ID10T was a nerd festival experiment that turned into a huge success. Chris Hardwick had the goal to create a new festival that featured music and comedy. I feel like he did that and more. The festival was a melting pot of nerdism. Attendees came from all parts of California to celebrate comic books, cosplay, stand up comedy, and music by Weezer, Ok Go, Girl Talk, TV on The Radio, and more. It was absolutely wild to see so many unique and diverse people at one festival.
However, towards the middle of each day, the festival got very clicky. People started herding together and creating nerd circles. At one point I was in the comedy tent and the comedian started by celebrating the people that were attending the stand-up comedy. Shortly after they said, but what’s with those nerds in the EDM tent? Does anybody actually enjoy that repetitive bass sound?
Leaving the comedy tent I went to visit the nerds in the Mad Decent EDM tent. The energy was amazing, the music was solid. However, two things surprised me, the tent wasn’t big enough to hold all of the fans, and people were piling around the tent instead of watching OK GO or TV on The Radio. It’s amazing how trends are changing and the younger audiences prefer to be entertained by DJ’d music.
The band lineup at ID10T was super solid. It was hard to leave the main stage in order to experience the rest of the festival. Over the course of two days, I saw music from Weezer, Girl Talk, TV on The Radio, OK GO, Animal Collective, Crystal Castles, Lord Huron, Car Seat Headrest, Robert DeLong, The Mowgli’s, Ron Gallo, Mothers, and Tank & The Bangas. I only had one complaint, OK GO didn’t bring paint, 0 Gravity Machines, or Treadmills. Don’t watch their videos, otherwise, you’ll find their live set to be lacking.
On the whole, I highly recommend ID10T, I think it will be a much bigger event next year. Hope to see you there, I’ll be the one in the Hawaiian shirt. Or maybe I’ll be into cosplay by then? Probably not …
PROS
Unique festival with lots of nerdy entertainment. Great for comic books, cosplay, comedy, and music. (The local food trucks that were on site were also delicious.)
CONS
Music starts at 3PM on the large shoreline stage, but only guests with tickets in the 100 section can go up to the stage. Section 100 was empty until the headliners came on stage around 8PM. That’s not a good experience for the bands or the fans. They should copy LIVE 105’s “BFD,” and do a smaller stage during the day and the big stage in the evening.
