Festies

Ep. 38 Home Bass Orlando 2025: What Went Wrong This Year

• Sunny Balopole, Vanessa Gutierrez, Clark Lawson • Episode 38

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A weekend add-on that promised shuttles, suites, and sunrise sets turned into a cautionary tale. In this episode, we break down how Home Bass, the resort “takeover” tied to EDC Orlando weekend, unraveled amid last-minute venue changes, vague updates, and a same-day cancellation that left so many people scrambling. It’s a late review, but the story still matters!
And before we get into it… 

Happy Thanksgiving, Festies! We hope you’re cozy, safe, and surrounded by good people today.

Sunny's Festival Corner:

Dimension Festival

Gem & Jam Festival

Give Thanks 2025

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Vanessa:

Hey, Sunny?

Sunny:

Yeah, Vanessa?

Vanessa:

What do you call the two best friends that love music festivals?

Sunny:

Hmm, I guess you would call them festies. Wow, you sound sick.

Vanessa:

I know, I'm sorry.

Sunny:

Do you don't need to be sorry? What happened? How'd you get sick?

Vanessa:

So we went to Seattle this weekend and it was really cold. And we did the hot tub boats.

Sunny:

Oh, I saw that. I was like, isn't it cold?

Vanessa:

It yeah. It was really cool though. But the hot tub is 104 degrees, and outside it was like 50 degrees. Ed swears that this doesn't make you sick, but I always get sick when I go from hot to cold and hot to cold.

Sunny:

It's because you're Mexican and you were told that all your life.

Vanessa:

And he even got sick too. So

Sunny:

ha ha. No, I'm just kidding.

Vanessa:

Yeah. I loved his raspy voice the next day.

Sunny:

Worth it.

Vanessa:

I hope you don't get better. Just kidding. No, but it was really fun. I would definitely recommend anybody go do that on Lake Union. Actually, they have them here too in Alameda.

Sunny:

It's literally just like

Vanessa:

it's a hot tub on a in a boat.

Sunny:

And you're by yourself?

Vanessa:

Yeah.

Sunny:

Who drives?

Vanessa:

There's like a little joystick thing that you use to drive around. It's really easy.

Sunny:

They just let anyone do that?

Vanessa:

I guess.

Sunny:

Cool.

Vanessa:

They let us do it. And then we also rode scooters everywhere, like those lime scooters. Yeah. And it was cold, so it was just like breeze hitting us. Wow. I'm pretty sure that's why we got sick, but it was a really fun trip.

Sunny:

Yeah, you went for your anniversary, right?

Vanessa:

Yeah, four years.

Sunny:

Wow.

Vanessa:

Crazy.

Sunny:

I was gonna ask you this. When you get married, does this anniversary in November just like go bye-bye and you forget about it?

Vanessa:

No, because our anniversary is not like the day we became boyfriend and girlfriend. We celebrate the day we met.

Sunny:

Oh, cute.

Vanessa:

Because we were basically inseparable since then.

Sunny:

Y eah.

Vanessa:

So I think it'll always be special.

Sunny:

We get two anniversary.

Vanessa:

We will always celebrate it.

Sunny:

Well, cute.

Vanessa:

What did you do this weekend?

Sunny:

Uh, what did I do? Nothing. Oh.

Vanessa:

Your dog had surgery.

Sunny:

Oh, Pepper had surgery. That's right.

Vanessa:

Oh no.

Sunny:

She's had a lovely lady lump. That's what I've been calling it. But it's basically just a benign mass in like a really weird spot in her inner thigh. Do dogs have thighs? I don't know. Um

Vanessa:

I think we all know what you mean.

Sunny:

It just kept getting bigger, man. Oh, we got it removed. And so she's healing at home.

Vanessa:

That's good. Well, I hope Pepper gets better. Yeah. And it's not as rough as the last time she had surgery.

Sunny:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Anyways. Welcome back, Festies.

Vanessa:

Welcome back.

Sunny:

It's been a long time since it's been just the two of us.

Vanessa:

I know. I like it. I'm just kidding. Just kidding Clark

Sunny:

Just the two of us. And Ed and Kevin.

Vanessa:

Yeah.

Sunny:

Well, we are a little late on this because we took a break, but today we're going to be talking about Home Bass music festival.

Vanessa:

I kind of hate that this is coming out on Thanksgiving week, but it's okay. Oh yeah. Sorry to put a downer. Before we get into all that, we hope you had the best Thanksgiving with your family. Let's get into some sad news.

Sunny:

I believe you did most of the research on home bass.

