Major changes are in store for the Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival. It will resume in 2024, following a one-year hiatus, with 80 acts performing on six stages alongside San Diego Bay and on one shipboard stage. And the festival will soon have a new owner, La Jolla-based Events.com, which specializes in using its software to manage, market and monetize events.
The three-day festival, whose first two editions took place in late November of 2019 and 2022, will shift to spring in 2024 — the better to take advantage of more inviting daytime and nighttime temperatures.
The initial lineup of Wonderfront performers will be announced in January. One-day, two-day and three-day tickets will be available, along with VIP pass options.
The move next year to the weekend of May 10-12, like today’s announcement of the new dates, appears to give Wonderfront an edge over the three-day KAABOO Del Mar festival. KAABOO — which has been dark since 2019 and has been embroiled in numerous lawsuits — announced in September its 2024 return to the Del Mar Fairgrounds but has yet to disclose when it will take place.
“We’ve communicated with the folks at KAABOO,” Wonderfront Managing Partner Paul Thornton told the Union-Tribune.
“I can’t speak for them about when KAABOO is happening (in 2024). But we tried to look at what’s best for the market for everybody, to give everybody an opportunity, and not fall all over each other. I feel we can grow the pie and all do better for it.”
Those sentiments were seconded by Mitch Thrower, the CEO and co-founder of Events.com.
“I regard KAABOO as a big compliment (to Wonderfront),” Thrower said. “Bringing people together, whether as part of the Events.com family or not, is a good thing for all of us. Music brings us together in a way that really helps people.”
Next year’s Wonderfront “pie” will mix some familiar and new ingredients. The festival’s diverse musical menu — which in previous editions featured such headliners as Gwen Stefani, Zac Brown Band and Ben Harper — will be refocused in 2024 to primarily showcase a specific style each day. The initial 2024 lineup will be announced in January.
Gwen Stefani is shown performing at the Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022. The 2024 edition of the three-day festival will shift to May.
(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Events.com, which has been a Wonderfront investor since the event’s inception in 2019, will become its primary corporate presenter this year. The festival’s 2024 edition is being billed as “Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival, powered by Events.com.” Moreover, Events.com is now in the process of buying all the shares in Wonderfront outright in a deal expected to be completed next year.
“We see an enormous amount of potential for San Diego to have an iconic, global festival that is really well done,” Events.com CEO Thrower said Thursday evening, speaking from a business trip in Hawaii.
“We have offices in Canada, Italy, Scotland and Seattle. But we are headquartered in La Jolla. And, for us, Wonderfront is really a local event.”
Thrower credited the San Diego investment firm Cypress Ascendant and its CEO, Bill Trzos, for playing a key role as a Wonderfront investor.
“We really partnered with Cypress to make this Wonderfront (acquisition) deal happen,” Thrower said. “They have been very supportive and have assisted Wonderfront strategically and economically.”
Ernie Hahn, who co-founded Wonderfront with Thornton, is now a minority partner and has stepped back from the festival to head his new company, Hahn Entertainment. But he and Thornton are now on the Events.com advisory board, as is Cypress Ascendant honcho Trzos.
Wonderfront is also continuing to work closely in partnership with the Port of San Diego and San Diego’s Tourism & Marketing Department, which have both backed Wonderfront since it was launched in 2019.
“Wonderfront has become a significant cultural event for our city, and we are thrilled to continue our partnership with this remarkable festival,” Port of San Diego Vice President of Marketing & Communications Michael Brown said in a statement.
“By hosting Wonderfront on San Diego’s iconic waterfront, we not only showcase the city’s beauty but also contribute to the rich tapestry of arts and music that defines our community.”
While the festival will build on its previous editions, there will be some visible changes for the 2024 iteration.
The two Wonderfront performance stages that previously occupied the largest Seaport Village parking lot will be eliminated for next year’s edition. A new stage will be set up on the grassy traffic roundabout at the entrance to the main festival site at Embarcadero Park North.
The event’s footprint will be further modified by eliminating the large satellite stage at Rocco Park that was used in 2019 and 2022. This move, Thornton said, will ensure that Wonderfront’s stages will be in close proximity within Embarcadero Marina Park North.
In addition, a community stage with free performances throughout the weekend will be set up at the Seaport Village Plaza. The festival’s silent disco, which was in Rocco Park last year, will be relocated in Embarcadero Marina Park North.
The Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival debuted in San Diego in 2019, when it drew 57,000 people over three days.
(Wonderfront Festival)
“We moved everything together so that it’s in the park and Seaport Village, which we found is where 95 percent of the people attending Wonderfront have stayed,” Thornton said.
His Idaho-based company, the 16-year-old Tag Presents, has produced such events as ESPN X Games Austin, Fan Fest Austin and events in other states and across Southern California.
Wonderfront drew 57,000 people over three days to its debut edition in 2019. It returned in 2022, after a COVID-fueled shut down in 2020 and 2021, and saw its attendance dip to about 30,000.
“Whenever you go into a new market with a festival there is absolutely a learning curve,” Thornton said, speaking from his home in Boise.
“I think it took five or six years before the Life is Beautiful festival (in Las Vegas) hit its stride and started making money. You have to see who’s coming to your event and how you best market to those folks. We’ve learned a lot from the first two Wonderfronts.
“We had an incredible lineup booked for 2021, but then we had to cancel for the second year in a row because of COVID. We rolled over about 60 percent of our 2021 lineup to last year, and then we had to fill a lot of gaps. The festival got a little scattered as a result. Skipping this year so we could reposition for next May gave us a chance to step back and re-evaluate.
“I’m excited about where we’re going. We have a lot of new sponsors and returning ones. And bands and their agents love Wonderfront, which is great because a lot of bands want to play our event and we have a strong 2024 lineup.”