FVDED 2025: A Festival Balancing Legacy and Discovery

By Ryan Hayes

After a landmark rebirth in 2024, FVDED’s sophomore pure EDM venture was a success. It may never recapture the high that last year delivered—a perfect confluence of rising stars and true legends—but 2025 settled into what I can only hope is the event’s new normal moving forward: a finely curated balance of golden-age icons and genre-diverse artists you should be listening to.

For aging ravers with expendable income still flourishing in the scene, FVDED is where discoverability meets nostalgia. A trip well worth the post-festival exhaustion.

To move past the event’s shortcomings: sound in the Northwest Tent wasn’t loud enough, and you had to be in the exact right spot to avoid bleed from the other stages. This was a problem in 2024 too, and it’s largely the result of hosting a large-scale event in Holland Park—it’s just not big enough. Maybe the stages can be shuffled further, but the issue will likely persist.

Still, FVDED’s location is also one of its greatest strengths. Every stage outside the mainstage feels intimate. Experiencing acts like Disclosure, RL Grime, Rudimental, and Lane 8 at the Forest Stage and Northwest Tent felt like a rarified experience for artists of their stature.

Outside of sound issues, there were times when the mainstage lineup lacked flow—HoneyLuv into Juelz, for example—especially when stacked against Day 2 at the Forest Stage or the Northwest presented by Foundation, both of which were arranged to near perfection.

Highlights:

Any festival you can walk away from with new heavy rotation additions to your playlist is a huge win. Shoutout to D.O.D, Goddard, Rudimental, and Levity for all entering the pantheon of Spotify mainstays.

D.O.D was the first must-see artist of this year’s FVDED. Day 1, 5:30 p.m., and the Northwest Tent was already wildly overflowing. His unreleased remix of Sweet Nothing—which Harris has been rinsing in Ibiza—was pitch-perfect for a hot summer afternoon. Even with a tight hour slot, the set built and progressed, culminating in twenty minutes of pure house euphoria.

Zingara has mastered chill-meditative bass. Torrents of low-end BPM washed over a transfixed audience, and I expect her to rise up festival ranks in coming years.

RL Grime brought mainstage headliner energy to the Northwest Tent and had the crowd feral from the first drop. As one of trap’s early pioneers, his prowess hasn’t faded—resurrected, the golden age of EDM was alive and well during his set.

Rudimental may have been up against Tiësto, but the Forest Stage was where the real ones were. Memories of Chase & Status’ 2024 set came rushing back: the camaraderie, the energy, the fandom. By the time Alibi hit, it was a fever pitch. You could feel the broader tides of EDM in North America shifting in real time. We may be extremely late to the party, but DnB is gaining real traction.

While Day One certainly had its high points, Day Two dwarfed FVDED’s initial offering. Goddard into Levity at the Forest Stage was S-tier programming. Combined, they brought headliner energy early in the day. Goddard delivered elegance and musicality elevating drum & bass in a manner rarely achieved. Levity, though relatively new, are clearly following in the footsteps of artists like GRiZ and Zeds Dead—and I have full faith their following will explode in the years to come.

Loud Luxury are always big, dumb, accessible fun—and this year, they may have outdone Tiësto at his own game.

Subtronics, the reigning king of dubstep, obliterated the mainstage—and my expectations. It was absurd, abrasive, riddled with in-jokes for his diehard fandom, and a pure celebration of the current state of dubstep. Maybe the most important ingredient to the set’s success? The crowd. Easily the biggest I’ve seen for this kind of show—and everyone around me was completely locked into what he was throwing down. The fact that all his merch sold out the day before said it all: people were all-in.

All of this without mentioning the most egregious set conflict of all time: Subtronics vs Disclosure. Turns out, if you’re committed to sprinting between stages, you can experience cavity-shaking bass and groovy-buttery house simultaneously. My legs still hurt. Worth it.

