Lucidity Festival Is Reborn With a New Main Character, Zephyr

by Michael Ryan · Published April 5, 2023

The nation's favorite LARP-style fantasy festival returns with an entirely new story: "The Great Synthesis."

If you can imagine an IRL role-playing game that combines renaissance fair-style LARPing, Tolkien-like realms and more magic than you’re likely to find in any "Gathering," then you’ll probably come up with something like Santa Barbara’s paradigmatic three-day campout, Lucidity Festival.

Having completed its 9th and final edition of the originally-planned nine-part story told in sequential chapters, Lucidity now ventures beyond into it’s 10th edition with a new central character at the precipice of a nascent saga in the Lucidity universe. It's a total rebirth for a music festival centered on a mythic story.

As this true "choose your own adventure" experience embarks on the next volume in its chronicles, music fans, families and spiritual mischief-makers all look ahead to one of the most loved gems of the West Coast festival season at Santa Barbara's Live Oak Campground from April 7-9.

With a stacked lineup, it isn’t difficult to see why Lucidity has become a favorite among Californians over the past decade, and—for those who love big acts but not big crowds—one of the country's most popular alternatives to Coachella.

This year, Ivy Lab, Mr. Carmack, VNSSA, Flamingosis and Opiuo will join an estimated 150 artists for an eclectic listening experience that is unparalleled on the West Coast both for its diversity and its intimacy—with only about 5,000 people in attendance event-wide.

If you're ready to kickstart music festival season with one of the best-kept secret festivals of southern California wrapped in a family-friendly rager, then go ahead and dust off those Burning Man totes and reach for the sparkles in the back of your dresser drawers, because it’s finally time to get weird again. Naturally, EDM.com will be there all weekend to report on the festivities each step of the way.

We’ll catch you on the dancefloor. Lucidity tickets can be purchased here.