ANAHEIM, Calif. — After a successful first year in 2019, the Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival will finally return to the Port of San Diego, Nov. 18-20.
It was postponed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Festival producer Paul Thornton of TAG Presents said it has been a whirlwind to bring the 2022 installment of the three-day event to the masses amid cost increases and lineup changes, but he feels good about Wonderfront’s second year.
“It’s been a wild ride,” he said during a recent phone interview. “We’re excited it’s happening, we’re excited that we’re back and really we’ve got a great lineup and sponsors that have stepped in to bring some great activations. Instead of year two, it really feels like year 1.5. We lost some momentum from 2019, as you do anytime you’re sort of out of sight and out of mind, but we’re hitting it hard in 2022 and people are excited about it.”
The festival, which takes place across multiple stages scattered throughout the Port of San Diego — including Embarcadero Marina Park North, Seaport Village and Rucco Park — will see sets from Zac Brown Band, Young the Giant, Earthgang, Cam, Saint Motel and more on Friday, Nov. 18; Kings of Leon, G-Eazy, Echosmith, Lauren Daigle, J Boog and more on Saturday, Nov. 19; and Gwen Stefani, School Boy Q, Fuerza De Tijuana, Thundercat and Cage the Elephant and more on Sunday, Nov. 20.
“Our lineup is really a combination of three years of booking in one,” Thornton said. The event had performers booked for 2020, which rolled them over to 2021. After last year’s event was officially postponed due to the rise in the delta variant of COVID-19, it became a bit more of a free-for-all as more artists hit the road to make up for lost time and revenue.
“Our lineup now is a little more eclectic than I’d say our lineup would be going forward,” he added.
From the start, Thornton said the idea behind Wonderfont would be to highlight new emerging artists or career performers that have current music out.
“What this was meant to be was a place to experience new music because that’s what festivals are for,” he said. “We got a little bit away from that this year, but there’s a lot to be excited about. Quinn XCII has exploded this year and so has EarthGang. Noah Cyrus has taken off, too, and Thundercat is incredible and I think people will go nuts for that. Some of the acts that I booked on smaller stages are popping too, like The Driver Era and The Brook & the Bluff.”
The footprint of the festival shrank this year as Thornton said patrons in 2019 voiced concerns over not being able to catch acts performing on the furthest stages. He said about 90 percent of the crowd ended up in the middle, where producers have now focused the bulk of their efforts. Guests will still be able to duck in and out to enjoy the shops and restaurants along the port and walk the Promenade between venues and take pedicabs and the Old Town Trolleys to get from stage to stage. They can even hop on the Spirit of San Diego ship, equipped with bars and live acts, at the 5th Avenue Landing for 45-minute cruises of the harbor.
They have also added a silent disco in Ruocco Park, the acoustic Sugarshack Sessions stage at Embarcadero North and the immersive EDM Immerxion stage in Seaport Village.
“The silent disco has a really cool bar setup and the Sugarshack stage is where you’ll see some of the performing artists and some surprise guests play three to five acoustic versions of their songs and then they’ll do like a Q&A session right there and talk about how those songs came to be or who influenced their music,” he said. “For the EDM stage, we wanted to create this immersive activation where the video screens are all around you and there’s this whole light show. The acts we’ve booked have been working with us to create these video light shows that are special to just this one performance and it’s really going to be a unique experience.”
Thornton said there will also be plenty of surprising elements as they’ve kept certain activities under wraps for guests to stumble upon as they explore the grounds.
“I kind of follow this philosophy that I refer to as ‘bump into the brand,’” he explained. “I feel like people have a different affinity for something when they find it out of the blue rather than when you create an expectation for everything. That’s going to happen at Wonderfront this year. It’s like going to a movie when you’ve read the book; the movie is never as good, right? So, there are a handful of things that will be out there for people to find on their own and that’s what we’ll do every year to keep it fresh and shake things up.”
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WONDERFRONT FESTIVAL
With: Zac Brown Band, Young The Giant, Cam, Kings of Leon, G-Eazy, Echosmith, Gwen Stefani, Cage the Elephant, Schoolboy Q and more.
When: 2:30-10 p.m. Nov. 18; Noon-10 p.m. Nov. 19-20
Where: Port of San Diego in multiple locations including Embarcadero Marina Park North, Seaport Village, Ruocco Park and Broadway Port Pier.
Tickets: $139 single-day general admission pass; $499 single-day VIP pass; $299 three-day general admission passes; $523 three-day Wonder Passes; $1,399 three-day VIP passes. Tickets are available at wonderfrontfestival.com. All two-day pass options are sold out.
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