What is Phoenix Lights Festival?
Phoenix Lights, written PHXLIGHTS on the posters, is the Valley’s spring electronic music festival: two days of house, dubstep, bass and trance on a dozen-plus-act bill, staged since 2015 by Relentless Beats, the promoter that books most of the electronic music in Arizona. It takes its name and its alien iconography from the night of March 13, 1997, when thousands of people watched a formation of lights cross the sky from the Nevada line to Tucson. The festival has never had a fixed home: it has played Rawhide Western Town in Chandler, The Park at Wild Horse Pass next door, and Phoenix Raceway in Avondale.
The most recent edition was April 4–5, 2025, at Rawhide Event Center, with Rezz, Louis The Child, NGHTMRE and Of The Trees headlining. It did not run in 2026, and as of October 2026 Relentless Beats’ festival calendar lists its other events, HEX at Halloween, Obsidian, DUSK in Tucson, Decadence on New Year’s Eve, Gem & Jam in February, but no 2027 Phoenix Lights. This guide stays current so that a Scottsdale visitor searching for the spring EDM weekend gets the straight answer: it is on hold, nothing is announced, and when it comes back the date and the venue will both be news.
What a Scottsdale reader should take from it meanwhile is the shape of the promoter’s year. Relentless Beats runs a festival season from September to February, and the April slot that Phoenix Lights filled is the gap in it.
How to do it
Watch the announcement, not the calendar. In the years it ran, the lineup was posted in January (January 13 in 2025) for a weekend in late March or early April, and two-day passes went on sale the same day in rising price tiers. The festival is 18 and over, with table reservations at 21 and over; a two-day pass was the main product, in GA, GA+ (express entry and premium restrooms) and VIP. No 2027 prices exist. Relentless Beats sells through Tixr, and its other festivals are the price guide: Decadence Arizona two-day GA opened at $299.99 for 2026.
Rawhide, if it comes back there. The 2025 site was the event center behind the Western town at Wild Horse Pass, on the Gila River Indian Community at Chandler’s southern edge. From Old Town it is about 35 minutes: Loop 101 south, Loop 202 west, Interstate 10 east to Wild Horse Pass Boulevard, then west to North Loop Road, with free parking on the dirt. There is no transit; the rideshare pen clears slowly at closing. The Gila River resorts and the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass are a walk away, which is the sensible way to do a two-night festival. Decadence has run a paid shuttle from Tempe; Phoenix Lights has not consistently offered one.
Phoenix Raceway, if it goes back west. The track in Avondale is 45 minutes from Scottsdale by the 101 and I-10, with paved festival grounds, free parking at the track’s entries and a long walk from the lots. Read our NASCAR at Phoenix Raceway guide for the roads.
What to bring. Rawhide applies a clear-bag policy from October 2026, so assume it. Spring nights in the south Valley drop into the 50s; the days do not. Water refills, a hydration pack and ear protection are the standard kit. Set times are posted the week of the event.
What to skip. Driving in at the headliner. Both venues have one road in, and the back half of the lot is a 20-minute walk.
A festival in search of a field
Relentless Beats was founded in 2006 by Thomas Turner as a club and concert promoter, and by the mid-2010s it was building its own festivals: Phoenix Lights in the spring of 2015 and Decadence that New Year’s Eve as its winter counterpart. The early editions were small and themed hard around the 1997 sighting, which is still the best-known UFO story in the country: a V of lights seen by thousands, explained by the Air Force as flares from a training exercise over the Barry Goldwater Range, mocked by Governor Fife Symington at a press conference with an aide in an alien costume, and later described by Symington himself as something he had seen and could not explain.
The venue history is the festival’s history. 2017 was Rawhide Event Center, April 8–9, noon to 11 p.m. 2019 was The Park at Wild Horse Pass next door, April 5–6, with Excision, Kaskade, GRiZ, Big Gigantic, Lane 8, Claude VonStroke and Jay Lumen on a 38-act bill. Relentless Beats’ big events then left Rawhide for a stretch; the festival spent several springs at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, whose paved grounds and parking suit a large production, under themes like Altered Orbit (Zomboy, GRiZ, RL Grime, Flosstradamus) and Supernova, March 29–30, 2024. The promoter returned to Rawhide with an Illenium show in June 2024, and Phoenix Lights followed: Solar Sound System, April 4–5, 2025, at the event center, with Rezz, Louis The Child, NGHTMRE, Of The Trees, Said The Sky and Netsky.
Then nothing. No lineup appeared in January 2026, a festival guide marked the year cancelled, and Relentless Beats spent its 2026 energy on a new Halloween festival, HEX, at Rawhide on October 30–31 with Excision and Subtronics, plus Goldrush in September and Decadence at the raceway. Whether Phoenix Lights is resting, folded into those, or coming back under a new name is not something the promoter has said.
The Scottsdale angle
Relentless Beats’ festivals are where the Old Town electronic crowd goes when it leaves Old Town. For the rest of the year see live music in Scottsdale. The spring festival slot in the Valley is otherwise filled by M3F in central Phoenix, the first weekend of March, a nonprofit lawn festival whose bill now leans electronic (Fisher and Sammy Virji headline in 2027); a reader who came here looking for a March dance weekend near Scottsdale should go there. If Phoenix Lights returns, it will be announced in January with a date in late March or early April, a venue in Chandler or Avondale, and tickets that climb by the week; this page will say so.