Mitch Morales has never seen a total solar eclipse. But that hasn’t stopped him from planning one of the world’s most anticipated parties of the year to spot one — the Texas Eclipse Festival.
“I remember I was sitting at the computer and I looked up when the next total solar eclipse would be, not knowing that it was going to be in Texas,” Morales told Uproxx. “The last time there was a total solar eclipse in central Texas was in the 1300s.”
As if witnessing a solar eclipse wasn’t exciting enough, Morales has layered on a once-in-a-lifetime experience — where creativity, music, art, space, and technology converge in one massive celebration. His Texas Eclipse Festival is slated for April 5th-9th, just 45 minutes North of Austin, Texas.
With 40,000 attendees expected, Reveille Peak Ranch will turn into a mini city for five days as it welcomes in a highly curated crew featuring visionary pioneers, leading space and technology experts, science and wellness thought leaders, renowned visual and interactive artists, and of course, global music icons. Serving as a global community hub, the event will feature over 300 programs spanning captivating experiential art installations, mesmerizing music performances, space exploration, cutting-edge technology, futurism workshops with pioneers in web3 and AI, and more.
“It’s probably one of the most memorable things that you’ll ever experience, this natural phenomena….I wanted to make sure that the location was perfect for this type of event,” Morales said. “[Reveille Peak Ranch] is an incredible property. It spans over 1,300 acres, 60 miles of hiking trails, and elevated hilltops for optimal viewing of the eclipse. The local community is super supportive and the owner is amazing. The property is right on the center line, within the overall path of totality. If you’re going to have the most magical moment in your life, would you rather watch it for a minute or would you rather extend it for as long as possible to over four minutes?”
Spanning seven music environments – SKY, EARTH, MOON, SUN, LONE STAR, ECLIPSE, and ETHER – Texas Eclipse will be soundtracked by an eclectic mix of the world’s most prominent artists, including Barclay Crenshaw, Big Gigantic, Bob Moses, CloZee, The String Cheese Incident, All:Lo Collective (Park Breezy, Pheel, Tf Marz, Thought Process), Treavor Moontribe, Lee Burridge, Subtronics, Tipper, Tycho, Vulfpeck, Desert Hearts, LP Giobbi, Tiga, Desert Dwellers, Mark Farina, Vincent Antone, Hamdi, Ivy Lab, Of The Trees, Zeds Dead, and many more. The stages are designed and built by the festival’s network of global partners: Symbiosis (repping California), Re:birth (Japan), Strawberry Fields (Australia), Earth Frequency (Australia), Bachstelzen (Germany), Beloved (Oregon), Origin (South Africa), Meadows in the Mountains (Bulgaria), Bass Coast (Canada), Ometeotl (Mexico), DisQo PereZoso (Costa Rica), and Cosmic Convergence (Guatemala).
On the space and technology side of things, Texas Eclipse will host 11 astronauts to talk about the wonders of space and the achievements of human exploration, representing every flight provider –NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and Space Perspective. They’ll be joined by Dr. Peter Diamandis, Dr. Bruce Damer, Cosmic Perspective, and more.
Texas Eclipse will also explore the depths of human consciousness with an impressive lineup of thought leaders and visionaries. The festival will celebrate the 38th anniversary of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) with a collaborative and immersive educational experience. Additionally, mycology expert Paul Staments, integrative medicine leader Andrew Weil, environmentalist Adrian Grenier, and more will host curated workshops and panels onsite.
Concluding with yoga, movement, and immersive visual programming, the festival has enlisted the likes of transformative artist Amanda Sage, renowned visual artists Alex and Allyson Grey, futuristic creator Android Jones, immersive art collective Meow Wolf, visionary artist and storyteller Hannah Muse, breathwork specialist Michael Brian Baker, and more.
We had the opportunity to talk with the man behind Texas Eclipse’s cosmic vision on his inspiration and ethos behind the event. Read the full conversation below.
What is your recipe for creating an incredible festival centered around a celestial event?
There’s been a long history of these gatherings. They’ve been happening all over the world, specifically because they are so rare. Every couple of years you’ve got this occurring on a different continent so there’s this community that’s built up. That’s been probably one of the cooler parts is trying to continue on that tradition and tapping into those networks. That’s why we have our ‘global collaborators’ to cultivate a global curation of this event.
Can you speak on your own individual inspiration and ethos behind Texas Eclipse?
It’s so weird that we haven’t been to the moon or we haven’t landed and stepped foot on the moon since the ‘70s. You look back at the ‘60s and ‘70s and the geopolitical climate and what’s happening in our country, and there’s a lot of similarities between then and now. It feels like this spirit of exploration and expansion of possibilities into a new age for all of us. A new age of opportunity and excitement and working together.
This is very much about celebrating where we’ve come from and bringing a bunch of people together in this current moment, even if it’s only for four minutes. It’s about sharing a collective human experience together within the cosmos. We’ll all looking up to the stars and these celestial bodies together, evoking the idea of, “Where are we going?”
So… where are we going?
We are going to space, we are going to the moon and Mars, and furthermore, we’re going into these digital worlds that we’ve built ourselves. And so it’s going to be an incredibly interesting and dynamic time over the next couple of decades. It’s my belief that if we’re going to succeed and overcome these huge challenges that we are going to face as a civilization then we have to figure out a way to work together more and not be so divided. The idea of bringing these people together to celebrate all of this and the amazing things that we’ve been able to build is, I hope, an inflection point for more of that same thing.
What will the eclipse experience be like for attendees?
The sky starts getting dark around noon when just barely the moon goes in front of the sun until first contact. Fourth contact is where it fully departs, around 3 pm. The entire totality experience is about three hours long. Since there’s so much diverse programming happening throughout the weekend, we’re really trying to reserve the space for people to just appreciate it the eclipse. We want to make sure that people have outlets for the energy and the observation process that they’re going to be within. There will be a big group meditation and an indigenous elder from the area to hold and call upon ancient wisdom and traditions during the eclipse.
The programming for Texas Eclipse is unlike anything the world has ever seen. What are some of your favorite highlights that attendees shouldn’t miss?
We’re programming an extremely diverse music lineup spanning rock, jam, electronic, spiritual folk, world, and more. What I’m most excited about is the space programming. I think we’re putting together one of the most diverse lineup of speakers that any event has seen, especially outside of a space conference. We’ll have 11 astronauts who have been to space, with the majority of our space program being female-owned.
We’ll have representatives from NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and Space Perspective to hold educational workshops. I’m excited to get a glimpse and learn from them on what is going to happen over the next couple of decades and the timeline for us being a multi-planetary species. It’ll be pretty cool to see people walking around in spacesuit costumes and then people walking around in actual space suits that they’ve worn to space.
Don’t just go for the music. Go to learn, to explore, to be a human, and connect with other humans.
A limited amount of ticket packages are still on sale for Texas Eclipse, including general admission, VIP, glamping, and hotel packages. For tickets and additional information, visit the Texas Eclipse website.