Vanessa:

As much as I could. At first I was very confused by this festival.

Sunny:

Why?

Vanessa:

Because I couldn't figure out if it was a festival on its own or if it was just somewhere where people could stay for EDC Orlando and just have like after parties. But it was its own festival.

Sunny:

Got it.

Vanessa:

It was advertised as like, you know, if you're going to EDC Orlando, stay here and we'll provide shuttles and lodging and everything and then sick after parties. Oh. If you're not going to EDC Orlando, you know, you could still do this and you still are seeing really good EDM DJs here.

Sunny:

If EDC Orlando isn't enough for you.

Vanessa:

Right.

Sunny:

Add on home bass.

Vanessa:

Yeah. So and I liked that because they call it home bass, you know? Like it's like your home base.

Sunny:

Right, right, right. Oh, that's cute.

Vanessa:

So that's why I was like, is this its own thing, or is this just like you can only stay there if you're going to EDC Orlando? But apparently it's his own thing. Which is even crazier because of how everything went down. Yeah that it was its own freaking thing.

Sunny:

Well, it makes sense because I would be very surprised if Insomniac let an event go so poorly.

Vanessa:

Right. Right.

Sunny:

Wait, when was it?

Vanessa:

This was supposed to be the same weekend as EDC Orlando. So like November 7th through 11th, I believe.

Sunny:

A long time ago.

Vanessa:

If I'm it was the beginning of this month. I might be getting those dates wrong. The weekend of November 6th.

Sunny:

Got it.

Vanessa:

So let's rewind. Okay. Before this, something similar, but not as big scaled as this for Dirty Bird Camp Inn, which also happens at the Double Tree in Orlando. Something similar happened where people were checking into their hotels here and they were charged double after the weekend. Like they had already paid for their packages before they, you know, when they bought their ticket. They got to the hotel, they had their reservations, but at the end of it, they were charged again for their stay.

Sunny:

Right. They're like, put a card on file.

Vanessa:

Right. So people were like, what the fuck?

Sunny:

Totally.

Vanessa:

I've already paid for this shit. I don't have another $2,000 to pay for this again. Yeah. And so apparently refunds haven't even been given back for that. So people are just doing chargebacks on their credit cards. Oh. It was also put on by Brian Thomas.

Sunny:

Who's Brian Thomas?

Vanessa:

Brian Thomas is the guy that organized Home Bass, operates under Music Festival Trips LLC. Okay. Who was in charge of putting on Dirty Bird Camp Inn and Home Bass.

Sunny:

Is it associated with Dirty Bird the camp out that's here?

Vanessa:

It is. Okay. Um it's Claude Von Stroke's thing. But

Sunny:

Claude, what are you doing?

Vanessa:

Well, he's been removed from it for a few years. Oh, okay. I that's what I was saying. Like, this would never have happened if Claude Von Stroke was still in charge of this. Yeah. Because we love Claude Von Stroke and he's the best. And I know he would not allow this. Yeah. But it's no longer him that's running these. He's still, I think he still performs at these events sometimes, but like he he's not in charge of them anymore.

Sunny:

I see.

Vanessa:

So a lot of the TikToks that I saw were like, How are they even putting on Home Bass if they still haven't even paid the hotel for the last event? If you guys have tickets to Home Bass, you should be worried. Right. You know? For months before it happened, people were talking about this. Yeah. I got all my information from Reddit and TikTok. So I was looking at actual TikToks of people calling the hotel before.

Sunny:

Oh wow.

Vanessa:

And asking them if they had a reservation for that hotel.

Sunny:

For home bass?

Vanessa:

For home bass.

Sunny:

Okay.

Vanessa:

And they were straight up like, this event is not happening here.

Sunny:

Oh my god.

Vanessa:

Yeah. And they had already paid all this money. And so then it came out that they switched the locations of the event.

Sunny:

Okay.

Vanessa:

It's so crazy. This is like mind-blowing to me. Like, can you imagine buying tickets to an event at a hotel? Not even just buying a hotel room at this double tree.

Sunny:

Yeah.

Vanessa:

But like the event is supposed to be there and then they just change it a month before. That's crazy to me.

Sunny:

Yeah. Wait, okay, sorry. I'm still kind of confused. So they also have things going on at that hotel, or you just stay at that hotel and then the shuttle's going to other places.

Vanessa:

No, okay, sorry. I didn't explain this correctly. The whole event is a resort takeover at this hotel.

Sunny:

Oh, I see.

Vanessa:

It's shows on at night, DJs with brunch at the pools or whatever.

