HARD Summer Transforms Into 2-Day Camping Festival, Headlined by Ice Cube & Major Lazer

The organizers behind HARD Summer announced a number of changes to their premier annual EDM festival, including a new location at the Auto Club Speedway in Southern California and options for camping for the first time.

The 2016 edition of the electronic-heavy festival happens July 30-21 with a lineup featuring rapper Ice Cube and dancehall group Major Lazer as headliners, both of whom are fresh off of monumental Coachella appearances. Noteworthy dance acts playing Day One of HARD this year include bass masters Flosstradamus, electronic titan Porter Robinson, and Dirtybird Records boss Claude VonStroke, plus hip-hop personality DJ Khaled. Day two of the festival showcases talents like quirky electronic producer Dillon Francis and future R&B duo AlunaGeorge.

Tickets for the age 18+ event, which this year will be 10th year the HARD music festivals, go on sale this Friday. See below for the complete list of performers.

HARD Summer was previously held at the Pomona Fairplex and functioned as a daily event with no overnight ticket packages. Before the Fairplex, the event used to take place at Los Angeles’ Historic State Park, but was forced to vacate partly due to renovation. The city of Los Angeles has had a recently rocky relationship with dance music, especially after two people died last year at HARD Summer. In terms of the change in venue, it appears that HARD is taking tips from Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), which moved from Los Angeles to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2011.

Back in 2012, Event promoter Live Nation purchased HARD in 2012. Other events put on by HARD include the Holy Ship! electronic music cruise and Day of the Dead following Halloween.

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Written by Carlos Olin Montalvo

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