This year’s highly-touted lineup announcement for Insomniac’s 2024 edition of Beyond Wonderland SoCal brought plenty of talking points, but none bigger than the overwhelming number of techno artists slated to play the festival this March.
Beyond Wonderland SoCal’s 2024 lineup features nearly 15 different exclusively techno-focused acts on a roster over 100 strong, along with plenty of other house-leaning artists who blur the line between both genres.
The Looking Glass stage will be the primary home of all things techno at the festival, with the harder side of the genre set to pack a punch this year. Leading performances from sub-genre giants like Italian powerhouse duo 999999999 and Austin, Texas’ own Sara Landry are sure to excite.
Hard techno wunderkind I Hate Models is also sure to tear up the decks, along with acclaimed Spanish selector Fatima Haji, “Push Up” producer Creeds and the dark industrial sounds of Spartaque B2B Brennan Grey.
West Coast ravers will also get a chance to catch one of European techno’s most rapidly rising stars with a performance from the KNTXT label’s standout alignment. At the same time, sets from Los Angeles-based artists Shay de Castro and Clawz will showcase the city’s far-too-often-slept-on genre prowess.
Russian-born, Naples, Italy-based Anfisa Letyago will again capture the attention of the techno masses with her timeless and eloquent brand of minimal techno, with even more classic sounds brought by a back-to-back from Drumcode favorite Bart Skils and the epic harmonies of Belgian duo Joyhauser.
Another red-hot B2B from Eli Brown and Lilly Palmer stands to put a clubbier twist on plenty of fan-favorite techno cuts, and genre-blurring artists like TRYM and Will Sparks will meld techno beats with their unique hard trance and big room sounds.
With this impressive bill, techno fans have plenty to be excited about at Beyond Wonderland SoCal this year. But this number of prominent genre bookings at a major U.S. EDM festival could also indicate even more techno goodness to come at festivals across the country.
Techno, long considered one of dance music’s most underground genres, has risen steadily in stateside popularity this year: Charlotte de Witte is headlining Electric Forest 2024; brands like Tale Of Us’ Afterlife, de Witte’s KNTXT, Circoloco, and more have drawn huge crowds to their U.S. tour stops; and Carl Cox finally played Red Rocks for the first time this past October.
House music is undoubtedly having its time in the sun, with Peggy Gou‘s “(I Goes Like) Nanana” and FISHER‘s “Take If Off” clocked as Beatport‘s top two best-selling tracks of 2023. But could its close cousin, techno, be next up? Insomniac seems to think so.
Featured image from Insomniac Events
