I Went To An EDM Festival Fully Sober—Here’s Why You Should Too

From the earlier days of music festivals like Woodstock to more modern interpretations like Coachella or Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), one stereotype remains unchanged: If you’re at a festival, you’re supposed to get lit. 

Sure, there are straightedge folk in every scene, but festival culture curated a risky standard for concertgoers to be wasted on their inebriant of choice. Illicit drugs are one portion of the poisonous pie, with research suggesting that over half of live music attendees admit to using alcohol or drugs. That’s a huge health concern, but let’s not overlook the over 93% who reach for a drink. 

Alcohol is a social lubricant that is easily and frequently abused. Your typical concert runs for a few hours, but music festivals can run for a few days, leading to drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, dehydration, and more. 

But who said that has to be the rule? Music festivals can be exhilarating and a unique way to relish in good vibes, year round. So can a gal go enjoy a festival and not over-imbibe? 

Hiyo, one of the leading non-alcoholic beverage brands, thinks so. Now that they have become the official NA brand partner for Insomniac, they invited me to attend Hard Summer to see how they’re making sobriety sexy, even for the festival crowd.

Read on for my festival experience fully sober and an exclusive interview with Hiyo’s co-founder Evan Quinn about the blossoming sober-curious industry.

Drink, Rave, Sleep, Repeat?

On August 3 and 4, downtown Los Angeles was overrun by electronic music fans ready to party for hours and hours in the hot, Southern California sun at Hard Summer. Insomniac Events (which also orchestrates major festivals like EDC and smaller concerts) took over the SoFi complex – but not the SoFi stadium itself – erecting massive stages with vibrant lights and resonant speakers. 

Since the festival was essentially placed on top of parking lots, there was ample room for EDM lovers to do what they do and dance their hearts out to their favorite DJs. This year’s lineup was stacked. Industry leaders like Disclosure, Dillon Francis, Sofi Tukker, and Major Lazer drew big crowds, but the two-day festival was jam-packed with other EDM staples and newcomers alike.

Festivals like Hard Summer draw scrutiny, however, for their noise pollution and rowdy crowds. In fact, Inglewood’s mayor released a statement shortly after Hard Summer wrapped to say how “perplexed” his office was by the “sound propagation experienced in the South Bay.” To rectify the noise complaints, he said that no stages in that area would be permitted for future events.

Sound and vibration from the artists were one thing. I love concerts of all kinds for the sheer experience of feeling the music in the moment rather than just listening to it through headphones or the car radio, and trust me, my Apple Watch was pinging me time and time again to warn that my environmental noise exposure was through the roof. 

But, I’ll be candid with you. I was a bit intimidated about going to a music festival due to their reputation.

When I was in my junior year of high school, a very close friend of mine was invited to her first-ever music festival, Nocturnal Wonderland. She went camping for three days at the festival and returned a very changed young woman. Not to be dramatic, but from that moment on, I felt I had lost the friend I once knew.

She tried hard drugs for the first time there, she began drinking more shortly after, and her whole aura morphed from an intelligent artist to a hedonistic caricature of an EDM festivalgoer. Now, I won’t allege that Nocturnal was what caused her to get kicked out of our high school later that year. But let’s just say that she went down a dark path, and I can’t pretend like her festival experience didn’t play at least a small role in that transformation.

So, you can understand why I’m reasonably skeptical of EDM crowds. It’s nothing against the music – I blast Dillon Francis and the likes in my ears at the gym from time to time – but rave culture raises red flags for me. 

Especially as a young woman hoping to bear healthy children someday, I feel second-hand concern for those who have total binge fests of drugs and alcoholic drinks at festivals while barely dressed, making choices they’ll potentially regret down the line. I’m no pilgrim, but I’m also by no means a party girl. 

Here’s the thing, though. Festival settings, while veering on degenerate at times and giving you a hard dose of sensory overload, aren’t the bogeyman that they may appear to be. 

Yes, I was surrounded by people zonked out of their minds, wearing just enough colorful straps and slips of fabric not to be fully nude, but I also had my own little fun date with my man packed with high-energy performances and seemingly endless people-watching. 

And Hiyo House was like an oasis in a desert.

Cheers to a Life Never Wasted

As I’ve explored the world of sober curiosity and gone on my own self-imposed drinking breaks, I’ve covered Hiyo, a social tonic brand that sets itself apart from other non-alcoholic options with its blend of adaptogens and nootropics that give their signature “float” feeling. Their brand has blossomed amid a growing non-alcoholic market and recently partnered with Insomniac Events to offer festival and concertgoers alcohol alternatives.

At Hard Summer, I met up with one of Hiyo’s three founders, Evan Quinn, and sampled Hiyo House’s unique mocktail offerings.

My two faves? Their Watermelon Lime flavor (Quinn’s favorite) made for a delicious take on a marg. If you want to take a stab at your own “Never Wasted N.A.-Garita,” the mocktail included Watermelon Lime Hiyo, lime juice, simple syrup, soda water, and, of course, Tajin on the cup rim.

They also mixed up their Strawberry Guava into a coconutty mocktail that was giving total vacation vibes. The “Strawberry Co-Nada,” as they called it, was made up of Strawberry Guava Hiyo, pineapple juice, coconut milk, and simple syrup.

