Electric Forest set to sizzle with GRiZ, Kaskade, more

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Local Spins’ Looking for the Perfect Beat columnist Todd Ernst once again outlines his must-see picks for the Rothbury festival along with tips on how to make Electric Forest a top-shelf experience.

Lighting Up Forest: A cavalcade of stars will do so this week in Rothbury. (Photo/Eric Stoike)

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Once again, West Michigan’s preeminent woodlands are about to glow.

Electric Forest makes its return to the sprawling Double JJ Resort in Rothbury from Thursday (June 25) through Sunday (June 28) — the 14th edition of a festival that has become a fixture of the early-summer calendar, and one of the most distinctive gatherings anywhere in the world.

Unlike 2025, this year’s Forest is completely sold out, so if you’re holding a wristband, consider yourself among the lucky tens of thousands. The most recent editions have drawn an estimated 50,000 people to the forest, and 2026 looks to match that energy. (Resale ticket options are available here.)

Part of what makes Electric Forest such a singular experience is its sheer size and ambition. The grounds stretch across more than 2,000 acres (approximately 45 x 34 football fields for context), and the festival layers music across multiple stages with an immersive world of art installations, hidden corners and after-dark surprises woven through the trees of the legendary Sherwood Forest.

It’s the kind of place where the schedule is only half the story: The rest is what you stumble into between sets.

That ambition is also what makes the Forest one of the more demanding festivals to navigate. In terms of scope and the planning it rewards, few multi-day events in North America ask as much of an attendee — or give back as much to those who come prepared. Think of it less as a concert you attend and more as a temporary city you learn to live in for four days.

The Headliner Class and A Few Artists on the Rise

The headliners hardly need the help drawing a crowd — and there’s a deep bench this time around, with Illenium, Excision, Kaskade, Chris Lake and a pair of sets by Michigan’s own GRiZ (one of them a Chasing The Golden Hour performance) anchoring the top of the bill, to name only a handful.

Joyful and Immersive: The crowd in 2025. (Photo/Eric Stoike)

And then there’s the eclectic, perennially beloved jam outfit The String Cheese Incident — the festival’s longtime hosts — back for multiple “incidents” across the weekend, including a special Saturday-night “Shebongle Shebang” alongside psychedelic British mainstay Shpongle.

In addition to big names, the festival gives a little nod to some Michigan artists on the intimate Grand Artique stage amid Sherwood Forest: Grand Rapids keyboardist-singer Caitlin Cusack and her band perform at 4:30 p.m. Saturday with the Detroit Party Marching Band firing up at 5 p.m. Sunday, after a 6:15 p.m. Saturday appearance on the Center Stage. (Scroll down for the full Grand Artique schedule.)

As regular readers know, Looking for the Perfect Beat tends to train its eye on understated fan favorites, artists who are on the rise and perhaps haven’t quite broken through, and off-the-radar discoveries that reward those willing to wander a little. In that spirit, what follows are a few of the acts I’m most looking forward to catching this year, and where you’ll find me posted up when they take the stage.

Bob Moses (Courtesy Photo)

Bob Moses (Saturday – 10:45 p.m., Grand Artique; Sunday – 11:30 p.m., Tripolee) – While the Vancouver-bred, Brooklyn-forged duo of Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance are hardly still “on the rise,” they demonstrate a depth I had previously not experienced. They have spent a decade perfecting a sound that lives in the seam between indie rock and after-hours house: smoky vocals, guitar flourishes and moody analog synths stitched into sleek, emotional grooves. Grammy winners with a new album, BLINK, freshly out, they’re bringing a club-centric DJ set to the Forest this year — trading their live-band setup for a deeper, forest-inspired groove.
https://www.instagram.com/bobmosesmusic/
https://www.youtube.com/@bobmosesmusic

Claude VonStroke (Courtesy Photo)

Claude VonStroke (Saturday – 2:30 a.m., Tripolee) – Born Barclay Crenshaw and raised on Detroit’s restless energy, VonStroke turned a love of low-slung, funk-soaked house into one of dance music’s most distinctive signatures. As the founder of Dirtybird, he built a label, along with a BBQ-soundscape subculture — around bass lines that wobble, grin, and refuse to sit still. Tracks like “Who’s Afraid of Detroit?” wear his roots on their sleeve, and that’s exactly why his returns to Electric Forest feel like a homecoming: a Michigan kid who took his sound to the West Coast, the world, and yet always finds his way back to headline the forest.
https://www.instagram.com/vonstroke/
https://www.youtube.com/@claudevonstroke

