Symbiosis Gathering is defined as a mutually beneficial relationship between different organisms, people, or groups. Given the festival’s focus on community, art, culture, and education the name truly represents the values and intent of the gathering.

The event began as a very small, diverse festival in 2005 that was created by an unknown crew who were inspired by the transformative powers that music, art, and education held. Since then, the event has evolved beautifully from its roots and was held in multiple locations around the globe before landing at the Woodward Reservoir, where the festival will continue its 3rd year at that location this September 22nd-25th.

Woodward Reservoir

Held on a five-fingered peninsula, the festival has a renown location that allows attendees to dance in the lake during the day and boogie down in the dust at night. Crews arrive weeks in advance to build seven intricate stages, workshop domes, and art installations that thousands of attendees will marvel at throughout the weekend.

Musical Diversity

Along with a mind-blowing location, the musical lineup this year is eclectic and features artists from around the world. There’s a large electronic influence, which is balanced out by some acclaimed live acts like Warpaint and Rising Appalachia.

Artists like FKJ, Gramatik, and Beats Antique blend live instruments and electronic music to create funky sets that have the best of both worlds. When it’s time to get down to some grimy bass music, Symbiosis secured artists like Mimosa, RL Grime, Ivy Lab, Ekali, and Opiuo to keep the energy high into the wee hours of the morning.

Claude Vonstroke will play some legendary deep house along with other great artists like Justin Martin, Shiba San, and Desert Hearts. Galactic Bass artists like Dimond Saints, Random Rab, Spacegeisha, and Soohan will put on otherworldly performances to satisfy the festival’s bass aliens.

Overall, Symbiosis organizers did a fantastic job of gathering a wide variety of musical acts to satisfy your musical palate. Each artists has a detailed profile on the Symbiosis website with links to their Soundcloud or Facebook profiles. The artists are also separated into genres so you can easily explore some new music before the gathering!

Visual Artists and Art Boats

Being a music and arts festival, Symbiosis succeeds at balancing their bolstering musical lineup with world-renown art. There will be opportunities to experience live painting, digital art, and galleries. Each stage displays astounding craftsmanship and various interactive art installations will be scattered throughout the festival grounds.

This is the second year that Symbiosis has their famous floating art boats, and everyone’s excited to see what’s in store for year two! They’re interactive, so during the day you can swim out to these floating islands to hang out or dance to the rhythms of the beach stage. Come dusk, some of these light up to showcase their nightly dimension.

Learning for the Mind and Body

Music and art are two key parts to the complete Symbiosis experience, but education is another aspect that the festival organizers like to emphasize. There’s a wide variety of interactive workshops and speakers available throughout the weekend on diverse topics like spirituality, other cultures, world issues, the environment, and ourselves.

If you want to get your body moving at the festival, dance and yoga classes are offered to attendees as well. Stretch those muscles and center the mind after a long night of dancing with morning yoga or get some cardio by learning new dance moves from professional instructors.

A Symbiotic Experience

Every aspect of the Symbiosis Gathering makes the festival an organism in and of itself. It blooms for one weekend out of the year and continues to grow for the time in between. Thousands of lovely souls will gather at Woodward Reservoir in a few weeks to interact with the Symbiosis organism and each person will develop a unique relationship to the gathering during this magical weekend. 

Tickets are still on sale. We’ll see you out there!