Black Book Records boss and one of house music's most reliable groove engineers — bassline-first tech house that fills every dancefloor it touches.
Breakaway Carolina 2026 Lineup
Breakaway's biggest stop — two September nights of house and bass at zMAX Dragway outside Charlotte, with Chris Lake and Tiësto splitting the headline duties.
About Breakaway Carolina 2026
Breakaway is a touring festival brand that plays over a dozen U.S. cities a year, and Carolina is its largest stop: two days at zMAX Dragway on the Charlotte Motor Speedway grounds in Concord, with house on one shoulder and bass on the other. The 2026 edition splits its marquee names by night — Chris Lake closing Friday, Tiësto closing Saturday.
Friday leans harder into bass and club heat — Kettama, Hamdi, Daily Bread, What So Not — while Saturday stacks the house end with Cloonee going back-to-back with Chris Lorenzo, plus Cassian, J. Worra and Westend. Three b2b sets are printed on the admat itself, which tells you something about how this festival thinks about pacing.
The 2026 build-out is five stages, including a Beatport Live stage (The Block) and a silent disco, and the promoter says the main stage more than doubles in width this year. Lineups are printed A-Z per day, so day assignments are official even though set times aren't out yet.
Expect house, dance, bass and tech-house across 36 acts.
Breakaway Carolina 2026 lineup: all 36 acts
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre — save anything straight to your schedule.Browse all 36 acts →
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre — save anything straight to your schedule.
The elder statesman of big-tent dance music — trance godfather turned arena-house fixture, still detonating 'The Business'-sized hooks three decades in.
Brazilian house phenom — young, relentless, and groove-first, riding the country's house wave onto festival main stages worldwide.
Bonnie X Clyde
Duo whose calling card is live pop vocals over heavyweight drops — melodic bass with a frontwoman, not just a drop reel.
Cassian
Australian melodic house from deep inside RÜFÜS DU SOL's orbit — polished, emotive, engineered for the sunset slot.
Chasewest B2B Discip
Two rising house names sharing one booth, trading off back-to-back for the whole set.
Cloonee B2B Chris Lorenzo
Two UK house heavyweights in one booth — Cloonee's rolling tech house against Chris Lorenzo's swaggering bass house.
Dusty, hip-hop-rooted electro-soul that would sound at home on a boom-bap record if you slowed it down — Atlanta sample-craft in the Pretty Lights lineage.
Darby
Distant Matter
Dreya V B2B Cole Knight
A shared back-to-back set — Dreya V and Cole Knight trading records the whole way through.
Heavy, riddim-leaning dubstep built for the low end and not much else.
UK bass with a dancehall bounce — the sound of a soundsystem set rather than a festival drop, 'Skanka' the breakout.
J. Worra
Chicago-raised tech house with the city's DNA intact — chunky, swinging grooves with a classic house vocal streak.
Jay Pryor
Dublin producer working the bright end of dance music — pop-sized hooks built onto house frames.
Bass music with metal's aggression baked in — heavy, dark, and increasingly vocal-led, Boise drops with blast-furnace weight.
Irish rave-house heat — big-room energy with underground credentials, breakbeats and pianos at full sprint, Galway-to-warehouse momentum fully underway.
KLO
Koastle (DJ Set)
Melodic, hook-first electronic that borrows from house and bass alike — here as a DJ set.
Brothers making breezy, jazz-flecked bedroom pop — soft chords, shuffling drums, and a sun-warmed melancholy built for headphones and golden hour.
MLE
nimino (DJ Set)
Sample-soul house on the rise — warm, chopped-vocal grooves with a headphone producer's detail, here in DJ-set form.
Nitepunk
Sound-design-first bass — glitchy, precise and genre-fluid, the kind of set that exists to show off what a sound system can actually do.
Rad Cat
Remix-honed melodic dance from San Diego — bright, poppy leads with festival-sized polish.
Dutch producer who plays guitar over his own melodic bass music — earnest in a genre that often isn't, sincerity as the signature.
Starjunk 95
SVDKO
UK bass house with garage in its bones — rolling, swung and bass-forward.
UK producer whose rhythmically intricate trap sounds like nobody else's — 'Do You?' swagger with global percussion baked in.
NYC tech house — punchy, playful peak-time tools with remix-radar ubiquity, reliability with personality.
What So Not
Australian bass mainstay — a project that helped define future trap, still swinging between festival-sized drops and moodier, more experimental cuts.
Z3lla
Bummy
Johnny!
Pharrö
Thrillbill
The headliners
- Chris Lake — Black Book Records boss and one of house music's most reliable groove engineers — bassline-first tech house that fills every dancefloor it touches.
- Tiësto — The elder statesman of big-tent dance music — trance godfather turned arena-house fixture, still detonating 'The Business'-sized hooks three decades in.
Up-and-comers to catch early
- Beltran — Brazilian tech house's fastest riser — a Beatport-chart breakout with a groove-first, gleefully unconventional style.
- Hamdi — UK bass's current breakout — dancehall bounce and soundsystem weight that jumped from the underground to main stages.
- nimino (DJ Set) — London producer whose warm, chopped-soul house edits are quietly everywhere — catch him before the rooms get bigger.
- Westend — NYC tech house riser — punchy, playful peak-time tools that have been all over the big rooms this year.
Other acts worth planning around
- Cloonee B2B Chris Lorenzo — The b2b of the weekend on paper — two UK house heavyweights sharing one booth on Saturday.
- Kettama — Friday's rave-house peak — big-room energy with underground credentials, and one of the hottest names in house right now.
- What So Not — Friday's experimental edge — the Australian project that helped define future trap.
- TroyBoi — Saturday's rhythm workout — intricate, percussive trap that sounds like nobody else on the bill.
- Daily Bread — The bill's electro-soul outlier — dusty, hip-hop-rooted grooves as a change of pace between DJ sets.
The lineup by day
- Friday, September 25: Chris Lake, Beltran, Chasewest B2B Discip, Daily Bread, Darby, Dreya V B2B Cole Knight + 13 more
- Saturday, September 26: Tiësto, Bonnie X Clyde, Cassian, Cloonee B2B Chris Lorenzo, Distant Matter, J. Worra + 11 more
Breakaway Carolina 2026 lineup FAQ
When is Breakaway Carolina 2026?
September 25–26, 2026 — Friday and Saturday.
Where is Breakaway Carolina held?
zMAX Dragway at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, NC, just outside Charlotte.
Who is headlining?
Chris Lake tops Friday's bill and Tiësto tops Saturday's.
How many acts are playing?
36 billed sets across two days — three of them b2b sets, so 39 artists in all.
Are day-by-day lineups published?
Yes — the lineup is printed A-Z per day, and every act's day is shown on this page. Set times aren't out yet.
How do I work out which acts I'd like?
Type a few artists you already love into the search at the top of this page and you'll get ranked matches from this lineup, with reasons.
Going to Breakaway Carolina 2026? Get tickets ↗
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