Meow Wolf Takes Attendees Into a Psychedelic World with Vortex Festival

Enter the fantastical world of Meow Wolf, an immersive art adventures company hosting their Vortex music festival, which took place August 5-7, with Vortex in Denver. 

“Meow Wolf has always had events as a part of its core expression,” says Marsi Gray, the senior creative producer for the brand. “Vortex was born from our community’s roots of hosting artistic dance parties and bringing people together to play.” 

The festival began in Taos, Nevada, in 2018 and has since become a staple for those wishing to immerse themselves in a psychedelic curation of art, performance, and music. According to Gray, the festival initially began to gather the community. For the event, she says, “we [were] inspired by the idea of a secret garden and have been really inspired by the artists we are working with and their creative processes.”

The Certified B-Corp festival boasted the likes of Channel Tres, Kevin Saunderson, Barry Can’t Swim, Maya Jane Coles, Duke Dumont, 100 Gecs, Toro Y Moi, Dixon, Bob Moses, and more. The lineup was curated with Live Nation. 

Outside of music, the event featured art installations and performances, stage design by Jon Medina, lighting design crafted by Matthew “Roz” Rosvold, designers and artists that transformed the Junk Yard into a magical playground, and performers such as Lazerpantz, Mythic Times, CircX, and the Sacred G’. 

Gray notes that the vendors, artists, and music acts enhance the company’s broader ethos, which is their intention to “amplify artist’s voices and to create a platform to elevate the artists in the communities we serve.” Indeed, the festival’s combination of art, performance, and music makes Meow Wolf Vortex a stand-out event. 

Past events by Meow Wolf have boasted playful wonderlands, including slides, otherworldly castles, trippy installations, neon trees, psychedelic washing machines, led-lit tunnels, and colorful landscapes. The events brand brings alive a far-out atmosphere that transports attendees into another dimension. “Meow Wolf's mission is to inspire creativity in people’s lives through art, exploration, and play so that imagination will transform our worlds,” the company says.

In addition, Meow Wolf says it values “being a good neighbor and providing strong support back to [its] arts communities.” The brand has provided more than $1.5 million in funding to its local communities and over 15,000 free passes and visitors to its exhibition in three years of operating the House of Eternal Return. “We are honing our process to focus resources on supporting artists and creativity in all of our markets, with particular consideration for historically marginalized communities. We actively support the efforts of many arts organizations and nonprofits in the communities we serve—Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and Denver—that provide creative and inclusive opportunities for all,” it says. 

“Meow Wolf is a social impact art project that fuels a business, and [it’s] a business that fuels a social impact art project,” Gray says. “We create immersive and interactive experiences that transport audiences into fantastic realms of story and exploration.”