Jake West Beyond Wonderland 2023

Beyond Wonderland Takes Visitors Down the Rabbit Hole

If you’re looking for the strangest, most immersive and colorful EDM festival in the country, Beyond Wonderland will take you to places you never could have imagined. With five stages and over 80 different artists featuring some of the hottest names in the game, Beyond Wonderland goes above and beyond, giving you a dreamlike, surreal experience unlike anything else you’ve ever known.

This year, the festival took place from March 24-25, 2023, with two-day tickets starting at around $160. It’s a great deal for the kind of immersive, visual-rich, mesmerizing world-class entertainment that attendees were thrust into. The NOS event center in San Bernardino was transformed for the weekend into a truly Wonderland-esque playground where people could let loose and let their inner Mad Hatter out for a couple of days.

The Stages

Beyond Wonderland takes its theme seriously, with five incredible stages decked out in different themes. This year, the stages were:

• Queen’s Domain
• Mad Hatter’s Castle
• Caterpillar’s Garden
• Cheshire Woods
• The Looking Glass

In between these stages was a plethora of sights and sounds, with dancers, carnival troupes, interactive visual decorations, food and drink vendors, and costumed partygoers everywhere you turned. The event is hosted by veterans in the scene Insomniac, who have plenty of experience putting on a festival that everyone can enjoy and will remember fondly. 

This is really an art show or performance piece masquerading as a festival, with an entire interactive story being told throughout. Not surprisingly, it mirrors the tale of Alice journeying through wonderland, although you’ll have to bring your own hookah. With an entire cast of characters holding court, you’ll have an immersive experience and become the character of your own show for two days.  

Artists to Watch For

Beyond Wonderland had a massive lineup this year, with over 80 different artists, which is more than Insomniac’s usual number. This presented a wide variety of sounds and genres, although the focus was on techno, trance, house, hip-hop, and rap, as per usual. With the five different stages to choose from, there was always a different sound ranging from the eclectic to classic EDM festival techno. 

This year, the two biggest names at Beyond Wonderland were Kaskade and Tiësto.

Kaskade

Kaskade, real name Ryan Raddon, is a legendary DJ and producer that has been named “America’s Best DJ” several years in a row. His two collaborations with Deadmau5, “Move For Me” and “I Remember” catapulted him to worldwide stardom and fame, and his singles and records since then have managed to top the charts multiple times. 

Tiësto

Tiësto is one of the most recognizable and famous DJs to ever live, widely regarded as the “Godfather of EDM”. Without him, the scene would be unrecognizable to current fans, and the list of his accomplishments is too long for one article to list. He dropped an incredible set at Beyond Wonderland on the 24th before immediately performing at Ultra Miami on the 25th.

Along with these two legends, some of the other top artists this year were:

• AC Slater
• Excision
• Flosstradamus
• Dillon Francis
• Zomboy
• Gene Farris
• Slushii

Back to Wonderland

If you missed this year’s event, you’ll definitely want to catch it next time. Beyond Wonderland is an audiovisual smorgasbord like nothing else, and it’s a dreamlike experience that has the power to transport you out of this world and into another.  

Insomniac goes above and beyond to prioritize the fan experience at its festivals. Founder Pasquale Rotella attempts to emulate such crowd-driven events as Burning Man, and with plenty of experience running major festivals like his Electric Daisy Carnival, these events are a smash hit every time. Get your tickets early next year and don’t miss it!