How San Diego's Wonderfront plans to stand out in a repetitive festival crowd
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Wonderfront 2024 on Embarcadero North. Photo courtesy Wonderfront
The Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival takes over the downtown waterfront this weekend, drawing tens of thousands of people over three days to an event that is building an identity in year four.
The intrigue: In a festival space where lineups increasingly look interchangeable, Wonderfront is aiming to establish itself as a tastemaker among its peers, according to Paul Thornton, founder and executive producer.
- "To us, that means a year later, you're walking around saying "Oh my god, I saw that artist when they were just breaking through, and now they're huge," he told Axios.
What they're saying: "We really dig in, and figure out where things are going so we can be ahead of it," he said. "So many other festivals are just looking at Tik Tok trends and booking based on that."
Case in point: Rapper Lil Baby played Wonderfront in 2019, a year before his 2020 album "My Turn" went quadruple platinum and received two Grammy nominations.
- Thornton points to acts like country star Lainey Wilson in 2022 and indie-rock band Mt. Joy in 2024, who skyrocketed to bigger festival payouts shortly after he booked them.
- "When our poster drops, we get big managers getting mad at us that they can't get more bands on," Thornton said.
State of play: More than 80 acts will perform on five stages and in an expanded DJ tent area. The festival is again organized with complementary genres each day.
- Friday's lineup is dance and hip hop-heavy, Saturday is the rock, funk, soul and indie day, and Sunday bills itself as "chill vibes and iconic rock."
Zoom in: That tilts the event to one-day ticket buyers, which comes with a trade off.
- It means finding more people to sell tickets to, but people going to only one day get in a bit earlier, and spend more on merch and concessions.
- Last year, 85% of Wonderfont attendees bought one-day tickets. This year it's around 68% one-day buyers, Thornton said.
Between the lines: Based on the zip codes attached to credit card purchases, this year's event is about 50-50 between locals and out-of-towners, while previous years brought in fewer travelers.
- But drawing in people to stay at hotel stays is necessary for Wonderfront, which again received $250,000 from the city's tourism and marketing district.
Ticket sales for Friday are close to the pace last year, when it sold out, a bit ahead for Saturday and well ahead of Sunday, which suffered from landing on Mother's Day, Thornton said.
The bottom line: "We are trying to stay unique, because that's what a music festival is supposed to be," Thornton said.
- "We're building a crowd that understands we are doing the job to find emerging artists, not just attaching ourselves to the big name at the moment," he said.
Read more: Insider's guide to Wonderfront 2025