Palm Springs honors Splash House, declares Aug. 11 'Splash House Day'
The Palm Springs City Council proclaimed Friday "Splash House Day" in honor of the 10th anniversary of the music festival and pool party ahead of this weekend's event.
Council members were in attendance on Friday at the Renaissance Palm Springs Hotel, along with Visit Greater Palm Springs President and CEO Scott White, PS Resorts Chairman Aftab Dada, representatives of Goldenvoice, Palm Springs Air Museum Director Fred Bell, Palm Springs visual artist Cristopher Cichocki and more.
"It feels really special," Splash House founder Tyler McLean told The Desert Sun. "The fact the city council gave us the recognition means a lot. It means we have the support of the community and so many people that came out to support us for the moment. It makes me feel grateful to be producing events in Palm Springs."
Splash House returns this weekend and Aug. 18-20 at the Renaissance, Margaritaville Resort and Saguaro Palm Springs hotels. After Hours programming at the Palm Springs Air Museum will feature ODESZA, Phantoms, Maya Jane Coles and QRTR. Chris Lake, Channel Tres and KREAM will perform during Weekend 2.
The festival is Palm Springs' largest summer concert and draws thousands of attendees during the slowest and hottest months of the year. Each weekend features prominent names in dance music performing poolside while festivalgoers take a dip, dance in front of the stage areas or watch from their decorated hotel room balconies.
In 2022, the event expanded from two weekends to three and sold 21,000 tickets
Palm Springs Mayor Grace Garner said she has known McLean and his family since she was 11 years old, and when she heard about the first event a decade ago, said "This is definitely a McLean family event."
"It's really exciting to see how much it's grown and what a wonderful partner Tyler and his team have been to the city," Garner said. "Splash House has brought a lively and youthful nature to Palm Springs over the years. It's a place where fashionistas post poolside, colorful floaties cascade across the crowd and balconies are decorated to a tee supporting comedic signs and the event's signature tongue-in-cheek attitude. Splash House has developed a boutique festival experienced with ahead-of-its-time music curation and a devout fan community."
She added Splash House brought $20 million to the city during its three weekends in 2022 alone, and has booked 50,000 room nights in the area over the past decade.
When asked about the contributions to the local economy, Dada spoke to Splash House's growth over the past decade and said "the demographic this brings in is second-to-none."
"Splash House brought in the type of customer we couldn't get during this time of the year," Dada said.
More: August editions of Splash House EDM music festival to feature ODESZA, Classixx and more
Why people keep coming back
After picking up her festival wristband at the Palm Springs Convention Center, Azusa resident Tiffany Mitchell, who has attended with friends for four years, described Splash House as "less chaotic and organized" compared to other music festival experiences.
"The first time I came to Splash House was when I turned 21 and nobody knew about this event. We met random people in the shuttle bus and we've been friends ever since. Now we go to each other's parties and weddings, and we're lifelong friends. Splash House to me means meeting more people and friendships."
Although Splash House has become a prominent music festival, it didn't seem destined for success when the first edition was proposed in 2013.
Former Palm Springs councilmember Ginny Foat described plans for the first edition to The Desert Sun earlier in August as “innovative,” but asked herself “Who’s going to come just to swim in a pool?”
“Obviously, they had a much better insight into what young people were doing than those of us who were on the council at the time who were much older,” Foat said in August.
Garner told The Desert Sun she thought it was a "great idea" in 2013 because it was targeted to a younger demographic of people in the early-to-late 20s and it was the kind of event Palm Springs was looking for during the summer months.
"It's not surprising to me that it's taken off and it's still that early-to-late 20s crowd that comes out, and that's also impressive. Tyler and his team are still making the event appeal to a younger audience, which is so cool," Garner
Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment for the Desert Sun. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @bblueskye.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs honors Splash House during 10th anniversary
