We’re going to start where we usually end. With our final thoughts on Hulaween. Just in case you don’t read to the end.
It was the lineup that brought us to Hulaween. But it was something else entirely that made us not want to leave.
This was our 12th or 13th music festival of the year. Honestly, we’ve lost count. We’ve seen some incredible performances, discovered artists we can’t wait to see again, and spent more nights standing in front of stages than we care to calculate. But somewhere along the way, we realized something was missing at many of the fests. Something we’d hoped to find at every festival we attended this year.
A community.
And at Hulaween, we found one of the best communities we’ve come across in 18 years of festing.
It was in the people who happily posed for our photos, the neighbor who left a souvenir koozie from their group on our chair before heading home, and the general feeling that seemed to hang in the air throughout the weekend. It was the sense that, for four days, we were all part of something bigger than the music happening onstage.
Plenty of festivals promote themselves with images of glowing fantasy worlds, spectacular lights, and promises of escape. Hulaween actually manages to deliver. And we’re not just talking about the lasers, the witches and trolls haunting Spirit Lake, or the thousands of people dressed in costumes. We’re talking about a place that genuinely feels like another realm, one where the outside world seems impossibly far away and everyone feels connected.
And that’s something no lineup, no matter how incredible, can promise.
But… now that we’ve gotten all that emotional stuff out of the way, let’s work through one more day of music and show you how we got there with one final photo dump to bring it all together.
Our Sunday began at the Amphitheatre with A Hundred Drums, who wasted absolutely no time making a strong argument for one of the best sets of the entire weekend.
Her sound was hard-hitting, but irresistibly danceable, delivering the kind of bass music that made standing still feel like an unreasonable request. And there was substance behind the beats, too. She wove social commentary into her set, including her new remix of SOFIA ISELLA’s “Everybody Supports Women,” proving that a dance floor can be a place to make a statement without sacrificing a damn bit of energy.
How much did we love it? We spent roughly two hours of the drive home listening to her mixes. After four days of practically nonstop music, that’s about as strong an endorsement as we can give.
From there, we made our way to Spirit Lake for True Loves, the Seattle-based instrumental soul and funk outfit we’d been looking forward to seeing since putting together our Hulaween preview. Their horn-driven grooves offered a change of pace from the heavy bass we’d just experienced at the Amphitheatre.
Then it was back to the Amphitheatre for Maddy O’Neal, an artist who’s long been one of our favorites. After four days of music, the Amphitheatre was still filled with people determined to dance away every last ounce of energy they had left. And judging by the crowd, there was plenty of it.
Our last trip through Spirit Lake came with a soundtrack courtesy of French musician Lewis OfMan, who was quite a trip himself. Blending French house, disco, and synth-pop, OfMan turned his corner of Spirit Lake into a miniature dance party. His infectious grooves provided the perfect backdrop as we took one last opportunity to explore the strange and wonderful world Hulaween had created. There was still so much we hadn’t seen, and with the weekend drawing to a close, we wanted to take in as much of it as we could.
Over at the Meadow, Geese frontman Cameron Winter appeared wearing a mask and promptly informed the crowd that he owned property nearby where he conducted controlled burns. Considering we’d been dealing with ash drifting over the festival grounds from nearby controlled burns, the joke landed particularly well. Winter, whose dry sense of humor we’ve come to appreciate, ditched the mask after the first song and got down to business.
What followed was a masterclass in the slow build. Geese began with an almost stoic delivery, gradually turning up the intensity until the whole thing erupted into a final rampage. It wasn’t a set that demanded your attention all at once. It earned it, little by little, before unleashing everything it had left.
Our final musical stop of Hulaween 2026 brought us back to DEF Off Limits for Salute. The Vienna-born producer’s blend of house and UK garage was just what we needed for one last dance party. And while we could have kept going, there was something satisfying about ending our weekend on the dance floor, still having a damn good time.
Of course, the night was far from over. There was still plenty happening, from the Incendia dome to renegade sets scattered throughout the campgrounds. We could have kept going well into the early morning hours, and a part of us certainly wanted to.
But we’ve developed a policy after all these years of festival-going: know when to call it a night. We’d rather end on a high note, while we’re still having the time of our lives, than push ourselves to the point where the fun starts feeling like work. And after four incredible days, we had nothing left to prove and plenty to be grateful for.
And with that, we crawled into bed for the last time at Hulaween 2026.
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