A world of futuristic immersion

Looking for information about tickets? volunteering? entertainment? Directions?

Over 2,200 people transported themselves to the desert festival known as Neotropolis in April of 2025. The immersive sci-fi and cyberpunk event is part interactive theater, part festival, part desert campout, and part optional mission-based role play. Our far flung galactic outpost was bigger and better than ever with new things to see, new things to do, and an expanding universe of award-winning immersion.

The multi-day festival includes live bands, multi-day story arcs, NeoQuest missions, laser tag, retro video gaming, DJs, fully-immersive interactive environments, camping, bartering (and selling!) of themed goods, food vendors, robot battles, FREE alcohol (thanks to the BYOB event policy and community bar servers), costume contests, and tricked-out vehicles. This cyberpunk world encompassed many acres of beautiful privately-owned land in the California Mojave Desert, including indoor and outdoor spaces, and enough neon to light up the desert for miles.

From the innovators of fully-immersive festivals, Wasteland World, Neotropolis is a truly unique hybrid event.

“We’ve simply created the future we always wanted,” owner and Event Director Jared Butler said. “Wasteland Weekend has been going for over 15 years, bringing a post-apocalyptic Mad Max world to thousands of people, and we wanted to branch out into a different kind of future.” Butler started his career in Hollywood, first in feature film development, then as a working screenwriter. In addition to creating immersive events, he is also an accomplished voice actor.

The outpost city on an a fictional planet (Kepler-609c) features user-generated content alongside what the organizers provide. Like the “Tribe” theme camps at Wasteland Weekend, Neotropolis hosts “Factions,” fully-themed installations and camps created by attendees themselves. In addition to forming Factions, attendees are encouraged to join one of three main “Allegiances,” which allows them to go on specific NeoQuest Missions assigned by actors. (Those same actors also perform occasional story scenes, creating an evolving narrative to follow along with.)

“While EVERYONE needs to be in a themed costume, the event can be experienced on multiple levels,” Butler explained. “Attendees can just relax and have fun dancing and listening to music, or they can dive in deeper and create a character that becomes part of the greater story.”

With offerings that ranged from nightclubs and themed bars, spaceship flight simulators, chill hangout spots, clinics to remove space parasites and much much more, 2025 really felt like the year we became a CITY.  Nearly every returning Faction and module upped their game, upgrading their interactive spaces with new ideas and activities. There were several first-time groups too, who created some seriously impressive things.

Did you happen to see the mysterious spaceship along the Main Drag? Maybe you spoke to someone from Kepler Sky Control, or from Tech Sector (like the late Dr. Hayes) while they worked with the Allegiances to uncover the ship’s origins. 

The missions and NeoQuest systems were also expanded in 2025, with participants running FAR more missions than in previous years. We had 793 people join one of three official Allegiances (Endline, Helix, and Reboot Syndicate), and together, they successfully completed 2,682 missions! As an added mission incentive, a new in-world (fake) currency was introduced and handed out, the NeoCred, which became a major part of a lot of bartering and activities, including the Midnight Market.

We even upgraded our Main Stage area, The Core, with a new layout and a giant video screen which allowed 2025's live bands Lau, Solene, Street Cleaner, Megatronix, Starfarer, Night Rider 87, Seersha, Eclectotron, Dolly Spectra, AVGMNT, and our main stage DJs to visually boost each performance to the next level.

And as always, Neotropolis could not happen without the small army of volunteers, staff, and participants who dedicate so much of their time and efforts to creating the future we always wanted. Thank you!

The futuristic city of dreams has vanished into the desert once again, but it will return, bigger and brighter than ever!
Neotropolis will return April 29th-May 3rd 2026, for our 5TH YEAR!

Keep an eye out for updates to official photo galleries and highlight videos. Follow Neotropolis’s social media accounts for news and announcements.

Wasteland Weekend returns for its 16th year, September 30th-October 4th, 2026.

WHEN:
NEOTROPOLIS will return April 29th-May 3rd, 2026

WHO:
Neotropolis is a festival put on by Wasteland World, the people behind Wasteland Weekend and the Wastelanders Ball. Wasteland World has been creating large fully-themed experiences for over fifteen years, pioneering this whole “immersion” thing.
Their signature event, Wasteland Weekend, draws people from all over the world to lose themselves in a make-believe world.

Neotropolis features a fully-immersive themed environment based on an off-world desert outpost, home to various factions, traders, intergalactic corporations, and underworld organizations.
The event runs 24/7 during its four days, and will feature some interactive story elements as well as traditional festival elements.

Things you can expect:

Costumes required for ALL attendees at all times, creating a fully-immersive atmosphere.
A full music and dance area with live bands, DJs, and incredible cyber atmosphere.
A GAMING DOME, with emphasis on retro 8 bit and 16 bit games with solo play and head to head competition along with table top gaming.
Immersive side quests for those who want to dive deeper into the lore and intrigue of the Neotropolis story.
Robot battles
Laser tag combat
Specialty goods and merchandise vendors!
FOOD VENDORS!
Cybercars driving the streets both day and night! (For more about that, read this!)
BYOB bar where you can donate alcohol or soft drink mixers and be served cocktails by our trained bar staff (no alcohol sales to worry about!)
No additional fees for camping (bring a tent, RV, or even an entire themed Faction camp!)
Neotropolis features a lot of activities provided by the Factions themselves, like missions & quests, interactive robots, lounges, VR experiences, 3D scanning, hacking, futuristic “freak shows,” smuggling, and gambling (fake, of course).
ALL of the above (with the exception of certain purchased food and merchandise from vendors) is included FREE with your one admission ticket!
NO additional charges for parking, RVs, camping, official activities, or alcohol (we’re BYOB)!

WHERE:
Neotropolis takes place on a large piece of private land in Edwards, CA in the Mojave Desert. Wasteland Valley is same property that hosts Wasteland Weekend and other large events and film shoots. It’s only a 20 minute drive from stores and services in nearby California City, CA and yet offers a 360 degree view of nothing but desert and hills, with no modern civilization in sight to break your immersion.
For detailed directions, go here.

THIS EVENT IS STRICTLY 18 AND OVER.

Costumes are required for ALL attendees, staff, visiting press, and vendors creating an environment where everyone is a participant rather than just a spectator. How much you want to involve yourself in the world is up to you. Some people come out to have fun and be part of the atmosphere, and some people get fully-involved in the role-play and LARP/lore aspect of the activities.

Find event rules, general info, event maps, merchandise/goods and food vendors, detailed directions to the event, and our social media under “INFORMATION.”
For more about theme (the main themed area and general theme rules) for the event,
please read THE THEME ZONE page.
For more about our costume rules and guidelines, please read the COSTUME RESOURCES page.
For more about FACTIONS (the Neotropolis version of “tribes”/theme camps), please read the FACTIONS page.
For those interested in being a VOLUNTEER please read the VOLUNTEERS page.
For those interested in performing (bands, DJs, dance troupes, sideshow acts, burlesque, and Gogo dancers etc.), head to the  ENTERTAINMENT page to find the application.


For TICKETS, please visit the TICKETS page.

If you are familiar with or came to this site looking for information on Neotropolis Bar, (the pop-up cocktail bar in Los Angeles, CA from 2019) it was a separate entity entirely from Neotropolis the festival (though Wasteland Weekend co-founder Jared Butler was involved in both).
For more about the bar, you can go HERE.

If you can’t find the information you need on this site, or need to contact us, you may email us at:
neotropolisevent@gmail.com