What half a million ravers can teach us about the future of food
Lessons from under the electric sky, EDC Las Vegas
A couple of weeks ago, at 5:30 AM in the Las Vegas desert, surrounded by thousands of exhausted, happy ravers and singing my favorite Above & Beyond song, “Thing Called Love,” next to some of my best friends, I was reminded once again of the power of the dance floor, and of something school never taught me about sustainability:
Culture doesn’t only change through information. It changes through feeling, through belonging, through the places where people feel most alive.
Sometimes, that place is Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in the hot Vegas desert at 5:30 AM, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of ravers.
Above and Beyond Sunrise Set, 5:30 AM, EDC Las Vegas Kinetic Field 2026
During their sets, Above & Beyond often display quotes across the screen.
One of my favorites is:
“With your heart and mind open, you’ll realize that we share much more than that which divides us.”
That line always sticks with me because it captures so much of the ethos of Plant Futures: connection, love, and community. Not guilt, not shame, not division.
This was my eighth EDC, and still, every year, the sunrise moment wakes something inside me. Makeup faded, legs barely working, the sky turning gold over the speedway. Everyone somehow both depleted and completely connected.
If you’ve been, you know.
But this year, I wasn’t just there to dance. My co-founder Brittany Sartor and I were there with Plant Futures, partnering with one of the world’s biggest festivals to interview artists about sustainability, plant-forward food, and what a more conscious festival future could look like.
Plant Futures Meetup at EDC Las Vegas 2026
One artist interview especially resonated with our vision for Plant Futures. Christopher Muniz, also known as DJ Nightstalker, and I sat down in the media lounge, elevated above the festival, where we paused for a moment to take in the most incredible panoramic view of what felt like its own universe. Then we jumped into our conversation.
Why would a DJ who had just performed at EDC’s bassPOD meet me in the media lounge to talk about sustainability and plant-forward food? I got my answer almost immediately.
He teaches Chicano Studies and sustainability at USC, and he talked about the joy he gets from living what he called his “double life.” He also shared the “heartbreaker moments” that got him into raving: those powerful moments on the dance floor when, as he put it,
“The whole world cracks open and you feel something deeper,” and you’re just excited to be alive."
Christopher Muniz also known as DJ Nightstalker interviewing with the Plant Futures team at EDC Las Vegas
That, to me, is a blueprint for how culture actually shifts. Not only through facts, not only through information, but through embodied experience. Through the joy and love of an EDC sunrise set.
And for food systems advocates, that's a bite we can learn from.
Lecture halls, classrooms, and research are important. That’s where Plant Futures was born, and education will always be our foundation. But lecture halls aren’t the only places that educate us. They aren’t the only places where culture is created.
When I asked Chris about plant-forward food at a festival that brings together hundreds of thousands of people, he didn’t hesitate: “If rave culture is progressive in and of itself, this seems like a perfect fit philosophically.”
The values are already there. The openness is already there. Especially at 5:30 AM, when the sun comes up and nobody in that crowd is leading with their defenses.
Festivals like EDC offer culture-change movements something incredibly powerful: a yong audience already organized around shared values, high-volume food environments where hundreds of thousands of meals are served over just a few days, social reach that multiplies every story told on the ground, and emotional openness that makes people more receptive to new ideas.
This is culture-change infrastructure we’ve only barely scratched the surface of.
The key lesson here? The most powerful classrooms aren’t always the ones with desks. They’re the ones where people show up with their whole selves: exhausted, exhilarated, emotionally open, and together.
Maybe that’s EDC’s bassPOD at 9 PM with DJ Nightstalker. Maybe it’s EDC at sunrise at 5:30 AM with Above & Beyond.
And maybe that’s exactly where sustainability and plant-forward food culture has a real shot at going mainstream.
I’ve always believed we don’t have to choose between the work that matters and the things that fill us with joy, laughter, and abundance. Sometimes, they’re in the same room.
And for me? Sometimes that room is the rave.
This is part of my Designing Planty Culture series, where I explore how culture actually changes, and what that means for the future of food.
Because maybe the future of food won’t be shaped only in classrooms, boardrooms, or policy meetings. Maybe it will also be shaped on dance floors, at sunrise, in the moments when the world cracks open and people remember what it feels like to be alive.
That’s what half a million ravers can teach us.
Subscribe to follow along for more cultural moments shaping the future of food and sustainability! Check out more highlight moments from EDC here.
EDC Las Vegas Panoramic View, 2026