Sunset Music Festival: Tampa, Florida 2021

Jordyn Baby Woods

February 20th, 2025

Sunset Music Festival: Tampa 2021

Sunset Music Festival takes place in sunny Tampa, Florida, wherein 2021, many loyal EDM fans showed up to see their favorite house, bass, trance and techno artists. This was Sunset's first festival back from their hiatus in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I was lucky enough to be one of those fans, not new to EDM as I had been a fan of hard style and dance music since the third grade, but definitely new to the intersecting "raver" scene which I cannot even begin to describe and will not try to for the sake of you just have to be there.

What I can describe are three distinct memories from the entire festival, and I can't remember a lot because it was my first EDM festival and there were so many creative outfits and totems and just a lot going on... Different from the rock concerts and Warped Tour that I was used to, and we'll talk about the Warped Tour another time, but at Sunset the culture was different and at the top of the list, it was hot.

The first day, I managed not to lose my wig and made it to the main stage at sunset; the place to be at that time for a euphoric feel good show that made the formerly unfamiliar crowd feel like old friends.

Day two I distinctly remember the set of an artist called Drezo, whose unique house drew me in from the moment I heard it. I was walking through the grass in my strappy half of a shirt and thrifted sequin rave shorts when I noticed the pixie-like people leaving his set as I got closer to the crowd. 

There was a drive to Drezo's sound, like an engine revving in time with a similarly driving bass that could shake your bones, and I felt like a moth drawn to a lamp with this one. One of the hottest sets of the festival in my opinion not just because it was in the middle of the day, but because of the crowd alone; an absolutely wild gorgeous crowd in which I admittedly almost lost my top, dirty from the dust, sweaty from the day, crazy for the sound.

This was not my only mishap on day two, as I admittedly pissed myself towards the end of the night trying to make it to the bathroom. "It's all in your head!" Said the woman speed walking next to me. She was rooting for me but I wound up in the grass with an emergency. Luckily for me I was basically wearing a swimsuit and drank water all day, so it wasn't that bad and I didn't smell.

Neither of us said a word and nobody else even noticed, which made me feel like an elite queen who could pull off anything. I made sure to sit on my shawl in the car so as not to get the seat wet and quietly hopped in the shower first thing when I got home covered in dust, sweated off makeup, glitter and piss; my little twenty-one year old self was happily exhausted like a kid home from a water park.

In addition to the amazing first festival back, Tampa was beautiful. I had time to go out to eat, hit the beach, find a garden with woodpeckers, and catch that sunrise in the humid Florida air which is humid even in the morning, which I loved. This is just a window into the experience that I can provide, but you'll have to go for yourself to fully understand.