This year has ushered in a phenomenon of nostalgia for 2016, from music to aesthetics. In fact, Saturday’s daytime Dillo Day headliner, Daya, released her most popular songs, “Sit Still, Look Pretty” and “Don’t Let Me Down” that year. But how exactly has the festival evolved since then?
The Daily compared the performers from Dillo Day’s past decade, using measurements such as Spotify monthly listeners and collaborations.
Although most performers at Dillo Day have been American, there is a variety of regional representation among artists.
Chicago and New York are tied for the cities with the most Dillo Day performers since 2016, with a dozen each.
While Los Angeles itself only produced five, including this year’s headliner, Malcolm Todd, Southern California at large has strong connections with the festival. Thirteen Dillo Day performers in the last decade have hailed from Los Angeles County alone.
Artists from 20 states and Washington, D.C. have all performed at Dillo Day since 2016, as well as Ontario and Quebec.
Of the international artists who have recently performed at Dillo Day, most are concentrated in the United Kingdom, including 2017 performer Little Simz, 2021 performer beabadoobee, 2024 performer Bakar and 2025 performer nimino, all from London.
Many artists were born in a different location than the one listed, but The Daily’s analysis considers the artist’s hometown to be the place where they spent most of their time growing up, based on the information available. 2021 performer KAYTRANADA was born in Haiti but grew up in Canada and beabadoobee was born in the Philippines but grew up in the United Kingdom, for example.
Palestinian artist Lana Lubany is set to become the first Arab artist to perform at Dillo Day on Saturday.
Indie pop artist Dominic Fike, who performed in 2022, has the most current monthly Spotify listeners out of all Dillo Day performers since 2016 at 63 million — a population roughly 6,000 times larger than the festival’s attendance last year.
In terms of genre, Fike and his fellow pop artists have the most collective monthly listeners at 226 million, followed by hip-hop and rap in second with 186 million. Over the last decade, the festival featured 38 hip-hop and rap artists and only 13 pop artists. R&B artist Daniel Caesar, who performed in 2018, has the second-most monthly listeners at 44 million and 2021 performer Playboi Carti has the third-most at 42 million, followed closely by 2022 performer Sean Kingston at 41 million.
More than half of the total monthly Spotify listeners for all of the artists went to just eight: Fike, Caesar, Carti, Kingston, 2024 performer Swae Lee, 2025 performer Ravyn Lenae, 2022 performer Tinashe and 2025 performer Natasha Bedingfield, in order of popularity.
There are 10 rock artists, but their listeners represent just more than 6% of the total. Electronic and dance artists made up about 20% of all artists, but they had less than 20% of the listeners of the next largest category, R&B and soul, alone.
While Dillo Day has featured many prolific headliners, A$AP Ferg, who performed in 2015 and 2019, is the only one in the past decade who actually performed within two years of his highest position on the Billboard music chart, with “Move Ya Hips” peaking at No. 19 about eight months after his 2019 performance.
This chart only depicts artists whose chart performance is viewable on the Billboard website, which excludes 2020 performer Rico Nasty and 2026 performer Malcolm Todd.
Bedingfield has by far the largest gap between her charting peak and performance, taking the stage at NU nearly two full decades after “Unwritten” peaked at No. 5 on Billboard in 2006.
Most of the other artists performed between 1,000 and 3,000 days away from their Billboard peak.
2016 performer ScHoolboy Q, 2017 performer MGMT, 2018 performer Young the Giant, 2023 performer Offset, Swae Lee and Bedingfield all performed at Dillo Day after their Billboard peak, while A$AP Ferg, Playboi Carti and Fike performed before.
Many artists who have performed at Dillo Day have collaborated with each other. Based on officially released features and live performances, there are at least 41 connections between artists who have performed at the festival since 2016 — especially between rappers.
While numerous collaborations exist between hip hop and rap artists and artists in other genres, connections between those other genres are minimal outside of some between R&B and soul artists and pop performers.
A$AP Ferg has the most collaborations with artists at eight, ScHoolboy Q follows with six and 2016 performer Anderson .Paak has five.
Only artists who have officially collaborated with other artists who have performed at Dillo Day since 2016 are included in The Daily’s analysis, which limits it to 37 of the 96 total listed on the Mayfest website.
From 2016 to 2025, the hourly weather on Dillo Day has ranged from an overall low of 48 degrees Fahrenheit in 2023 to an overall high of 88 degrees in 2021.
Overall, the temperature has averaged around 64 degrees, with the lowest daily average being 55 degrees in 2017 and the highest being 79 degrees in 2021.
The overall average peak temperature reported was at 3:21 p.m., but peaks have ranged from 62 degrees at 8:51 a.m. in 2022 to 64 degrees at 6:51 p.m. in 2017.
As of 6 p.m. Thursday, Weather Underground’s forecast for Saturday includes a high temperature of 81 degrees from around 3 to 5 p.m. and a low of 62 degrees around 6 a.m., with a 42% chance of scattered thunderstorms in the early morning until 6 a.m.
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— By the Numbers: 53 years of Dillo Day performers and their careers