Westend (Courtesy Photo)

Westend (Thursday – 11:45 p.m., Tripolee; Friday – 11 p.m., Honeycomb) – New York native Tyler Morris is a fixture near the top of Beatport’s tech house rankings, but he’s earned the “discovery” tag here by being one of the genre’s most ambitious community builders — running the Kick & Bass producer network and his own Trace Amounts label. Westend was my breakout discovery of 2024, with his Honeycomb stage appearance emerging as one of the season’s most unexpectedly standout sets. On stage, his sound splits the difference between big-room muscle and hypnotic, bottom-heavy groove, with crossover hits like “Jumpin’” (with CID), “Push To Start” (with Noizu), and his newest smash “The Ceiling.” 2026 will see a doubleheader from Westend, and in my opinion it’s a draw which set will garner the most attention.
https://www.instagram.com/itsthewestend
https://www.youtube.com/@itsthewestend

Jackie Hollander (Courtesy Photo)

Jackie Hollander (Thursday – 8:45 p.m., Tripolee) – If you want a genuine Midwest-grind success story, the San Francisco-based melodic house and techno producer is it. Self-taught and refreshingly patient about her come-up, Hollander has stacked releases on respected imprints like Nervous Records, Gorgon City’s REALM and There Is A Light, plus an Insomniac debut, while keeping ties to LP Giobbi’s Femme House collective. If there was one artist’s spirit that captivated me on this past Groove Cruise in January 2026, Ms. Hollander’s was the one. Expect euphoric melodies while riding on the edge of a driving, percussive gallop.
https://www.instagram.com/jackiehollander
https://www.youtube.com/@JackieHollander

Odd Mob (Courtesy Photo)

Odd Mob (Thursday – 1:45 p.m., Tripolee) – Brisbane’s Harry Hope turns up the voltage with bass-heavy, big-room house built for maximum dance floor mayhem, where his sets reliably tip from tech house into something rowdier and somehow weirder. He broke wide with the viral “Left to Right,” has logged collabs and remixes with the likes of OMNOM (aka HYPERBEAM) and landed on John Summit’s Experts Only, but it was his collaboration with Tiësto on the smash sing-along “Won’t Be Possible” that cemented his standing with festival goers.
https://www.instagram.com/odd_mob
https://www.youtube.com/@oddmob

Vandelux (Courtesy Photo)

Vandelux (Saturday – 9:15 p.m., The Observatory; 1:15 a.m., Honeycomb) – A bit of an outlier from my typical house positioned commentary, and that’s the appeal. Evan White — a multi-instrumentalist, producer and vocalist born in Vancouver and now based in San Francisco — makes live-electronic music marked by restraint, soulful processed vocals and live saxophone, as on his breakout “Matter of Time.” It’s retro nostalgia wired into post-modern production, and a nice change of pace when your ears need a breather from the heavier four-on-the-floor.
https://www.instagram.com/vandeluxmusic
https://www.youtube.com/@vandelux

Survival Tips for a Smooth Weekend

If this is your first trip into the Forest — or even if it isn’t — a little preparation goes a long way. A few things worth keeping in mind:

Download the app and build a plan. With so many stages running at once, the official Electric Forest app is the single best tool for tracking set times, map details and last-minute updates.

Sketch out a loose schedule before you arrive so you’re not making every decision on the fly.
Arrive early and get your bearings. Give yourself time on day one to walk the grounds, find the stages, scope out the food vendors and figure out how long it really takes to get from one end to the other. That orientation pays off all weekend.

Navigating the Forest: No matter what you wear. (Photo/Anna Sink)

Pick a meetup spot. Cell service on the property is famously unreliable, so don’t count on texting your way back to your group. Agree on a landmark and a time to regroup before you split up.

Watch the weather and dress for it. Late-June conditions in West Michigan can swing from warm and sunny to sudden showers. Pack layers, rain and sun protection and good footwear, and keep an eye on the forecast as the weekend unfolds. Hydrate.

Look out for one another. Keep an eye on your valuables in the bigger crowds, pace yourself and check in on the people you came with.

The overwhelming majority of the Forest crowd is warm and welcoming — and the on-site Michigan State Police presence tends to be friendly toward festivalgoers and present as amazing ambassadors.

Electric Forest has a way of rewarding the curious. Whether you’re chasing headliners or wandering toward a stage you’ve never heard of, the best moments are often the ones you didn’t plan. See you in the trees.