Last year’s Symbiosis Gathering was without question the best festival I had ever been to. Until now. Symbiosis Gathering 2016: Family Tree somehow managed to absolutely blow last year’s edition out of the water in an epic and unforgettable swan song at Woodward Reservoir.
Symbiosis Gathering returned to Woodward Reservoir in September for its final incarnation at that venue. Needless to say, Woodward Reservoir will be missed as an incredible venue for this incredible event. Undoubtedly, Symbiosis absolutely crushed it in their final year at Woodward. Countless times, I would walk around and think, “look at what they did with the place…” It was an absolutely stunning example of how to create an engaging festival environment. I don’t know how else to say it. This place is simply the best.
Whenever I come home from a festival, my friends often ask me, “How was it?” More often than not, the response is something along the lines of: “Oh, it was so great! Awesome! Incredible!” And I mean it. It was those things. But when I got home from Symbiosis, and people asked me how it was, I was at a loss for words. “It was incredible. Truly incredible,” I say, but for a different reason than all those other ones. This was different. This wasn’t just an awesome, fun, amazing experience. This was absolutely mind-blowing. I wasn’t returning from another festival; I was returning from another world.
To walk around Symbiosis is to walk around in a constant state of awe. The level of visual stimulation going on here is mind-boggling. Anywhere you look, in any direction, and in any peripheral, there is something epic to see. Something epic to swim to. Something epic to interact with. Gorgeous, intricate art installations dominate the skyline in every direction as the deep, wet blues of Woodward Reservoir’s water supply provide an unforgettable scenic backdrop. During the day, this place is a water wonderland. Like a psychedelic Disneyland on a lake. Enough can’t be said about the impact water has on this place. There is water everywhere. Each stage stands on its own peninsula, surrounded by water. The best walk-in camping spots are located right on the water. And all of it swimmable. Art boats turned into stages are anchored in the water, such as the massive Atoll (a modification of last year’s Drift stage), featuring a full-on waterslide, an artillery-style water cannon, a functioning gondola system, and a dj booth. The brilliant Swimbiosis stage turned the reservoir into a proper dance floor and floatie extravaganza as Funktion Ones sent waves through the water. The water at Symbiosis is an absolute game changer, and it should not be taken for granted. At a festival, a 100 degree day surrounded by swimmable water is significantly more comfortable than an 80 degree day with no escape from the sun.
At night, Symbiosis is absolutely bustling with energy and an abundance of exciting sights, sounds, and activities. This place is stunningly beautiful during the day, but at night it turns into a whole nother beast. Huge structures, stages, and art installations (again, these things are everywhere) illuminate the skyline. Big bright lights flash and shine everywhere you look, drawing you in. Best of all, all of these gorgeous structures, art installations, and lights are reflecting off of the water at night, creating quite possibly the most visually stimulating festival environment this world has ever seen. It simply does not look real. All day and all night, at sunset and at sunrise, Symbiosis looks like it is ripped straight out of a dream. And yes, the party animals come out at night as well. The nightlife at Symbiosis is brilliant. There is so much going on at all hours of the night. The stages operate all night through sunrise and offer a wealth of world-class musical talent. Immersive, interactive environments are spread throughout the grounds, rewarding explorers who like to wander the grounds based on what catches their eye rather than sticking to a music schedule.
This isn’t a party. This isn’t a concert. This is a fully immersive adventure with a seemingly unlimited amount of options. You can treat it like a party, and it’ll be the best party you’ve been to. You can treat it like a concert, and it’ll be the best concert you’ve been to. But there is so much more going on here. Food and workshops and art and activities and games and interactive environments galore. People and smiles and water and friends. This space can be anything you want it to be, and it is guaranteed to blow your mind. It’s like a choose your own adventure weekend, and there is SO much potential for adventure. Prepare to overload your senses. Prepare to overload your emotions. Symbiosis Gathering is a roller coaster.
