On Saturday, I made sure to try and catch everyone from Spag Heddy to Alesso, though admittedly I spent all of ten minutes at Cheshire Woods. Stage design doesn’t always have to be 100% original, but this was a little too similar for my own tastes.Īs for the artists I saw, some unfortunate circumstances outside of Insomniac’s or my own control prevented me from attending the event on Friday. Unfortunately, the set up resembled something HARD had already done for Day Of The Dead back in 2013. Two other towers were placed farther back to add depth and variety to the visuals, which they accomplished beautifully. Outer Realm was an impressive stage, with three concentric LED rings around a main LED panel backing the stage. Unfortunately, if you were watching dead on, the effect was lost completely. The LED panels at different depths was also a nice touch if you were viewing it from an angle.
Queen’s Domain still featured water fountains and plenty of pyro, though it seemed a little stale and characterless without any of the typical owl imagery adorning it. Rotella also mentioned to us that the stages this year would be a little bigger in their production, though a little less “scenic,” as he put it. The only issue came from Queen’s Domain if you were trying to enjoy the Upside-Down Room, an area which embodied its name through and through. “Some headliners have complained that the stages are too spread out,” said Rotella, “so we’re trying to bring things in a little tighter.” Sound bleed is an obvious concern when bringing stages closer together, but it was mostly negligible. There were three main stages at Beyond Wonderland this year: Queen’s Domain, the main stage Outer Realm, which hosted Dreamstate on Friday and Bassrush on Saturday and Cheshire Woods, a tented area that played home to all manners of classic house beats.Ĭompared to Nocturnal Wonderland, the last Insomniac event held at the San Manuel Amphitheater & Grounds, the layout was much more tightly spaced, and the productions were just a tad smaller. They even had a surprise for some attendees like myself.Īnd not just moon bounces, but also ball pits! Getting to the venue early in the day was the perfect opportunity to have some fun before the crowd started rolling in, and it became nearly impossible – or at least, an inefficient use of time – to partake in those small, but important additions. For this year, Insomniac decided to go all out with their venue decorations, adorning every possible surface with strings of lights, or art cars, or traveling performers weaving in and out of the crowd. So much time is sometimes spent on the lineup or the marketing that the actual vibe of the event gets left behind. It’s a simple goal, but one that is so commonly lost on other festivals. “The idea is to create an experience,” said Pasquale Rotella in our phone interview with him. It was nice to see a festival brand as large as Insomniac taking the lineup to a more musically focused place. However, the festival’s lineup looked a bit different than what someone might expect from an Insomniac event rather than Hardwell, Tiesto, Martin Garrix, Armin van Buuren or any other “top tier” DJ, Insomniac opted for Dada Life and Deorro to close out the main stage on Friday and Saturday, respectively. This year’s Beyond Wonderland featured tons of good music, so I was in luck. Really though, I think I’m always just ready to hear good music.
It’s even possible that my past experiences are coloring my current expectations. Perhaps it’s because of the decorations adorning every inch of the festival maybe it’s the people themselves, dressed up for the occasion. Every time I walk into an Insomniac festival, I always have the same feelings of wonderment and childlike, carefree abandon.
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