Glen Helen’s final music festival, Nocturnal Wonderland 2019, has come and gone leaving many of us in a bittersweet state; reminiscing about all the amazing memories made at the venue over the years. Thankfully, Insomniac made sure to go above and beyond to ensure that the last run was a memorable one.
Friday started just right, we arrived and got a perfect shady camping spot right under thick trees, set up camp and met our awesome neighbors before getting ready to go find our other friends and head to the Camp Full Moon Pre-Party with the Parliament Art Car. We were blessed with beats from Champagne Drip, Dr. Fresch, Saymyname, Schade, and Franklin Watts. After the music stopped we wandered back to hang out at camp with our friends.
Saturday was a scorcher, the sun was out and aggressive early so it was perfect to cool off at the water park and lay low until we were ready to go into the festival. We spent a lot of our first hours wandering around to check it all out and see what was different from previous years, and checked out vendors, while meeting up with friends and grabbing drinks before heading up the hill for some bass at Labyrinth. Champagne Drip B2B Zeke Beats set the tone for the bass filled night. We caught bangers from Gentlemans Club, Ganja White Night, Eprom, and our favorite set of the night was Zeds Dead; they brought the heat with iconic classics remixed flawlessly into heavy hitters. Of course, we had to squeeze in some house music, so we wandered down the hill to Sunken Garden, our favorite stage design by Drift for the last three years, where we wiggled to the sounds of Kendoll and Sage Armstrong.
Sunday was much cooler, after some much needed rest we made breakfast and cleaned up our camp before meeting up with our new friends and heading into the festival. We started the night with Dr. Fresch and Chris Lorenzo while watching the beautiful cotton candy colored sunset. Shortly after, we threw ourselves into some amazing bass with G Jones and got lost in Peekaboo while he dropped a plethora of favorites, including his collab with Bassnectar and some unreleased treats. We had to get our Drum N Bass fix with Mat Zo on Parliament Art Car before closing out the night inside with a killer set by Zomboy, who gave us one last chance to get out the rest of our energy.
The silent disco was packed Sunday night, which made it hard to get in and out, as well as finding headphones. We decided to check out what Camp OG was up to instead, and turned out that was the spot to be! We had a blast listening to the great music while checking out UV lit art and meeting so many awesome people.
The feels hit home when we saw the sun start to rise,
knowing we would soon be packing up and saying goodbye,
to this place that brought us so much joy year after year,
it was hard not to shed a tear.
We’re so grateful for the many amazing moments had this year, and previous years, at Nocturnal Wonderland, and we’re incredibly excited to see where the wind will take Nocturnal for 2020. Pasquale has confirmed that camping will still be an option, and they will be keeping the nature backdrop! YAY!!
See you next year for a whole new adventure!
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