This weekend, music festival Rolling Loud makes its Orlando debut at Camping World Stadium, with a week of related events already underway across downtown and beyond, for a citywide event dubbed RL Week.
Rolling Loud started as a single-day fest in Miami and has grown into a globally known brand reaching as far as Sydney and Thailand, but its foundation was built here in Central Florida, according to Darren Wilson, better known as DJ Five Venoms.
Wilson has been along for the ride since the beginning. As Rolling Loud’s official DJ since its first year in 2015, he knew founders Matt Zingler and Tariq Cherif through Dope ENT, an outfit that booked regional hip-hop shows and built audiences across Orlando, Tampa and Miami.
Wilson met Zingler and Cherif years earlier while DJing for Orlando artist Wes Fif, and ultimately DJed all of Dope ENT’s shows for four years. He helped craft what would become Rolling Loud.
“A lot of the culture that’s now core to Rolling Loud started in Orlando with those early Dope ENT shows,” he tells Orlando Weekly. In some ways, the 2026 festival feels like a homecoming, he says.
What to expect at Rolling Loud
“It’s like a carnival that just so happens to have your favorite artists performing,” Wilson says. Inside the grounds, there are multiple stages running at once, along with activations, vendors and DJs set up throughout the site. The experience is one of constant movement, with attendees choosing between sets and navigating a large crowd.
“We have barber shops, tattoo shops,”he says, “[and] there’s Bunny’s Bae Bar, a VIP glam experience.”
For people who have been before, scale is the first thing that stands out.
James Cole, an Orlando nightlife OG who goes by City the Host, went to the festival in Miami and describes it as dazzling.
“It was wild. It was crazy … but it ran smoothly,” he says.
“When I first walked in, I was taken aback by the number of people, the space and the lights,” he adds. “I also noticed how tight security was, and that the registration and entry process were very orderly.”
Cole expects much the same this year.
An Orlando property manager speaking on condition of anonymity tells OW the Orange County Sheriff’s Office will deploy drones from rooftops around the city — including a building he manages — to surveil the scene, helping maintain safety.
Johnny “DJ Nasty” Mollings, a Grammy-winning producer who lives in Orlando and has performed at Rolling Loud, says 2026 attendees can expect a tone in many ways consistent with years past.
“It’s the energy. Straight energy,” he says.
Though he’s heard some rumblings over safety concerns, Mollings pushes back on the idea that the hip-hop festival’s energy leads to problems.
“It’s very safe,” he says.
Crowd and lineup
This year’s Orlando edition is expected to skew younger than previous years, says Mollings.
The lineup reflects that shift, with a mix of major headliners like Playboi Carti, NBA YoungBoy and Don Toliver, and newer artists who have built audiences online.
“Rolling Loud is giving more shine to the newer stars that are super popping,” he says.
Among them are Nettspend, Xaviersobased, OsamaSon, PlaqueBoyMax, Skaiwater, Prettifun, Karrahbooo, UntilJapan, Chow Lee and Molly Santana.
Meanwhile, one of the most hotly anticipated features of the festival is the special guests, previously unannounced and brought on stage by headliners and major acts. In the past that’s included Kanye West, Drake, Nicki Minaj and Travis Scott.
Orlando Weekly asked some of Orlando’s hip-hop music tastemakers to weigh in with their guesses for this year’s special guests. Here they are:
— City the Host:
Who: Kanye West, Travis Scott, Tyler, the Creator
Why: The scale of this festival is so huge that big moment artists are most likely. “They always bring somebody crazy out.”
— DJ Nasty:
Who: Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert
Why: “I could see Lil Uzi Vert popping out,” because Playboi Carti and Uzi have a long-standing relationship and a shared fanbase.
— Ayo the Producer:
Who: Lil Baby, Future, DJ Khaled
Why: “This is the music business. It’s all about relationships and being in the right place at the right time. When you’re around that kind of environment, anything can happen.”
Local artists and local stakes
For Orlando artists, the festival carries weight beyond the weekend, says Orlando’s Austin “Ayo the Producer” Owens, a Grammy-winning producer.
“Orlando’s always had this rich music history. To see it here, front and center on stage, is insane,” he says.
The lineup includes local names like Hotboii and Goldenboy Countup, though according to Owens, for artists in the city, proximity matters whether they are performing or not. Being able to see the scale up close, to connect with people passing through, or simply to be present in that environment has a practical effect.
“There’s something special about being able to feel, see, touch it,” Owens says.
Beyond the stadium
Rolling Loud extends into the city through RL Week events at downtown venues.
“They went downtown and got almost every club,” Cole says.
Participating venues include Wall Street Plaza, The Vanguard, Fixtion, Knight Library, McQueen’s Social Lounge, Eden Lounge, Sessions, The Robinson Room, Say Less, Mathers Social Gathering, Parlay Orlando and Euphoria Orlando. The footprint is broad enough to reshape the city’s nightlife for the week, and venues have broadcast their Rolling Loud-related events via social media.
Further, local hotels are seeing a surge in bookings. Sunny Tsehaye of the Grand Bohemian Orlando says the hotel is sold out for the weekend, a spike comparable to what the property sees during Electric Daisy Carnival.
This year’s Rolling Loud tests a market that has proven it can handle major festivals, especially given EDC’s ever-growing success here over the past 15 years. EDC Orlando won a 2024 Golden Brick Award from the Downtown Orlando Partnership in the entertainment & special events category, recognizing the festival’s massive economic impact with over $110 million generated annually for the local economy.
Soon, the numbers will be in and we’ll know if Rolling Loud reaches similar heights.
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