I always enjoy going to electronic music festivals. Everything about them is always so amazing and grand, and being surrounded by so many like-minded and friendly people who are all there to have a good time is an awesome feeling. This year, I had the pleasure of being able to gain entrance to the Imagine Music Festival, which was hosted at a new venue: the Atlanta Motor Speedway. It was a long weekend full of nothing but dancing, loud music, and lots of bass that you could feel down to your core. Let’s recount some of what happened while I was there.
First, I’ll set the stage. You walk up to the entrance and get checked in to the Speedway. Walking your way around the curving paths, you eventually get into the stadium and have to continue walking until you get to the entrance to the bleachers. Once you step outside onto the bleachers, you are greeted by the wondrous sight of the racetrack below, repurposed to include five different stages, a Ferris wheel and swing ride, and many different shops and vendors.
Themed as “An Immersive Aquatic Fairytale,” the festival does not disappoint in keeping that theme running through every facet of it. Each of the five stages is named for its relation to water or a related element: Oceania, also known as the Main Stage; Atlantis; Amazonia; Aeria, a derivative of the Latin word for air; and Disco Inferno, which draws from more psychedelic associations with water. Dancers at each of the stages were dressed as mermaids, and some were wearing long, flowing blue wings with their outfits, reminiscent of fairies. There weren’t many places you could go that didn’t have water spraying everywhere, and there was even a pool that you could play and relax in while listening to the music from Oceania.
As with all other parts of rave and EDM cultures, Imagine festival-goers operate under the credo of PLUR, which means “Peace Love Unity Respect.” Something I’ve noticed at all festivals that I’ve gone to is that people don’t care about your race, age, or any of the other demographics that society tries to categorize us in. Everyone is there for the same purpose: to have fun and enjoy life with others, putting aside the negativity and strife that constantly plagues the rest of the world. I met some awesome people while I was there, such as a group of friends from South Carolina, one of which had never been to Imagine before. Another guy from Florida, who left his friends to come and chat with me for a while because he saw the wig I was wearing, struck up a conversation with me about anime. There were even times when people would be walking past each other and start long chains of high fives, which started many shouts of joy and camaraderie.
The music was fantastic, no matter which stage you went to. There were many big name DJs there, such as Nero, Adventure Club, Benny Benassi, Zed’s Dead and numerous others. I even saw many people whom I had never heard of before, and each were great in their own way. At one point, I actually got to be on stage with Leah Culver, a DJ who not only had great mixes, but who also sang as part of her performance. It was hard for me to stay at one stage for the entire performance, because I wanted to hear as many different DJs as possible. Being able to hear DJs who I hadn’t heard before also introduced me to more artists that I wanted to follow, so I began looking up their music after the festival was over to add to my collection.
Overall, the Imagine Music Festival was an amazing event for me. I had so much fun and danced more than I ever would elsewhere. The Atlanta Motor Speedway was a great choice in venue and provided a comfortable, secure location for everything to take place in. I’ll definitely try to go to Imagine again next year and I suggest that any of you EDM fans out there to do the same; you’ll have one of the most wondrous and exhilarating times of your lives.