By: Jackie Kuczynski
This past President’s Day weekend, the beautiful town of Boca Raton, Florida was rocked by the first annual Forbidden Kingdom Festival. I had previously been to Sunset Cove Amphitheatre for Excision’s Paradox tour and Zed’s Dead’s Deadbeats, so I was excited to see a small festival make use of this awesome venue. Backed up to a tranquil lake, Sunset Cove was flooded with headbangers, flow artists, and kandi kids going wild under a giant dragon on top of the stage. Yeah, the dragon was an awesome touch.
My boyfriend, Bryan, and I attend many festivals per year, and, admittedly, this is the one we had the lowest expectations for in 2019. It’s normal to be a little cautious going into a festival’s first year; however, we knew that with such an incredible lineup and an amazing group of friends to headbang with, the weekend was sure to be a blast.
Of course, I NEED to comment on this line up. First year or fifth year, Forbidden Kingdom’s line up was insane! Festival-goers raged with Sullivan King, Bear Grillz, 12th Planet, Zomboy, Hekler, Midnight T, and many more, plus, the king himself, Excision. Excision not only played a solo set on the first day, but also played a second set on day two, back to back with Dion Timmer. Believe it or not, they even had a silent disco going on towards the edge of the venue.
With Icy Hot and Advil packed in our suitcases, we began our journey to Forbidden Kingdom.
Day 1
We walked through the gates of day 1, and the entire venue was going wild. The sound was crystal clear, the venue was spotless, and everyone was smiling and laughing. Talk about good vibes.
We met up with our group, and as the night went on, we were all in disbelief that the sets were just getting better and better. The crowd at Forbidden Kingdom was my favorite kind of crowd: wild, respectful, energetic, and friendly. Strangers headbanging and trading kandi with other strangers, festival-goers dancing with the security staff, and friends hyping up their other friends during drop builds – all the things that you love to see at raves. Oh, and you had a ton of space to move around how to please. I mean, you could do karate kicks and run in circles kind of space.
What really made day 1 absolutely killer was Zomboy and Excision playing one after the other. You can imagine towards the end of the day we felt a little tired, but that’s no excuse when Zomboy comes out to play an hour and fifteen minute set, followed by Excision playing for over an hour. Wow. Karate kicks were definitely delivered.
Both of those sets were complete madness, and my friends and I switched between destroying our necks and looking at in each in complete disbelief over what we were hearing. After Excision finished his set, we all chanted, “One more song! One more song!” Sure enough, he came out to play not one, but at least 3 more songs.
Day 2
After getting some much needed caffeine and food into our systems, we headed back to Sunset Cove for day 2. The first day was awesome, but the second day was even better.
We headed in earlier on Sunday, starting with the Kompany b2b Tynan set, and we were lucky enough to run into Hekler that afternoon. That’s one of the many things that was awesome about Forbidden Kingdom – you could run into the artists hanging out in the crowd. Hekler, like many other EDM artists, was friendly and super grateful for the support we all showed him. Next up was Sullivan King, who put on a show as per usual, followed by Squnto and Funtcase. Again, the crowd was going crazy during each set, screaming, moshing, and headbanging, and the energy levels never dropped throughout the day. I was especially excited to see Bear Grillz for the first time, and his set did not disappoint.
My favorite set from day 2 was 12th Planet. After several headbanging circles, jumping up and down, screaming and going wild, my friends and I felt completely out breath. We (jokingly) checked our pulses, and one of us checked our phones, realizing we were only 5 minutes into the set. We all mouthed “WTF” to one another, questioning how we were going to make it, and then raged on. Those are the best kinds of sets, in my opinion. It was during this set that our surrounding groups started to mesh into ours a little and we started to rage with and hype up people we didn’t even know. I love making friends in the crowd, music does that.
The night closed out with Adventure Club and Excision b2b Dion Timmer, both of which were awesome. Upon leaving the festival, we were dead. Forbidden Kingdom was two days of incredible music, headbanging, laughter and amazing vibes.
Takeaways
Despite a couple hiccups, as every first year festival has, Forbidden Kingdom definitely exceeded our expectations. Sunset Cove is a great venue that has a lot of wide open space, scenery, real bathrooms, and is super clean.
Don’t let February fool you, Florida is still hot, and so I highly recommend bringing a Vibedration with you and drinking electrolytes before the festival. This year, there was no designated water station, and many people filled their hydration packs in the water fountains next to the restrooms or in the restroom sinks. This was a small issue that I am confident will be resolved next year, and definitely did not take away from the overall experience of the festival.
Will I be returning next year? Hell yeah. With talks of adding a second stage and possibly camping, Forbidden Kingdom has incredible potential to become even better. Huge shout out to the whole Forbidden Kingdom team for such an awesome weekend.
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