A preview of Wonderfront Music Festival 2025: San Diego’s music tastemaker
Wonderfront 2024 by @ariannakharizz
Wonderfront Music Festival is back! From May 23 to 25, the waterfront will come alive as a powerhouse lineup of artists takes the stage.
Now in its fourth year, this festival is set to bring the energy, the beats, and the unforgettable moments you won’t want to miss. The festival features is set over 80 artists across seven stages in the span of three days.
Jaxson Power-Thornton, head of Wonderfront's activations and media and content and a Chapman writing for film and television ‘22 alumnus, sat down with The Panther to give us an insight into what this festival is all about.
“We want to be the festival that the music lover understands and appreciates more than anything,” Power-Thornton said. “And for, you know, those who are still like, really building their taste and stuff like that, we want to be that tastemaker for San Diego.”
From our interview, the thing that stood out was the multifarious artists they had booked for the 2025 lineup. Wonderfront Music Festival first came to my radar after Chapman University native band Where’s West snagged a spot in their 2024 lineup.
Wonderfront Lineup 2025
This year, they offer genres across the board: rock, hip-hop, EDM, reggae and even country. Not many festivals will offer you a performance of both Overmono and La Lom under the same ticket. Talent bookings for these events tend to follow a certain genre throughout the lineup, yet when it comes to Wonderfront: “I don't really think of our days in terms of genres. I think of them in terms of more, like, energy specific,” Power-Thornton said. “We've made it our mission to have the best festival lineup on the West Coast, to have the most groundbreaking, the one that pushes the needle the most.” This is one of its greatest attributes, making the Wonderfront ticket more valuable than other festivals.
Power-Thornton describes Friday's energy as eclectic and energetic, Saturday's energy as groovy and flowy and Sunday's energy as a nostalgic throwback.
Though they offer some great headliners, a factor that caught my eye was this year’s undercard acts. The performances I would try to catch would include:
Overmono: a DJ-duo bringing jungle music to the dance floor.
Peter Cat Recording Co.: an Indian band popularizing the disco genre again.
Paco Versailles: the Spanish representation in this year’s lineup, offering a mix of flamenco guitar rhythms intertwined with disco/electronic production.
Wonderfront Music Festival has paired up with Events.com, striving away from typical ticketing services such as Ticketmaster and Goldenvoice, since their very early days of production.
“So our (Events.com) leaning into Wonderfront really is a test case. It's research and development. It's understanding how to best utilize our products and services, our technology to help a stellar organization crew create a more valuable, a better experience oriented festival for the event goer, and hopefully, at the end of the day, longevity and sustainability of that festival.” Stephen Partridge, president, founder, and COO of Events.com, told The Panther.
Wonderfront 2024 by @ariannakharizz
The location Wonderfront Music Festival is hosted at is quite unique, consisting of Embarcadero Marina Park North, a marina that stems off San Diego, enveloping the festival ground by water from almost every side. After facing backlash in previous years for their logistical issues, Wonderfront is putting efforts towards the festival's layout and location planning.
“We're always learning and trying to update and get better,” Power-Thornton said. “But if you know, 5000 people show up to see T-Pain back at the same time, we do our very, very, very best. And you know what, too, that was, it was just a volume thing that we didn't know to expect. And it's just yeah, we know to expect it this year.”
Wonderfront’s backlash mostly came from the 2-plus-hour line at the entrance that formed during T-Pain’s performance at their 2024 festival.
The festival’s map will now include more entry lanes, an extension of their electric lounge and more accessibility for their stages.
“Yacht stage is going to be docking far closer to the main festival this year. So instead of last year, where it was about a 12-minute walk from the main gate to where you could board that city cruise's yacht stage, this year, it'll be about a two-minute walk, which is going to be a really nice improvement and make that a lot more accessible,” Power-Thornton told the Panther. Another one of Wonderfront’s unique qualities is their yacht stage, a boat parked by the festival grounds built to be one of their stages.
Wonderfront credits the Chapman University community for their growth since their very first festival back in 2019.
“Our media team our first year was a bunch of unpaid Dodge (College of Film and Media Arts) freshmen… and from that year Chapman and Wonderfront had always had a connection,” Power-Thornton said.
Power-Thornton hints that this year might be the best one for Wonderfront yet, motivating Chapman students to come experience what this year has to offer.
To buy tickets to the 2025 Wonderfront Festival from May 26-28, visit their website.