Sunny:

Oh, love that.

Vanessa:

Maybe I made the pool part up, but you know what I mean. Like it's all these events at the hotel where you can also stay, and then they have shuttles to take you to EDC Orlando.

Sunny:

Oh, that's the shuttle part. Okay. I'm with you now.

Vanessa:

Okay. Sorry, listeners, if I didn't explain that correctly. On October 3rd, a month before this event is supposed to take place.

Sunny:

It's October 3rd.

Vanessa:

They announced a venue change. But then they didn't even say what venue it was at. They just promised to upgrade everyone's room and claimed that the transportation would stay the same, but they were upgrading everybody's rooms.

Sunny:

Everybody.

Vanessa:

That's what they said. So then on October 9th, they announced that the new venue is at Westgate Lakes Resort and Spa. Okay. Then on the 13th, they made another announcement. I took a screenshot. They were like, because we're going to move to this hotel, it's not going to be like a complete resort takeover. You're still going to be amongst other guests that are not part of Home Bass.

Sunny:

That are in reality.

Vanessa:

We're keeping things exclusive. There will be no public events on site. There won't be a public lineup announcement this year. We're keeping things a little mysterious. Okay, that means you have nobody. What are you talking about? Like, I why would why would I go to an event where I didn't know the lineup?

Sunny:

I don't know. Well, remember that one festival we talked about a while ago on Sunny's Festival Corner where it was they don't say the lineup until the event sells out.

Vanessa:

I get that, but you remember you're still gonna know the lineup before you get there.

Sunny:

If it sells out.

Vanessa:

That's crazy. So if it doesn't sell out, you just don't know.

Sunny:

I guess. I don't know, but this is different.

Vanessa:

This is so different. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean?

Sunny:

T hat's not what they originally said.

Vanessa:

Yeah.

Sunny:

So October 13th, less than a month before this festival, they're like

Vanessa:

They're like, it's gonna look a little different this year. You don't get a lineup, and it's not like open to the public. Cause you know, I guess before, like, even if you're not staying there, you can still go to the events. Yeah. I don't know. So that was really sketch. And then people were calling this new place too, and they were like, this event's not happening here either. Jeez. So it sounds like there were a lot of warning signs leading up to it. But of course, there's people that aren't on TikTok. There's people that aren't on social media.

Sunny:

That's what I was gonna say. It's not like up to the population to play detective.

Vanessa:

Right. So then on the 6th, which was Thursday, the day that people are arriving there, they just flat out cancel the event.

Sunny:

So the actual festival canceled, not just the hotel.

Vanessa:

The actual festival put out a statement on Instagram saying that it's canceled due to unforeseen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like Unforeseen. What do you mean? I don't know if that was a word they used, but basically. Like, what? So now all these people that thought they had reservations that are going to EDC Orlando, now have no place to stay. They have to shell out a bunch more money to book a hotel, book an Airbnb, do whatever they can so they can still go to EDC Orlando and have a good time.

Sunny:

It didn't dawn on me that this was like an add-on festival to EDC Orlando.

Vanessa:

You also thought it was part of EDC?

Sunny:

No, no.

Vanessa:

I just Oh, you don't know it was the same weekend.

Sunny:

No, I didn't research it as much as you did. I just saw all the Reddit notifications of people complaining. So I knew kind of the gist, but not this in depth.

Vanessa:

What I'm saying is also more of like the gist. I didn't do like a super deep, deep dive, but it was just like whatever TikTok videos I saw. But still, it's like, how are you gonna leave people stranded like that? And then I'm sure he's not gonna give them their refund. Yeah. Everyone online is saying just do a chargeback on your credit card because you're not gonna see this money from them.

Sunny:

Oh, how terrible.

Vanessa:

Like he just take off with the money. He's gonna end up going to prison, I think.

Sunny:

Why is this allowed to keep happening?

Vanessa:

So then people did a deep dive and tried looking into this guy. He has so many lawsuits against him and his company, music festival trips, for breach of contract. Somebody posted an eviction notice from like pretty recently from his multiple thousand dollar a month apartment. They posted that. Yeah, it's all public record, I guess. So public record, yeah. And I'm like, so he just like took your money and bounced. That's crazy.

Sunny:

That's terrible.

Vanessa:

It's so terrible. Oh man. So I mean, I guess the lesson here is sorry, I don't mean to be laughing. It's just so ridiculous to me that this can even happen. Because like, as a festival goer, you just trust that everything you're buying tickets to is legit. Imagine if you're from California and you fly all the way to Florida. Yeah, stranded there.