Special shoutout, however, to the “Peach On The Beach” mocktail they mixed with Peach Mango Hiyo, cranberry juice, and orange juice that featured a cheeky lil Swedish Fish as garnish.

When I asked Quinn what motivated him and his two co-founders to partner with Insomniac, he explained that the Hiyo team has always been fans of EDM, and since they’re trying to change drinking culture, digging into the music space felt extremely important to him.

“Alcohol can sometimes dull the moment, dull your favorite artists,” Quinn continued. “On the extreme end, you don't remember, or on the lighter end, you have a bad recollection.”

But functional drinks like Hiyo, he explained, “allow you to be prepared and present in the moment.” 

This resonated a lot with me because, while I’ve got a reasonably strong alcohol tolerance for a gal, I know if I exceed my two-drink rule, I may experience blips in memory. It’s one thing if you’re sipping and yapping with friends or if you’re just relaxing with beers and streaming something low-key, but the thought of spending hundreds of dollars to attend a music festival and walk away with no memory of the experience frankly saddens me. To me, that feels like a waste.

Hiyo has a unique challenge, however, especially within the festival market to not only educate consumers what a non-alcoholic bevvie can be (spoiler alert: it’s so much more than your average O’Douls) but also to teach people why they might need it.

“Alcohol is so ingrained in society,” Quinn said. “It’s on us to educate about the ingredients, educate about why people should rebalance themselves and try to limit drinking in social occasions, which has been notoriously unhealthy for so long.”

Quinn’s personal story about drinking also played a big role in the founding of Hiyo. In college, he said, he used to brag about getting drunk or blacking out, but he had a sobering moment of sorts when a family member was hospitalized for alcohol-related issues. Now spreading the word about an attractive alternative, Quinn said he has noticed how culture has shifted. People seem prouder to talk about how they’re not drinking. 

Despite being a non-alcoholic brand, Quinn said he’s not trying to demonize alcohol. Far from it.

“I drink 12 times in the year and so what that allows me to do is I pick once per month where I decide what my intentions are and when I will drink, so that I know I can block out everything else,” Quinn explained. 

According to Quinn, keeping a system like this helps erase ambiguity about his limits and not feel pressured into drinking. 

“I think it can be scary if you're like, I either need to not drink at all, or I'm only going to be drinking. There's a massive gray area in the middle,” Quinn said.

Changing Culture, One Rave at a Time

But how do EDM festival regulars feel about drinks like Hiyo making a more assertive presence? Tori Nishino, a content creator with 1.6 million followers on TikTok and 455,000 followers on Instagram, attended Hard Summer and told me that she has “really been loving going to festivals sober as of late.”

Nishino is a skilled shuffle dancer, a style commonly seen at EDM festivals, raves, and concerts. She told me that when she was 18, the music, culture, and the “PLUR” (a.k.a. “Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect”) vibes at festivals originally made her fall in love with the experience. 

Fourteen or so years later, and free from a prescription pill addiction, Nishino still loves the EDM scene and even prefers it sober. To her, the music, environment, and visuals are all more than enough to keep her stimulated and entertained.

“It’s interesting being in that crowd when most people are seemingly on something, but honestly it doesn’t feel like I have to ‘navigate’ it or I need to drink or do drugs to enjoy it,” she said.

Nishino explained that she still drinks alcohol now and then but takes long breaks. She told me that she loves Hiyo and the “euphoric, energetic feeling” it gives her, noting its taste, refreshing qualities, and how it helps her not even crave alcohol.

“I never really liked drinking alcohol [at festivals] to begin with because, to me, the music was my drug, and dance was something I always loved,” she said. “Alcohol made me more tired and winded and clumsy when dancing.”

And Nishino apparently isn’t the only one. I saw Hiyos all over the Hard Summer grounds and when I posted a picture from Hiyo House on my Instagram story, I actually had some friends DM me saying they had seen the brand in stores and online and wanted to try it. The non-alcoholic beverage space is gaining solid ground.

Many people, like myself, aren’t interested in completely giving up alcohol, but instead want to optimize their lives for better health and wellness. The West’s toxic drinking culture certainly doesn’t offer that.

My generation is concerned with mindfulness, understanding how our bodies work, and clean living. This doesn’t mean we’re so risk-averse that we don’t let loose and have fun now and then, but we’re certainly steering clear of the binge-drinking culture previous generations allowed to rule – and sometimes ruin – their youth.

So, would I attend more concerts without sipping a single ounce of alcohol? Absolutely. Hiyo showed me the power of their mocktail and the overall movement – and it’s one of joy in-the-moment and optimism for what’s to come. While I’m no convert to the rave life nor do I see myself pining to attend tons of festivals (unless the lineup is fire, of course), I do see so much value in the newfound optionality for regular festivalgoers.

Non-alcoholic drink consumption – and no, that doesn’t include sparkling waters or sodas – is projected to increase a whole third by 2026. Beyond the physical and mental health benefits of reducing alcohol consumption, I’ve found it a fun test of strength, experiencing events where I’d typically be drinking sans spirits. 

Support our cause and help women reclaim their femininity by subscribing today.