Down the Rabbit Hole at Beyond Wonderland 2023 [FESTIVAL REVIEW]

SAN BERNARDINO, CA – Yet another vibrant fairy tale landed at NOS Events Center last weekend for Beyond Wonderland SoCal 2023. Insonniac has truly mastered creating an immersive portal down the rabbit hole, with over a decade of producing the Alice in Wonderland themed festival, and almost three decades of Nocturnal Wonderland, another similarly themed festival held each September.

Stages, art installations, performers and even some of the attendees were decorated and themed after all of the characters and places from Alice in Wonderland. Every nook and cranny of the festival was filled with something mesmerizing to look at or something bizarre to interact with, making the entire time spent at Beyond feel surreal.

There were countless moments when I was delightfully lost in a new area that I didn’t even know was there or couldn’t pinpoint on the festival map. On Friday night, I was walking from the Queen’s Domain stage to the Madhatter’s Castle stage when a door on the side of the fence opened. Inside the door was a colorful room adorned with neon-colored fur walls. When I stepped in, I found myself in a new realm with a group of people sitting in group therapy with a gecko. Or, rather, the therapist was a man in a full gecko suit.

Saturday night I found myself at a kid’s show for adults on acid. At another unmarked area on the map, the Fungineers sang about aliens and doing the dishes from inside an ice cream truck. Ice cream fairies twerked and fed the crowd acai cones from their nipples. I couldn’t help but wonder, where has this been all my life? Even while making my way through the crowd at the expertly crafted music stages, I found myself in awe as a giant glowing caterpillar and massive butterflies pollinated jumbo flowers over my head.

Amazingly, all of these things really happened while I was 100% sober, which goes to show how much effort the event puts into making you feel like you’re going a bit mad. At some points I forgot I was at a rave, at other points I felt like I was in a song by The Beatles. Sprinkle these once-in-a-lifetime moments on top of luminous, shimmering neon lights, art installations and stage designs, and you get something that truly felt like a dream.

Whoever designed the overall look and feel of this festival are true masters of their craft. It seemed like every square inch of the venue was intentional. Virtually every surface was saturated with psychedelic prints, fabrics, art installations, and/or swirling light projections. To be able to transform NOS Events Center, (an industrial, drab and dull parking lot) into a completely enticing and awe-inspiring fantasyland is no easy feat. No photograph could do justice to how well everything just blended in and fit together perfectly.

My favorite stage to look at was the Caterpillar’s Garden, a dome that had psychedelic tapestries and flowers hanging from the entire ceiling. The main stage, Queen’s Domain, was not as decorated, and the sound seemed muffled in places on Friday night. However, the sound seemed crisper during DJ sets from Alan Walker and Kaskade on Saturday night. The relatively simple stage design of curved LED panels was also greatly amplified by the various performers on stage, one of which was the Queen of Hearts herself. The performers were also masters of their craft and they were magnified on LED satellite screens so you could see them even in the back.

Beyond Wonderland is the largest event I’ve seen at its venue, at least in terms of space. The Madhatter’s Castle stage utilized a racetrack area that is usually closed for other events at NOS like Dreamstate and Escape. Several bass-heavy acts like Midnight Tyrannosaurus and Rusko played at this stage, as well as many other artists of various genres. The setup was like a mini version of Cosmic Meadow stage at EDC Las Vegas, with rainbow lights circumventing the racetrack and a wide, open-air design where attendees could also view the stage from the stands.

The event featured two indoor stages: Sea of Wonder and The Looking Glass. The Looking Glass featured the sounds of Factor93. Sea of Wonder was my second favorite stage design overall. It featured a large glowing neon sailboat, fully decked out with aquatic plants, creatures, and performers. I tend to avoid the indoor stages at NOS, because they are inside large metal warehouses that rattle and diminish sound quality in my opinion. However, I did find myself enjoying sets at Sea of Wonder because of its gorgeous aesthetics.

With a total of six stages, two carnival rides, dozens of art installations, and tons of performers, there was never a dull moment at Beyond. The event also featured a wide selection of food and merchandise vendors, an Oasis tent for people to chill out, VIP sections with various amenities, a Sober Sanctuary tent called Consciousness Group, and even a Narcan training tent called End Overdose (shoutout to harm reduction!).

Overall I was blown away by the world-building, craftsmanship, and attention to detail at Beyond Wonderland. Normally I prefer festivals out in nature or in the countryside because I find them to be an effective escape from industrial life. However, Beyond was the first festival at this type of venue that successfully transported me out of its city setting. If EDC Las Vegas is a megalithic world of overwhelming, mind-blowing synchronized chaos, then Beyond Wonderland SoCal has done a superb job at creating a little sister of a festival that portals ravers into another realm of carefully curated, delightfully dream-like madness.

OUR RATING: 5 / 5 ELECTRIC HEARTS

Written by Colin Eldridge