I haven’t been this stoked about a festival in a long time, so let’s start there. The last time I was this excited about a gathering was at New Orleans’s Voodoo Fest before it was purchased by a major concert promoter and completely changed, gutted, and ruined.
The second annual Format Festival has all the same characteristics as the original Voodoo Festival: it’s smaller, more intimate, more honest (if that makes sense), and the whole vibe is just better than most larger, and more commercialized festivals. The team at C3 Presents decided to move their location to The Momentary for year two, a museum for modern art just outside downtown Bentonville that has a campus of sorts just right for a boutique festival. The year prior to Format’s inaugural year, it was held at an airfield that was unanimously disliked by those who attended.
The new location made a huge difference in all the right ways: easy access, the right size, and very conducive to the vision they seem to have for the festival. With different areas, they were able to break things up into sections to explore, like art installations, some cool shopping, and even a visit from the Inside Out Project photobooth truck, an internationally known photo booth/art project.
The music portion of the Festival featured four stages: a main stage, North Of Oz, a second stage, South of Oz, and two smaller areas, Drag Me To The Disco, focused on DJs and The RODE lounge. The schedule was always alternating between the two bigger stages, so you didn’t miss any of the bigger acts that you wanted to see – which is always a problem at festivals with too many artists; you always end up missing someone you want to see. Format Festival nailed the scheduling and booked just the right amount of talent to satisfy and create variety.
The food vendors were plentiful (see arrow above on map); this section (usually 8th Street Market) was adjacent to the festival and allowed local vendors and food trucks to attach to the festival and provide an oasis for eating, drinking, and shopping around a bit with plenty of room/seating.
The bars and toilets inside the venue were also plentiful, and easy to access, and you never had to wait too long for a drink or porta potty.
The Stand-Out Performances
We got the chance to see a lot of acts and hit all three days of the festival. Here are some of our favorites that we managed to catch, some honorable mentions, and those who were bummed to miss.
Digable Planets w/ Live Band
It was amazing to see the legendary Digable Planets perform a set with a live band, as I’d only seen them with a DJ, and that was a long time ago. The Digables were also celebrating the 30-year anniversary of their groundbreaking album A New Refutation of Time and Space, a record that will go down in hip history for its raps, beats, and pure poetry describing life in 90s NYC. Did they kill it? I wouldn’t say that, but they still had some gas left in the tank and were good enough to stoke out the fans who showed up to see this rare performance. Ultimately, it would have been amazing to see them come together with new material, but that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Is there still tension? I would say yes, as it was almost like they were all on stage alone and not vibing off each other at all, which also hurt the performance. It was almost like they didn’t want to be there, but hey… it was amazing to see them again anyway, even if it was maybe my last time.
Jamie XX
I’m a huge fan of Jamie XX’s production and DJing. He digs up old rave breaks, classics, and fresh cuts and blends them seamlessly together. It’s tough to do a sixty- minute set and take anyone on any type of real DJ journey, but he did his best, and it was solid. A majority of the crowd didn’t quite get what Mr. XX was doing, and that resulted in kind of a lackluster energy until the end, where he changed it up and finally started playing some cuts that were connecting, and by then, his set was almost over. If he had pivoted faster, he would have for sure whipped the crowd into the frenzy that every DJ dreams about, but not this time around. Still, you gotta give him props for great cuts that were very well mixed and programmed. Hopefully, more DJs will start asking for longer sets, as the crowd never gets the opportunity to fully connect with 60 minutes.
LCD Soundsystem
This was by far and away the best performance of the festival for us and probably for a lot of people. James Murphy and company sounded tight, so good, in fact, it was like they never stopped touring. They played the songs you wanted to hear, they brought that raw energy they are famous for, and left the crowd begging for more. If you haven’t seen them before, and have the chance, buy the ticket.
Poolside DJ set & Live Performance
Jeffrey Paradise, aka Poolside, played two sets, one as a DJ and the other as a live act with a full band that included two former members of The Rapture. The live set was great, but the DJ set was absolutely bonkers. We only managed to catch the last 45 minutes or so of the DJing, but we literally could not leave until he wrapped it up with what I think was an edit version or remix of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind.” The live set had a great mix of old and new stuff and ended with the song you would expect, the cover that blew them up, Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” and it still sounds as groovy as it did over a decade ago. The best news, they have a new album, Blame It All On Love, coming in late October.
Bob Moses
To close out our third night, we headed to the South of Oz stage to catch the Canadian duo Bob Moses. They played a tight set with a mix of cuts and all the favorites, as you would expect in a short sixty-minute set. They also filled in with a DJ set for an artist who couldn’t make the show due to flight issues, but we unfortunately missed that one.
Honorable Mentions: Big Wild, Tash Sultana, Leon Bridges, Channel Tres
Bummed We Missed Them: The Pharcyde, Green Velvet, Blond:ish, Bob Moses DJ set, and Digitalism
Summary: If you love boutique music festivals, manageable crowds, and a laid-back setting in a town that you’ve probably never thought about before, this is your festival. No doubt Format will start to gain momentum very quickly after their second go at it. I just hope they stick to their guns and keep it indie, intimate, and truly special. Big props to C3 Presents, The Momentary and everyone that came out!
David Ireland is a professional strategist, creative, and marketer. He began his career in 1995 as creator and publisher of BPM Magazine. In August 2000, BPM Magazine merged with djmixed.com LLC, an online media company based in Los Angeles, which later evolved into the Overamerica Media Group [OMG] in 2003. In 2009, Ireland left Overamerica Media Group to serve as the VP of Marketing at Diesel. In 2011, he returned to his roots in media and cofounded the online electronic music publication Magnetic Magazine and created The Magnetic Agency Group. In June 2018, Ireland joined Winter Music Conference (now owned by Ultra Music Festival) as the Director to lead the reboot for 2019 and usher in a new era for the iconic brand. He served as Chief Marketing Officer at Victrola for three years, guiding product innovation and brand growth. He currently serves on the advisory board of Audiopool, a new music tech startup focused on AI-generated music licensing and artist revenue models.
