A festival that outgrew itself before it opened

Excision, the producer born Jeff Abel, launched Lost Lands at the end of September 2017 at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio, with a lineup built around bass music: Seven Lions, Rezz, Zeds Dead, 12th Planet, Destroid, and Kill the Noise alongside Excision himself. Organizers planned for about 10,000 people. They sold nearly 20,000 tickets in the first 48 hours. 'We literally threw our entire plan out the window that day, two days after launching, and started over from scratch,' Excision has said of the redesign that followed.

Dinosaurs, because why not

Lost Lands built its identity around prehistoric theming from day one: life-sized dinosaur sculptures across the grounds, a Prehistoric Paradox main stage flanked by volcano props, and a domed second stage called Cave of Souls. Sound is treated as seriously as the theme: the festival has run on hundreds of thousands of watts of PK Sound rigs since its first year, built specifically to carry bass music at festival scale.

Grown into a fixture, one sold-out year at a time

Lost Lands has run every year since 2017, aside from a pandemic pause, reaching its ninth edition in 2026. Attendance has climbed steadily, and the 2024 edition sold out faster than any prior year. Legend Valley, which also hosts the Gathering of the Juggalos, signed a multi-year deal early on to secure Lost Lands' future at the site.