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse).
DON'T MISS Flying Lotus, the experimental electronic producer and rapper from Los Angeles. An inventive mixer with no shortage of futuristic, soulful beats, this musician (whose real name is Steven Ellison) is the great-nephew of the jazz pianist-harpist-bandleader Alice Coltrane and the cousin of the jazz saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, and he often folds knotty post-bop structures into his ambient tracks. He is the founder of the Brainfeeder record label and collaborated with Erykah Badu and the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke on his last album, 'Until the Quiet Comes,' released in 2012.
Mr. Ellison, 30, expects to introduce new songs from his next album at the festival. He declined to provide a title but plans to release the album in the fall. 'I want to see how it affects people,' he said with a laugh. 'Some of it will be pretty out there. I feel like this one is definitely my most complex work yet, but it still feels very musical.'
THE SCENE Organizers say that shuttles will leave daily for the nearby towns Woodstock and Saugerties; food stations will offer locally made liquor and wine as well as food options from restaurants in the area. The festival will also stage morning yoga sessions and audiovisual and lighting workshops.
The Hudson Project leads the trend in festival 'glamping,' glamorous camping for music devotees who'd rather not partake in bohemian sleeping arrangements. These setups feature preassembled individual tents the size of hotel rooms with real beds and bed frames, night stands, power outlets and Keurig coffee makers. Organizers expect the tents to have wireless Internet service. Glamping quarters start at around $1,700 for two people and include festival admission.
(Three-day general admission pass is $199; hudsonmusicproject.com.) ELECTRIC ZOO
Randalls Island
This annual dance music event ended on a dark note last year; two young concertgoers died from overdoses of the street drug molly. As a result, the final day of the event was canceled.
THE LINEUP The sixth installment of Electric Zoo features brand-name, raucous D.J.s as headliners (Kaskade, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta), with many less hyperactive and more genre-bending acts bolstering them (Knife Party, Cosmic Gate).
DON'T MISS Laidback Luke, a prolific D.J. and producer who delivers hard house beats with merry Europop cores. Born in Manila and raised in the Netherlands, he collaborated last year with his fellow Zoo performers Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, a duo of D.J. brothers from Belgium, on the dance hit 'More.' He and his wife, Gina Turner, also perform as Nouveau Yorican, spinning a bouncy contemporary blend of Latin pop and underground house.
Laidback Luke first performed at this festival in 2010 and has returned almost every year since. 'I have a big love for New York and their roots in this dance music scene,' said Laidback Luke, 37, whose real name is Lucas van Scheppingen. 'My wife and her family are from New York, so it's become a family matter to represent.'
Mr. van Scheppingen has an unusual résumé offstage. A onetime graffiti artist, he won four gold medals for the Netherlands at the world kung fu championships in China last year.
THE SCENE After the deaths last year, the organizers Mike Bindra and Laura De Palma created an advisory board of D.J.s, concert promoters and drug treatment experts to create new security and antidrug measures. This year, drug-sniffing dogs will be at the festival entrances; vendors and employees will receive background checks; and more plainclothes officers will patrol.
Concertgoers will be required to watch an antidrug public service announcement online to validate their tickets, and a festival slogan is in the works to encourage sober revelry; organizers are currently considering 'Don't Miss a Moment.'
(Three-day general admission pass is $369; electriczoofestival.com.)
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