Sunny:

Out of the country. I mean, you can be coming from somewhere.

Vanessa:

Exactly. So I guess the lesson here is like if you're going somewhere where they're selling hotel packages, one thing you can do is call the hotel, make sure that you have that reservation and make sure it's legit. And not that it's up to you to be like looking into festival organizers and who they are and like if they're financially in good standing with everything, you know, but yeah, it's like you almost have to do that now.

Sunny:

Unfortunately, that's where we're at. Yeah, we keep getting these horror stories about different festivals getting canceled last minute. I wish the ticketing companies, before they agree to sell tickets, there has to be proof from the event organizers that they have the actual legit contracts

Vanessa:

from every party involved.

Sunny:

Can anybody just go to Tixer and be like, hey, I'm doing this, sell tickets without proving that i

Vanessa:

t's all legit? Yeah.

Sunny:

Yeah, I don't know. Gosh. Well, if anyone who went to Home Bass is listening to this, I'm so sorry.

Vanessa:

Tell us your side of the story and we want to hear it. And I don't know. I don't know what we could do. What else we could do?

Sunny:

Is there a hotline?

Vanessa:

File a lawsuit against Brian Thomas or whatever.

Sunny:

Oh gosh. Well, thanks for looking into that.

Vanessa:

Yeah, that's like Firefest 2.0. Yeah. Was there already a Firefest 2.0? Firefest 3.0?

Sunny:

I don't know.

Vanessa:

Wasn't that idiot trying to do another festival?

Sunny:

I think so.

Vanessa:

Oh my god.

Sunny:

And I bet you people would still go. I know. Who have money just to see. Yeah.

Vanessa:

Sorry to bring such a negative subject, but the people need to know what's happening and be aware and protect yourselves. Sunny's Festival Corner.

Sunny:

January 30th to February 8th, we have Dimension Music Festival. It's in Northland, New Zealand, and it's the 10th anniversary. It's a psychedelic escape. It's foresty, there's a river, um, has multiple stages, and it's progressive electronic music, art installations, wellness zones, and camping under the stars. They put their acts in alphabetical order, so I just picked some. We have chromatone, megapixel, and Tom Baker. February 6th to the 8th, we have Gem and Jam. It's at the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson, Arizona. This is the 17th year. It happens every year during the huge Tucson Gem, mineral, and fossil showcase. Oh. Apparently, more than 55,000 people travel to Tucson from all over the world for this three-week gem and mineral show. And that's what inspired the organizers to create a space that basically blends all of that with the music.

Vanessa:

Who are the headliners?

Sunny:

Headliners are Clozee, Tyco, G. Jones doing a back-to-back with Eprom and Troy Boy. Hope I'm saying that right. Other acts are Flamingosis, Sunsquabi, High Step Society, and then on the lineup it says more to come.

Vanessa:

Oh.

Sunny:

Friday, November 28th to Saturday, November 29th, we have Give Thanks Festival. It is at the San Jose Convention Center. This is the 20th year anniversary.

Vanessa:

Oh wow.

Sunny:

The venue has moved around last year when we went, it was at the Cow Palace. They seem really excited to have moved it to the San Jose Convention Center.

Vanessa:

I think it was there before. Or it was in San Jose at some point. Like it was Sacramento, San Jose, then. Yeah, oh yeah. That's right. Okay, and then Cow Palace.

Sunny:

Hopefully this is their new home. The fest is loved for its eclectic lineup, mixing big name DJs with rising local and regional talent. And it's become a post-Thanksgiving tradition for a lot of electronic music fans, bringing everything from progressive house to electro and bass music. Friday, headliner, is Excision doing a back-to-back with Sullivan King. And Saturday is Elenium doing a back-to-back with Dabin. Other acts are Bear Grills and the Bad News Bears. Love that. And William Black. Quick updates for Give Thanks. Friday General adMission is officially sold out. Friday VIP still has tickets. The two-day GA has a wait list that you can hop on. Two-day VIP also has a wait list. Same with Saturday GA and Saturday VIP. This is all information as of the Tuesday before the festival when we're recording it. So by the time this comes out, the wait lists may or may not still be open. So check fast. I did look at StubHub. They're reselling it for, you know, triple the price. If you'd like to find more information, go to give thanksfestival.com.

Vanessa:

Okay. All right, Festies. We hope you had a great time with your families and are eating your Thanksgiving leftovers today. Oh, yum. Please follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Festies Podcast and leave us a five-star rating or review wherever you listen to your podcast. And we'll catch you on the next one. Bye.

Sunny:

Later