That is what sets Symbiosis apart from other festivals. It really does stand in a league of its own in terms of the experience it provides. No, it’s not great because of any “transformational” bullshit. It’s not great because it is more “conscious” than other festivals. It is great because it is wholly focused on offering attendees a truly unforgettable and unreplicable experience on a rather gargantuan scale. The environment Symbiosis Gathering built for its attendees this year is just such an incredible and overwhelming space to exist in. What really boggles the mind is that this place only exists for a weekend. So much work and effort goes into creating this enormous, incredible, magical environment, and then, in the blink of an eye. It’s gone. And for good this time. We’ll never be back at Woodward Reservoir for Symbiosis. Knowing that made this year’s gathering that much more special, and it is clear that the event producers pulled out all the stops to go out with an absolute bang.
I wouldn’t call Symbiosis Gathering a “music festival,” but it just so happens to have the best music of any festival I’ve ever been to. The lineup is top-notch in a variety of genres, including house & techno, bass music, world music, pop, and more. The way Symbiosis organized and scheduled these acts throughout the weekend this year, however, was nothing short of brilliant. Each stage was a beautiful, intricately designed work of art. From the stunning, huge main stage, The Fringe, to the indoor, vibey Family Circus, to the old western town setting of Juke Lagoon, and the psychedelic Grotto, featuring a beastly new Void sound system– every trip to a certain stage was an adventure. As the main stage, The Fringe hosted a lot of the big-name acts, including Gramatik, RL Grime, Santigold, Beats Antique, and more. The rest of the stages, however, were less about who was playing, but what was playing. For example, if you wanted house music on Friday, go to the Grotto. Looking for bass? Head to Juke Lagoon. So on and so forth. But that was Friday, and if there’s one thing I learned from last year’s Gathering, it’s that Symbiosis blows your mind on Saturday, when everything is up and running, all of the art is built, and this festival just switches to another gear. On Saturday, all of the stages totally switched their parties. And I mean from Saturday daytime until Sunday sunrise. The Grotto was a non-stop psytrance marathon (this was my favorite party both during the day and at night Saturday). Juke Lagoon was now the destination for house & techno (Seth Troxler into Pan-Pot was an unforgettable chunk of late-night techno). Bassheads would get their fix at Family Circus. I absolutely loved the way that the stages switched it up on Saturday. It forced people to experience new music and to see new things during the weekend instead of just sticking to the same party all weekend. It pushes people to experience all of the stages and interactive areas around the festival (and there were many). Best of all, it created a sense of spontaneity and organic change of this dream-like environment throughout the weekend. At a festival, I tend to be more destination-based as opposed to act-based as I spend my time. In other words, I don’t particularly need to look at a schedule, and I don’t particularly care who is playing where. And Symbiosis caters to this mentality better than any other large-scale festival that I’ve been to. My best times at Symbiosis are spent wandering aimlessly, and if I do have a destination, it’s generally not for a specific act or musician, but for a specific vibe or party. Symbiosis Gathering rewards the explorer.
Symbiosis Gathering is the epitome of West Coast festival culture. The entire festival is a work of art in itself. From the art installations, the music, the brilliant Android Jones MOVA dome (which featured the incredible Samskara show), the art boats, the immersive environments, the music, the stages, the people, the water, the sun– all of these elements came together, in true symbiotic fashion, to create the truly incredible, wholly unique, and overall brilliant entity that is Symbiosis Gathering. The Gathering’s last year at Woodward was undoubtedly its best one yet, and likely an unforgettable experience for all who attended. Who knows what the future holds for Symbiosis? The Gathering, as we have known if for the last few years, is on hiatus for now. Next year, Symbiosis heads to Oregon for a week-long event during a full solar eclipse in August in what is shaping up to be a truly legendary experience. What happens after that is up in the air. Symbiosis has never been an annual event. It happens when it feels right. Symbiosis Gathering will be back. Somewhere new. Somewhere with water. I don’t know where or when, but I know that it will absolutely blow your mind.
*All words and photos by Babak Haghighi (aka Spirit Shutter)
