Imagine

If you go to school in or near the Atlanta area, you may have seen the aquatic-themed fliers posted around campus for Imagine. This was the first EDM-only music festival that I attended and I will say, I was not quite prepared for what I was going to experience.

Imagine takes place at the Atlanta Motor Speedway every year and is still fairly new. I went to all three days of this festival in 2017 and bought a one-day ticket in 2018. Although I did enjoy Imagine, I think that they have a lot of improving to do.

Lineup

The first year I decided to go to Imagine was when I was very new to the EDM scene and didn’t listen to that genre of music too often. Despite that, my days at Imagine were full of enjoyable artists, and it was the perfect way for me to discover new ones. Some of my favorites on the lineups from the two years that I attended were Liquid Stranger, Flux Pavilion, Bassnectar, and Leah Culver. They have a few returning artists that play every year (or almost every year) and a good variety of EDM sub-genres. I have noticed that the lineup gets better every year as the festival gains popularity. The two main stages were unlike anything I had ever seen before. They were huge with amazing lasers emerging into the crowd. That in itself was a sight to see.

Vendors

Imagine has lines of food, drink, and merchandise vendors set up inside the speedway. It’s nice that you can walk around and look at all of the tents set up, even if you don’t buy anything. A lot of the tents sell festival gear, such as pashminas or masks. The only food I have actually tasted from the fest was a fruit smoothie and I’m not sure what the name of the vendor was. I will say, though, that was one of the best smoothies I’ve ever had. One of my favorite things about Imagine is that it has free water refill stations positioned throughout the venue, so you never have to worry about getting dehydrated.

Logistics

Most of my reasons for thinking there could be many improvements to Imagine lead back to logistics. Some of this though, I will admit, is my own fault. Even though guests are able to camp at this festival, I think that it’s very overpriced (about $100 extra if I’m remembering correctly). For this reason, my friends and I decided to buy day parking passes (that we later found out weren’t even checked) and drive to and from the festival (mind you, it ends at around 3 AM every night). This was completely exhausting and by the third day, I almost decided to skip out because I was so tired of making the trip. Besides the high price to camp, the line to enter the venue was always very long. I’m used to being patient in those sort of situations, but this seemed excessive. Every time we entered the festival, there was an enormous crowd of people waiting to get in, even after standing in line for at least an hour. It seemed as if by the time we got to the front of the line, security was just letting people through without checking bags or wristbands because it was taking so long. I’m hoping since the last time I attended, they might have added multiple entrances or more security members to solve this issue. I also didn’t like the fact that it was located inside a race track. There weren’t many places to explore and everything seemed in an almost too close proximity. A plus side to this, though, is that it didn’t take long at all to walk from one stage to another. I’m not even going to get started on the bathrooms and cleanliness because…… it was bad.

Crowd

I honestly can’t say too much about the crowd that Imagine attracts. Almost everyone I ended up meeting was very nice and it was pretty much how you would expect an EDM crowd to behave. Other than the occasional Chad, there were both old and new EDM fans who were very considerate and friendly.

No, Imagine isn’t my favorite festival, but it’s definitely worth the money if you enjoy the lineup. I don’t know if I would do another three days (unless I chose to camp), but I would definitely buy another one-day ticket in the future. I have faith that this festival will grow over time and figure out what improvements need to be made.