*Featured Cover Photo Credit: Worlds Away Festival / LIZ (@CAPTURESBY.LIZ)
The Worlds Away Festival, which occurred on Oct. 12, 2024 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, CA, was a memorable experience since it was the first dance/electronic music festival that took place in Monterey, which is located on this state’s Central Coast. The sponsors of Worlds Away Festival are a very innovative lifestyle platform and experience curator called Pendulum and an up-and-coming vodka brand called NEFT Vodka.
What makes this festival also unforgettable is that it includes interactive augmented reality (AR) activations that support festival attendees with participating in an environment that has tons of technological wonders that are compatible for all ages. Here is the review of Worlds Away Festival at Monterey County Fairgrounds, an event that blends art, music, and technology in one magnificent world, or even galaxy, of illumination that celebrates the spirit of the Monterrey Pop Festival that occurred in 1967.
Worlds Away provided entertainment that contained interactive technology that allow fans to fully immerse themselves in the festival
The festival organizers teamed up with AR platform Augmento as the festival’s key Title Tech Sponsor, “Van Gogh Experience” creator Normal Studio, Web3 & NFC Chip experts Endstate, and design firm Vita Motus to create groundbreaking and interactive technology based activations. In fact, the festival’s tech partners put forth these activations as ingenious installations that may become very common in various music festivals globally as event organizing technology becomes more advanced as time progresses. These activations definitely were a success in getting the attendees (or “TRAVELERS” since they are attending the Worlds Away Festival) to enjoy immersing themselves alongside their fellow friends, family members, and like-minded dance/electronic music fans.
The activations were a digital graffiti wall, 3-D maps (especially the interactive AR map that attendees could view after they download the official Augmento app), virtual merchandise and food vender Portals that satisfied the attendees who want to have the full experience, especially a part of the experience that they can’t wait to bring back for their fans and family to enjoy as well. One very exciting activity that the “TRAVELERS” got to partake in was an AR scavenger hunt, in which they would discover fascinating items that are hidden throughout the Monterey County Fairgrounds.
Various fun activities and booths that attendees got to enjoy
There were also vendors that provided great memorabilia and other awesome forms of art, especially the glitter art booth. One particular moment stood out while passing by the glitter art booth was when a beautiful attendee sat patiently as the glitter artist put on some glitter around her eyes, making her stand out like a one-of-a-kind, adventurous free spirit who is enjoying the time of her life at the festival. Also, another notable sight at the Fairgrounds was the local famous attraction, the Ferris Wheel that lit up the atmosphere, making it feel like one is at Electric Daisy Festival.
Headlining artists brought out unforgettable memories in Monterey
The artists at the first-ever Worlds Away Festival were Ayokay, Lost Kings, Sam Feldt, R3HAB, Tiësto, Lauv, and The Chainsmokers. All of the artists there at Worlds Away put on their unique and phenomenal sets that for sure brought out those wonderful breezy vibes to an already-electric atmosphere.
Tiësto, for example, played classic hits such as ‘Adagio For Strings’ and ‘Traffic’ and also recent top bangers such as ‘The Business’ and ’10:35′, and his set proved that anywhere the Dutch dance/electronic music legend goes, he will always throw down a world-class performance. As for the final headliner, The Chainsmokers, the duo provided the feels with their dreamy and upbeat tracks that remain popular for their beloved fans over the past decade such as ‘#SELFIE’, ‘Closer’, ‘Something Just Like This’, and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’.
Ro Sahebi, Worlds Away Founder and Executive Producer, talks about why Monterey is the perfect place for the festival
“There’s a few reasons why this place was perfect and is part of the narrative of Worlds Away. We needed to find a place in California, but California is saturated with music festivals; where we live in Los Angeles, down to San Diego, and then you come up here in San Francisco, it’s saturated. We saw an opportunity in Monterey, we found a venue in Monterey, and as we did the research on the venue, we discovered the significance of this place.
And what we’re trying to do, Monterey complements the narrative of Worlds Away, it just does. We wanted to reinvent the music festival, we wanted to create an experience. This venue is where the Monterey International Pop happened in 1967 with Jimi Hendrix, Mamas and Papas, a ton more, for three days.”
Festival Director Nelson Diaz discusses how the festival inspires attendees with the beautiful combination of tech, music, and art
“I think one of the key components is expanding the horizons on how tech influences music and art and how we can create this experience for people to enjoy music in different ways. From immersive rooms to augmented reality scavenger hunts to connective tissue merch to, you know, everything in between. For us, it’s all about the experience and for me, it’s about the in-between. It’s not about the artists performing, it’s about the in-between times between those artists, like what will they remember from their experiences on location.
Everyone’s going to remember them bouncing themselves up and down during Tiësto, but what happened before, the in-between moments. So for me, like I hope that’s what people remember so then when they come back next year they’re like, ‘oh my god, we had so much fun in the Lumina Gardens’, like that’s big for me.”
Ayokay shares his thoughts about performing at the festival
“I think it’s been so good. This is one of my dream places to visit. I’ve been to Big Sur one other time, so I think coming here was so great because it feels like a vacation and I get to play the show. And I don’t know, I think playing for smaller communities, those audiences always appreciate the music more. So I feel like people connected with me, they’re not spoiled by getting too much of the same genre, they were just super open and great and I loved every second of it.”
