Last weekend the 2nd edition of the 'Same Same But Different" Festival was held on the beach of Lake Perris. I did not go the first year but I was there the entire time this year.....
The Good
The People- the vibe this festival produces attracts people who are enjoyable to be around. It seemed like we were all friends and in it together..challenges were met together...camps helped out oither camps...people looked after each other all weekend.
The Music- My friend swears Turkuaz was one of the best bands he had EVER seen...and that's high praise coming from a life long musician! My favorite band was definitely Beats Antique. Great interesting sounds, instruments and dancers made for great music and visuals.
The Location- Lake Perris is beautiful at any time of the day or night and the weather could not have been more perfect there.
The Giving Tree Art Car- this is a large interactive drive-able display that is better than any large art vehicle have seen at Coachella!
The Suspended Dancers- up to 3 at a time suspended by material, or in cubes, or circles these ladies needs to be seen to be believed
The Floatopia- the 80 degree temps made for the right temp to enjoy floating in the lake just offshore while listening to the great music throughout the day- this is something you just don't get to do at almost all festivals...so this alone make SSBD a notch above the rest.
The Bad
I would rather use the word "inconvenient" than "bad", as the negatives were both minor and mostly easily overcome with the great people around. It would have been nice to have access to the beach we camped on, but we were close enough that it wasn't a huge challenge to take our inflatables over to the beach inside the venue.
There was one issue at the beach entrance that made it inconvenient to walk all the way around to the front entrance rather than straight in from the Up Front camping area for a large portion of the day/evening. Hopefully that can be worked out for next year.
The Recommendation
A definite YES...and I would say a definite "go to the very next SSBD"! This is a new festival and the crowd is growing, but right now the crowd is small enough where there are no lines for food, drink, attractions, and there is plenty of room to dance in front of the stages. This festival is entering it's PRIME era. Go next year and you'll get all the good attributes of a building event and none of the negatives of an oversold event.
Loads of pics below by Sandy Rose
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