This was my second year at Imagine (see my previous review), and also the 5 year anniversary for the festival. I had high expectations.  Overall I had an great time because of there  lineup and the awesome people I camped with, but was disappointing in the overall execution of the festival.  Read on…

The festival featured a top-notch lineup including Armin Van Buuren, Bassnectar, Kaskade, Alesso, Galantis, RL Grime, ZedsDead, Adventure Club, Getter, The Glitch Mob, 12th Planet, Bear Grillz, Leah Culver, and more.  Prior to the event I created a Spotify Playlist inspired by the artists called Imagine Ninjas, check it out if you want to hear some of my favorite songs from the artists at the festival.  Leah Culver was particularly cool to see as a headliner: her slot wasn’t nearly as good last year, so it was nice to see her progressing in her career.

My favorite performance was Galantis. You can see a bit of it here in my YouTube live-stream below.  I’m realizing I should have just recorded it it posted it after the fact. The video quality isn’t great because everyone was on their phones.

The Galantis duo are Swedish.  I particularly liked the way they tried to connect with the audience through their banter, including dropping a few  “ya’lls”   The also incorporated some live drums during the buildups which was cool to see.

I was also pleased that lines were much smaller than last year.  In 2017 I spent HOURS in the sun waiting to go from campground to the performance area. This year, I zipped right through organized barricades. I’m not sure if it was run better or if it was under-attended.  Either way, it was a welcome change.

On the downside, this year seemed smaller and less grand than last year. I would have expected more of everything, including performers, given it was billed as the 5 year anniversary celebration.  Gone were the circus acts from last year (motorcycles in cages, balancing acts, etc) and gone was the amazing inflatable hamster-ball in the pool.

Additionally, the volunteers seemed genuinely uninformed and disgruntled.  This was evident when I showed up about 5pm on Friday and people were being turned away from the car camping ground we had paid for and the volunteers really didn’t have any details. We were re-directed to an overflow camping ground where we had to lug our gear several hundred yards to the camp sites.   From some of the conversations I had, not only did the volunteer mismanagement waste their time but it also put some of them in genuinely dangerous situations when they were stationed at isolated locations without any radios.

In the end, the overflow camping worked out really well for me as I wound up with a bunch of students from University of Central Florida who really made the event. Tristan, Kalen, Justin, Sara, Quinn, Ro, Peter, Christian, Natalia, Vinay, Abraham, Mo, Emily, Paige, and Shelby: if you’re reading this THANK YOU for making the event awesome. Please stay in touch!

Will I go back for a third year?  I don’t know yet.  I may be moving in the spring, and if it’s more than a few hours away I’m not sure the event will be worth the effort.

Did you attend? What did you think?