Lorde, Geese, Turnstile top FORM lineup after festival’s year off

It’s not well known among people living in Phoenix, but an hour north of the city, atop the hardscrabble highland desert sits an otherworldly paragon of experimental architecture and urban design.

Arcosanti means “against the odds,” and the mini-city has the feel of a dusty Soviet space-age daydream, its winding paths and oblique angles light-years away from the grid of asphalt streets and the strip malls of the Phoenix metro area. From its grounds, a distant Arby’s road sign off the freeway is the only flickering reminder in the night of our seemingly far-off way of living.

And for more than a decade, the site has been home to one of the West’s most unique and thoughtfully curated music festivals: FORM, which will return to the site Oct. 9 to 11. 

Ticket prices are staggeringly high compared to previous years, though camping is included and there’ll be an open bar all weekend.

The lineup features household names like Lorde, experimental R&B standout Blood Orange, electro rockers Fcukers, art-rock outfit Geese, pop singer-songwriter Dominic Fike, Big Thief leader singer and acoustic balladeer Adrianne Lenker in a solo performance, hardcore punk band Turnstile and Dylan Brady of 100 Gecs, as well as Tinashe and Disclosure both playing DJ sets.

While it’s stacked with heavy hitters, the festival is limited to about 2,500 tickets, making it a singularly intimate experience.

FORM was created back in 2014 by Zach Tetreault, the drummer for genre-fusing indie band Hundred Waters, when he and the group organized the first iteration of the festival around an album release.

“We had eight bands play. It was free, and it was just like a little show. We put a bunch of beer in coolers, people could just grab them,” Tetrault says. “There were like 350 people that came — and it felt good because there’s magic in the place. Like, there’s something in the soil there that feels different.”

The festival grew year over year, with major artists like Thundercat, Four Tet and Skrillex (whose record label Hundred Waters belonged to) coming on board, but the festival’s legendary status was cemented in 2017 after Solange debuted her “A Seat at the Table” album in a performance.

“That’s when it registered to me that this thing, like, was different,” Tetreault says.

While the pandemic shuttered the party from 2020 to 2023, FORM made a return to Arcosanti in October 2024 for a star-studded, sweltering early October weekend.

“It was exceptionally challenging because of the heat,” Tetreault says. “The site has no access to potable water of any kind. You have to bring all the water and all the power to the site.”

Arcosanti itself has been embroiled in drama as of late. While the complex was styled as an artists’ commune of sorts — where you could toil and help churn out the famous bells sold by Cosanti Originals (the nonprofit that owns the site) while living at the place for cheap — those days are over. After leadership changed at the nonprofit, a hostile board oversaw a period of widespread firings and exiles (both self-imposed and forced) that has left the community’s population sparse. 

The 2024 festival was held just before that happened, so it’ll be interesting to see what effect the exodus has on the vibe emanating around Arcosanti this year.

As far as the festival goes, a significant number of changes were also made at the planning level, Tetreault says. After taking last year off and making significant improvements to camping layouts, food vendors and other details, he says this year’s festival is “gonna blow people’s fucking minds.”

Here’s what to expect:

Tickets

Ticket prices were marked up precipitously this year, doubling from $500 last year to $1,000. That price includes your standard camping, and the passes for RV and “glamping” tents for rent are all sold out.

Tetreault said that the festival is still “hemorrhaging money year after year” and organizers had to raise prices to reflect its actual costs if it’s to continue.

Music and programming

What’s special about the festival is its curation. It’s not tied to any specific genre — the idea of a genre is actually kind of antithetical to the spirit of FORM. You get a wide variety of artists and bands from across the musical spectrum. What they have in common is they are almost always exceptional, so it’s just as enjoyable seeing the acts you know well as it is to getting blown away by a newer, ascendant artist. 

Tetreault says all of the artists who come to play aren’t in it for the big bucks and are getting “a fraction of what they would normally get paid … from the artist to the staff, it’s just a real labor of love.”

Though there are three different stages this year, only one act plays at a time, making the focus on each act way more elevated than a typical festival, where several artists are competing for your attention. It also makes the flow of each day like a unique trip through different styles and emotional resonances.

Nights are for dance parties, but the day is about skilled artistry.

There are also a number of soundbaths, yoga classes, trail runs and other programming planned for the weekend. And the Arcosanti pool is open all weekend when cooling off becomes imperative.

There are also a number of soundbaths, yoga classes, trail runs and other programming planned for the weekend. And the Arcosanti pool’s open all weekend when cooling off becomes imperative.

Here’s the lineup and schedule:

Food and drink

One of the new additions to the festival is an open bar.

“It’s whatever anybody wants from Friday afternoon till Sunday night. No transaction, you just go up and order and walk away,” Tetreault says. 

And since the festival gained a number of higher-end drink brands to sponsor the event, it seems like the honey will really be flowing. 

While there will be food trucks near the camping area, their loud generators won’t be running near Arcosanti as they did last time. But the area near the stages will offer food options — either a sit-down meal in Arcosanti’s dining area or pop-ups run by Otra Pizzeria and Sweetgreen.

Camping

The camping area, for both tent campers and glampers, was down the mountain from Arcosanti last year, making the trudge up and down pretty rough (not for me, a desert man, but for a select number of complaining Californians at least). On top of that, you couldn’t take your car down into that canyon — buses had to take you and your things from the parking lot to the campgrounds.

No one will have to make that hike this year. A crew leveled the ground closer to the entrance so that attendees could camp on top of the mountain instead, making the stroll over the music a hell of a lot easier.

You can check out the whole layout on FORM’s interactive map.