Floating Points’ Sunflower Sound System is Making its Way to Head Trip

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Set for its North American premiere at Head Trip, Floating Points’ custom-made rig offers a one-of-a-kind listening experience.

In just a few short weeks, music fans will once again make the pilgrimage to Indio, California. This time, it’s not for Coachella, which is held in April, but for Goldenvoice’s Head Trip, a one-time-only EDM event that features some of the leading voices in dance music. On October 10-11, Calvin Harris, Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex, and many more will perform at the Polo Fields, a site near and dear to music history.

In keeping with that tradition, Sam Shepard aka Floating Points is presenting his custom-made Sunflower Sound System for the first time in North America. The rig, which Shepard has been continuously working on for more than a decade, is a two-by-ten-stack audio system inspired by the many speaker setups he’s played on throughout the years.

At your standard music festival, PA systems are anchored to face the crowd. They’re typically designed to project sound at long distances and provide consistent audio coverage for thousands of people. Although these rigs are sophisticated in their own way, Sunflower challenges how we experience music through its design, layout, and technology.

Since its debut in 2024, the Sunflower system has appeared at just a small number of events. At Glastonbury last year, it was installed in a greenhouse-like dome. In this environment, the Sunflower setup placed enormous stacks of speakers at different points in the room with circular panels (acoustic treatment) and tweeters (speakers that focus on high frequencies) hanging from the ceiling.

@floatingpoints

sunflower update! Testing different components and redesigned the bass cabinet.. We are building 8 of these giant 4.5m stacks..now where to run them up?!

#ElectronicMusic #customsoundsystem #soundsystemculture #bespokeaudio #speakerdesign #highfidelitysound #whp ♬ original sound – floatingpoints

Each stack of the Sunflower rig is made up of four parts that handle different sections of the audio spectrum — lows, low-mids, mid-highs, and highs — so that from the moment you walk onto the dancefloor, you are immersed in a rich bath of sound.

In footage of the Glastonbury installation, the Sunflower gave the impression of a large-scale art sculpture. Its yellow plywood panels were arranged in a towering, symmetrical formation, and the colors bounced such a wide-reaching warmth that videos of the structure left you awestruck.

Shepard has said that he wants musicians to view the Sunflower setup not just as a speaker system but as “an instrument,” one that has “fun tricks up its sleeve.” There’s no word yet on who exactly is going to be using the rig in the desert, but he said shortly after the initial Head Trip announcement that the lineup will include himself and “some friends.” What is certain is that the Sunflower Sound System, festival layout, and environment will make it a one-of-a-kind experience one you don’t want to miss.