The last time I saw Zedd was at FVDED 2016. I left underwhelmed—his set felt basic and predictable, especially after Jack Ü the day before. Fast-forward nine years, and those same qualities are recast in a new light. Zedd knows exactly who he is: a legacy act. He came loaded with original hits, timeless mashups, and crowd-favorite remixes. The elder raver in me just wanted an hour to live in 2014— and jump around singing like nothing else mattered.  

Final Thoughts

Ten years after its inaugural outing, FVDED has solidified itself as a tentpole event within the BC scene. Mainstream while remaining diverse. Accessible while encouraging discovery. Nostalgic while still pushing underground genres.

For music fans, these events matter. They connect us. A spiritual refresh button that somehow drains your body but fills your soul. As a millennial attendee who’s been there since the beginning, each year gets harder—but, somehow, that makes each iteration more meaningful.

FVDED forever.

FVDED 2025: The Old Guard Reigns, But Subtronics Is Everything a Headliner Should Be

Source: UMF TV

By Ryan Hayes

Beyond Nostalgia: What’s Next

Aside from a very select handful of dance music festivals globally, most lineups still play it safe. Headliners continue to be pulled from EDM’s last “golden age”—a time when the genre’s dominance on the worldwide Top 40 catapulted a handful of DJs to mainstream icon status. That kind of reach will likely never be matched, and those same dozen-or-so acts still sit atop most festival posters around the world.

That’s not to say those artists are without merit—their names hold sway, their hits cut through generational barriers, and their sets have been meticulously honed over decades. They are dance music’s first true legacy vanguard.

But the scene has shifted. Today, it’s increasingly driven by branded niche artist events—where the current generation, no less talented than their predecessors, cultivate fanbases and headline events at unique venues curating genuine experiences. For diehard fans, these shows are priceless. Despite have legions of dedicated fans willing to travel to experience their shows the top of a mainstream festival lineup continues to elude many of these current heavyweights.

Festivals are massive financial burdens on the companies that throw them. Huge gambles banking on corner a market, and that makes risk difficult…but at what point in time does the old guard lose its cache? Or is the only way to continue traditional festivals to have the battle-worn star’s name in lights?

Regardless, shouldn’t the real excitement come from seeing someone fresh—someone pushing boundaries and innovating in real time?

Subtronics is one of those artists.

While he isn’t technically headlining FVDED, I expect—hope—that the audience he draws is as large and ravenous as any top-billed act all weekend.

His sound has evolved, but his signature remains: bass-heavy, tempo-shifting, sonically unique, emotionally genuine—and never taking itself too seriously. The hunger and drive to grow his singular brand is still front and center. And that deserves to be praised.

Bass, Chaos & Control: Subtronics Is Built for the Big Stage

Earlier this year, Subtronics took on the Ultra mainstage, a daunting tightrope walk balanced between appeasing 50,000 festivalgoers and staying true to a sound not traditional globally showcased.

Source: UMF TV

He triumphed, unleashing an hour of absolute madness. The key was accessibility, blending mainstream dance anthems like “Levels,” “Satisfaction,” and “Show Me Love” with originals like “Scream Saver,” “Amnesia,” and “Ecstasy of the Soul” (with Zeds Dead). He even dropped hard-hitting bass-infused mashups with iconic pop hits—“Livin’ on a Prayer,” “Set Fire to the Rain,” and “Where Have You Been.”

It was a set filled with twists and turns, countless remixes and VIPs, and a flood of unreleased IDs. With a track list spanning 46 tracks in 60 minutes—more than 95 if you count the mashups—it was adrenaline-fueled escapism at its best. Musical opium for the masses. And the best showing on bass/dub since Skrillex headlined Ultra in 2015.

Don’t get me wrong—his FVDED set will be aggressive. But his energy is contagious, his stage presence magnetic, and he always pulls back just before things tip into overload. It will be a rollercoaster.

Show up, strap in, and enjoy the ride. No matter what, it’ll be a memory. Subtronics is meant to be experienced in a sea of 10,000+ fans, all-in and going off. Subtronics is what moves the needle—and he’s reason enough to be there, front and center, for another unforgettable year at FVDED.