Paul van Dyk will debut a brand-new live concept, The Essence of Acid, at Dreamstate SoCal 2026 on Saturday, 21st November. The show takes place at the Queen Mary Waterfront in Long Beach, California, and marks the first outing of a fully immersive live setup built around hardware rather than a conventional DJ booth.
The concept leans on analog electronic production, a sharp contrast to the laptop-and-decks format most festival sets follow. For a producer whose career stretches back to the early days of trance, it is a bold creative turn and a chance to present his music in a very different way.
The choice of stage is fitting. Van Dyk has a long history with Dreamstate and played the inaugural Dreamstate SoCal in 2015. A decade on, he returns to the festival with something new rather than a look back.
The festival itself runs across Friday 20th and Saturday 21st November, and Insomniac bills it as North America’s largest all-trance festival. Friday leans harder and more techno, with ARTBAT, Enrico Sangiuliano, Dash Berlin, Andrew Rayel presenting Extasia, Reinier Zonneveld live, Astrix and Infected Mushroom. Saturday is the classic trance day. Above & Beyond play an exclusive Anjunabeats Classics set, and Ferry Corsten, Aly & Fila, Solarstone and Vini Vici also appear alongside Van Dyk.
Doors open at 4 PM on both days, with the music running until 1 AM and official afterparties continuing from midnight until 6 AM. Two-day and single-day general admission tickets, plus 21+ VIP, are on sale now.