Nocturnal Wonderland, formerly known as Nocturnal Festival, is an electronic dance music festival in San Bernardino, California, United States, founded in 1995.

History

Nocturnal Wonderland is a two-day event (a three-day festival from 2011 to 2016) that used to occur in early September around Labor Day. There are usually five stages with around 60 different artists performing over the two nights. The genres present at the festival vary between trance, drum and bass, breakbeat, and house. The first Nocturnal Wonderland was held in 1995. The locations varied every year, but since 2002 the festival has taken place at the National Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino, where it was first held in 1998. This venue has been the location of the festival since 2003 along with the Glen Helen Amphitheater. On Labor Day Weekend 2010, the Nocturnal Festival Texas in Rockdale, Texas was held for the first time. In 2016, hundreds of people were arrested at the event. In June 2019, it was announced that 2019 would be the last year with the festival taking place at Glen Helen due to new noise ordinances in the area, however attendees voted to continue the event at the Glen Helen venue. The show went on hiatus in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, they did host a Virtual Rave-a-thon in place of the in-person event. In 2021, the live event returned and took place at Glen Helen Regional Park annually. In 2024 due to heavy smoke levels from the Bridge wildfire, the event was canceled.

Stages

There are usually around five main stages at the event, with different themed decoration and lighting.