It started as a single night on the Santa Monica Pier, the first recurring dance music festival staged on the landmark. Four sold-out editions later, Pier Play, the recurring waterfront festival from experience company RASA World, has become a fixture of the Los Angeles dance music calendar, turning a postcard icon into a place where the scene actually shows up. This October, it doubles, expanding to two days for the first time, with a world-class lineup: Meduza, Monolink, Claptone, Kaz James, LP Giobbi, Mind Against, Rinzen, and more to come. Pier Play V takes place on Saturday and Sunday, October 3 and 4, 2026; presale registration is now open at https://rasa.fyi/pierplay-festival/pr.
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The Heaviest Lineup Pier Play Has Ever Booked
Leading the bill are Meduza, the Italian production trio whose 2019 breakthrough “Piece of Your Heart” earned a GRAMMY nomination, amassed more than 2 billion streams globally, and reached the Top 10 in 20 countries, and Monolink, the German artist who fuses live vocals and guitar with melodic electronic rhythms across sets at Burning Man, Tomorrowland, and some of the world’s most storied venues.
Alongside them is a roster of world-class talent. Claptone, the Berlin-based, enigmatic masked figure, has been voted the highest-ranked house DJ in DJ Mag’s Top 100 for five consecutive years and performs more than 260 shows a year. LP Giobbi, a jazz-trained pianist and 2023 DJ Mag Producer of the Year, has graced stages at Coachella, Tomorrowland, and Electric Forest with her signature piano-house sound. Mind Against, the Italian brothers based in Berlin, are known for pushing the boundaries of techno and house on labels like Afterlife and Life and Death. Kaz James, the Australian DJ, producer, and vocalist, brings deep roots in the Ibiza house scene, and Rinzen rounds out the bill with his cinematic brand of melodic techno. More artists to be announced.
Sold Out Four Times Over. Now It Doubles.
The two-day jump comes straight off a sold-out May edition, the fourth consecutive sell-out, where the crowd took the deck from afternoon into golden hour, the Pacific Wheel glowing over the pier as the Pacific went dark beyond it. No festival sustains that kind of run by accident. Pier Play has done it by proving a thesis no one else had tried on the pier: an overlooked space that empties out after dark is one of the most striking venues in the city, if you give people a reason to claim it. Every edition has sold out, and demand has outgrown a single day.
“We were the first to do this here, and four sell-outs later, it’s a fixture,” said Ahmad Muhaisen, co-founder and CEO of RASA World. “People stopped treating this as one night a while ago. They build a weekend around it. We didn’t get lucky with a location; we built something repeatable. A second day is just the next step.”
An Economic Engine for the Waterfront
Annual attendance has grown fivefold since 2024, and that growth doesn’t stay inside the gates. Roughly one in seven attendees travels from outside the immediate Los Angeles area and turns the night into a full Santa Monica weekend, booking local hotels, dining along the waterfront, and riding the Pacific Wheel at Pacific Park. That makes Pier Play less an event than an economic driver for the waterfront, and a case study in what activated public space returns to the businesses around it. The reach compounds online: the May edition generated 4.48 million combined impressions, with year-over-year engagement up 55% and video views up 177%. It is built into Santa Monica’s commercial fabric by design: roaming cannoli carts, local vendors, and curated food partners signal an experience made with the community.
“This is the fullest expression of what RASA does,” Muhaisen added. “We activate spaces and make them matter to the community.”
Growth and visitation figures reflect RASA World’s own attendee and partner tracking.
GET TICKETS
Pier Play V takes place Saturday and Sunday, October 3 and 4, 2026, on the Santa Monica Pier. This is a 21-and-over event. Presale registration is open now, with tickets starting at $65. Secure access and lock in early pricing at https://rasa.fyi/pierplay-festival/pr.
ABOUT RASA WORLD
RASA World designs live experiences that bring iconic spaces back to life, turning online communities into in-person experiences people show up for. Operating across 12 cities and more than one million square feet of activated space, with a first-party community of over 94,000, RASA pairs creative direction with the operational precision to make events repeatable and enduring. Its work spans Delta Air Lines, Moët Hennessy, Aston Martin, Six Flags, and LA Comic-Con. Pier Play, its recurring waterfront festival on the Santa Monica Pier, is the fullest expression of that idea: a landmark remade into a recurring cultural destination. Learn more at www.rasa.world. Follow RASA World on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and follow Pier Play on Instagram for festival updates.
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