DESERT HEARTS FESTIVAL 2024
What’s up Desert Hearts Family!
Get ready to go camping July 4-8, just outside Flagstaff, AZ, as we embark on a journey to channel the original spirit of Desert Hearts Fest! While we’ll never forget our SoCal origins, we’ve found a perfect new home for our community in Arizona, nestled in the mountains and trees (a perfect place to let our freak flags fly!). Our venue, Playa Ponderosa, is a beautiful and isolated private property owned by friends who are very familiar with the DH vibe.
The theme of this fest is reconnecting with our cultural roots and embracing the essence of what made Desert Hearts so special during our time at the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation from 2014 to 2019.
This means an intimate and free environment with One Stage, One Vibe playing the full spectrum of House & Techno music nonstop and no neighbors telling us to turn it down. This means the return of BYOE (Bring Your Own Everything) and theme camps like Pile Palace being able to serve up delicious drinks and vibes for the dance floor. This means capped ticket sales to ensure the vibe stays intimate. This means the freedom to roam to and from your campsite without gate or security interference. And really, this means everything we used to do on The Rez we’ll be able to do at Playa Ponderosa!
To help ensure a smooth first run, we’re excited to be teaming up with our twin flame party community, The Walter Fam. You may know them from their venues in Phoenix, Walter Where?House and Walter Studios, or their incredible Camp Walter at Burning Man, host to a fleet of insane art cars. With this crew of dreamers working with us on production, we will build an arena of art cars, theme camps, live painters, and installations that surrounds the entire dance floor, while the OG Desert Hearts Stage will let freedom ring from our premium stacks of sound and iconic disco ball heart.
Our mission is to spread as much love and positive energy as humanly possible. We are so grateful for the last 12 years and the community we’ve built together - join us as we write the next chapter of Desert Hearts Festival at Playa Ponderosa!
House, Techno, & Love…
We Are All Desert Hearts
Love Always,
Your Desert Hearts Crew
LOCATION: PLAYA PONDEROSA, AZ
We're excited to have you join us for Desert Hearts Festival at Playa Ponderosa, a breathtaking 75-acre private property in the Munds Park area of Coconino National Forest, just south of Flagstaff, AZ.
THE BACKSTORY
Since losing our festival venue during the pandemic, our Desert Hearts community has long beckoned for DH to return to the original renegade atmosphere felt at Los Coyotes Indian Reservation. We searched all throughout California to find something suitable for the classic DH vibe but to no avail. It wasn’t until our friends at Walter took us to Playa Ponderosa near Flagstaff, AZ, that we saw a venue that would allow us to do what we did on The Res. By moving to Playa Ponderosa, our festival will be able to regain its around-the-clock music programming, move back to its foundational ‘One-Stage, One-Vibe’ format, and showcase its unique festival layout: an interconnected arena of theme camps, live painters, installations, and art cars that borders the entire dance floor - with the added ambiance of the majestic Ponderosa Pines and spectacular views of Flagstaff’s San Francisco Peaks.
APPROXIMATE DRIVE TIMES
Flagstaff, AZ - 30 minutes
Phoenix, AZ - 2.5 hours
Las Vegas, NV - 4 hours
Albuquerque - 5 hours
San Diego - 7.5 hours
Los Angeles - 7.5 hours
Salt Lake City - 8.5 hours
Denver - 11 hours
San Francisco - 12 hours
DESERT HEARTS x WALTER
Desert Hearts and Walter Productions have been fostering a relationship and throwing parties together for over a decade. Walter is known for its armada of art cars, most famously ‘Walter’, the world’s largest VW Bus forged from a retired fire truck which made its Burning Man debut in 2009. The Walter team now sits at the center of a thriving Phoenix art scene. The creative venture has expanded to multiple venues, including Walter Where?House, Walter Studios, and Walter Station Brewery, brought its art cars to Bonnaroo, EDC, and Life is Beautiful, as well as nurtured its nonprofit organization, Walter Hive, that promotes healing and creativity through art and fabrication programs.
“Everyone at Walter Productions is excited to bring the Desert Hearts Festival to Arizona. We have collaborated with Desert Hearts for more than ten years, and together, we’ve grown an amazing extended family. Walter has been part of the festival scene for many years, and we can safely say that there is no better spot than Playa Ponderosa.” - Kirk Strawn of Walter Productions.
THE DH COMMUNITY
Desert Hearts Code Of Community
We foster free, creative self-expression and self-discovery
We encourage free thinking and individuality
We focus on our community first
We look out for one another and lift each other up in a positive way
We hold one another accountable with both our personal integrity and the integrity of our collective community
We strive to give back to our local communities
We encourage participation and self-reliance
We respect the natural environment
We Believe in the balance of both the sacred and the temporal
We inspire one another to proliferate these values in the world
You Bring the Vibes
Please bring any creative energy you can to the gathering! Do you have some cool deco for your camp? Do you have some tripped-out clothes or costumes? Do you have any paintings or art sculptures? Do you like to dance like no one is looking? Well, this is the place to do it! Let your creative genius flourish because that’s what makes our community so beautiful and unique.
Desert Hearts is built by our community. It’s our love, creative expression, and our respect for ourselves and one another that makes this festival so unique. Remember that you’re stepping into a beautiful place that we can create in the world at large. Be an example to others - and to yourself - of what’s possible when we lead with love.