From Flava D, a UK-based garage and grime bass DJ, to Dirty Heads, a reggae rock group from Huntington Beach, California, the 2026 Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival drew musicians from all over the country and the world.
But out of the over 130 artists on the bill this year, many hail from Florida — and say they’re proud to be represented at one of their state’s biggest festivals.
It’s in the name
Miami-based indie psychedelic band The Floridians got its start performing at backyard shows.
The community in the group’s hometown — and across Florida, as its members would come to realize — was welcoming to all musicians.
“Everybody likes to support each other, especially in Miami,” lead singer and guitarist Ian Renaud said. “Even though it’s dominated by electronic music and DJs in that scene, the band scene is actually very strong.”
Originally just known as the singular “Floridian,” Renaud roughed it as a solo artist, not confident in his singing or guitar-playing abilities. He soon realized he wanted his best friends around him, most of whom already had a decade of band experience under their belts.
The five-piece is currently wrapping up recording its debut album, set to release this summer. Keyboardist David Gonzalez produced, mixed and mastered the whole project.
The Floridians opened up the “Here” stage at 3 p.m. on March 20 to a crowd of dancing and bubble-blowing festivalgoers. The band said the set was its most significant festival appearance yet.
Half the songs from its OMF set will be on the record, including “Another Day,” which will be the album’s single. The Floridians’ performance also included tracks like its single “How Are You So Certain” and a cover of “Time to Pretend” by MGMT.
The OMF crew’s friendly, accommodating attitude toward the lesser-known group surprised The Floridians, they said. The band is walking away from its first OMF appearance most grateful for the chance to build community and connect with fellow Florida natives.
“We get to have an opportunity to play and be part of something that represents the South Florida scene,” bassist Tristan Cata said.
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Leo Cattani — the band’s auxiliary keyboardist and guitarist for the day — had played at the festival before. At the first OMF in 2016, then-17-year-old Cattani strode around the festival grounds and backstage areas, playing the trumpet in a marching band.
Among the first to The Floridians’ set were friends Delany Helfrich and Cat Legault. They woke up around 4 a.m. on Thursday and commuted to the festival from Tampa. Legault arrived only second in line to their camping section.
The 26-year-olds had never attended OMF. Only a day into the festival, Helfrich and Legault felt a strong sense of family and inclusivity.
“It’s just nice to have something collective to embody together and not be judgmental,” Legault said. “A group of like-minded individuals that love art and people and getting together to celebrate. It’s nice to see love and share love.”
The Ries Brothers perform at “Here” stage at the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival, Saturday, March 21, 2026, in Okeechobee, Fla.
Baseball or blues
When Charlie Ries was six years old, his mom said he needed to get out of the house over the summer. His options were swimming, tennis and piano, so he chose piano — the only air-conditioned option.
But aside from escaping the heat, Charlie, 30, and his brother Kevin Jordan Ries, 27, were passionate about music early on. They’d come home from school and reach for their guitars more often than their baseball gloves.
The Ries Brothers, as the siblings are now known, are from St. Petersburg and broke into the scene playing covers up and down Gulf Boulevard.
Charlie said his hometown is an underrated melting pot of a music community. The Ries Brothers don’t fit into a normal musical box, he said, and they blend rock, jam band, blues and reggae, the latter being the most prominent genre in St. Pete.
The duo’s multigenre sound isn’t all that sets them apart. Charlie takes on more tasks than the average frontman.
“He’s like, ‘What if I try to play the keyboard bass and drum and sing at the same time?’” Kevin Jordan recalled his brother saying. “We all thought he was crazy, but after a lot of practice, he was able to actually make it work.”
The pair’s unique sound and instrumentation allowed them to open for rock band Chicago as teenagers and collaborate with musicians like Nick Hexam from 311 and The Lumineers, who headlined OMF March 22.
As a kid, Charlie was obsessed with reading festival lineups and always dreamed he’d see his name on one. He said that dream was realized in 2022, when the band made its first OMF appearance.
It was the band’s biggest stage yet. The Ries Brothers opened up the same stage Tame Impala would close that night. It was an experience Charlie said he could get used to.
“We want this to feel normal eventually,” he said, recalling his thoughts after his first OMF set. “That was the goal. We don’t want this to be like a one-shot. We want this to be where we belong.”
The band’s second appearance at OMF marks another milestone for the band. Charlie said it’s the launch point of their year.
The Ries Brothers’ 6 p.m. set at the “Here” stage March 21 saw the duo debut its upgraded show, with a brand-new drum kit, standing kick drum setup and keyboard rig. The performance came ahead of what will be the band’s biggest headline tour and its third album, set to release in June.
Charlie, with a drumstick in one hand and his other on the keyboard, felt filled with Florida pride during his set. To his left, Kevin Jordan shredded on the electric ukulele and used a baseball bat as a guitar slide.
Steller DJs at the “Aquachobee” stage at the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival Sunday, March 22, 2026, in Okeechobee, Fla.
Beats on the beach
Steller always knew she wanted to pursue music, but the “genesis” of her love for EDM came in high school.
Going to raves made the West Palm Beach-based DJ and producer fall in love with electronic music. The scene was welcoming and accepting, much like OMF, a festival she has attended since year one.
Once an audio engineering student at Florida Atlantic University, Steller is now embarking on her “Shifting The Lens” tour, which runs through September and coincides with the release of her fourth EP. Her set the afternoon of March 22 kicked off the tour and featured three out of the EP’s four tracks.
Steller, donning a signature Grateful Dead tie-dye T-shirt, took the “Aquachobee” stage at 3:50 p.m. She performed to hundreds of festivalgoers, who were dressed like summertime beach bums but behaved like midnight ravers.
Her hourlong set was sunny and sweaty, unlike Steller’s first performance at the festival in 2023. The DJ’s debut OMF set was riddled with bad weather and technical difficulties. Her set was cut short at 20 minutes. Steller was grateful regardless.
But performing along the festival’s beach wasn’t the only way Steller was involved with OMF this year. Earlier that day, she hosted a postcard-making event in partnership with the nonprofit To Write Love on Her Arms. The organization finds help for and gives hope to those struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.
At the workshop, people decorated postcards for their loved ones to be shipped out by the OMF crew. The event embodied cultivating community, a goal Steller said she and her music prioritize, too.
Steller’s “Shifting The Lens” EP revolves around connection and turning negative experiences into positive ones, she said. She wants people to feel the love she had felt at high school raves and all throughout her time attending OMF.
“I want to be an advocate for mental health awareness and trying to break the stigma around that,” she said. “I just want to create a really uplifting community where people feel kind of like what I first felt when I was going to shows, like accepted and just so much love.”
Contact Isabel Kraby at ikraby@alligator.org. Follow her on X @isabelgkraby.
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Isabel is the The Alligator’s Spring 2026 music reporter. She is a junior studying journalism at UF and is from Ormond Beach, FL. In her spare time, she loves going to concerts, crafting and practicing guitar.