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Forty-six names, and not one of them plays anywhere else

Imagine is the only bill we count where no artist appears on another festival this season. We checked all 46, twice.

Every festival poster looks exclusive. Almost none of them are.

Run the names through a list of every upcoming festival and the same DJs keep turning up — a summer's worth of posters that share half a bill. That is the normal shape of the season, and it is not a scandal. Artists tour. Bookers book who is available.

Then there is Imagine Music & Arts Festival, three days on Orcas Island in September, and a bill of 46 names. Not one of them appears on any other festival we have on the books this year. Not one.

What "not one" actually means

We hold 125 upcoming festivals. We checked all 46 Imagine names against every one of them, matching without regard to capitalisation so that a FISHER and a Fisher count as the same person. The overlap is zero.

Then we checked it the other way, because a number this clean is usually a bug. Every artist on Electric State has a page with their own upcoming show count, built from a different query than the one above. We pulled all 46. Every single page says one upcoming show — Imagine. Random Rab, one show. Bluetech, one show. Ayla Nereo, Moontricks, KAMAUU, Youssoupha Sidibe. Forty-six for forty-six.

No other bill we count does this. The next-closest is Wonderfruit, which shares three of its 27 names with somebody. Ultra Japan is famously hard to see elsewhere and still shares 14.

The nine most self-contained bills we count

The nine most self-contained bills we countImagine (Orcas Island) 46 names on the bill, 0 of which play elsewhere, Off The Grid Campout SoCal 72 names on the bill, 7 of which play elsewhere, Wonderfruit 27 names on the bill, 3 of which play elsewhere, Summer's Last Dance 30 names on the bill, 5 of which play elsewhere, Ultra Japan 75 names on the bill, 14 of which play elsewhere, We Belong Here New Orleans 36 names on the bill, 7 of which play elsewhere, Desert Hearts Microfest 29 names on the bill, 7 of which play elsewhere, Ocean Way Festival 22 names on the bill, 6 of which play elsewhere, Freeform Festival 24 names on the bill, 7 of which play elsewherenames on the billof which play elsewhereImagine (Orcas Island)46Off The Grid Campout SoCal72Wonderfruit27Summer's Last Dance30Ultra Japan75We Belong Here New Orleans36Desert Hearts Microfest29Ocean Way Festival22Freeform Festival24
Named artists on each bill, and how many of them also play another of the 125 upcoming festivals in our catalog. Placeholder rows like "Lineup TBA" are excluded.

One-festival artists are normal. A whole bill of them is not

Here is the honest context, because the number sounds rarer than it is at the level of a single artist. Across the 58 bills we count with 20 or more named artists, 2,454 different people appear, and 1,797 of them — 73% — play exactly one festival this year. Most artists on most posters are a one-off.

So Imagine is not unusual for booking artists who only play once. It is unusual because it managed to fill an entire 46-slot weekend that way, and nobody else did. Off The Grid Campout SoCal tried hardest and still landed seven crossover names out of 72.

The obvious objection is genre, and it is a fair one. This is a downtempo and live-electronic bill, and our catalog leans hard toward main-stage electronic. Fewer chances to collide. But that cuts both ways: Desert Hearts Microfest, Wonderfruit and Off The Grid are off the main circuit too, and every one of them still overlaps with somebody. The zero is not just the genre.

The same weekend, and nothing in common

Five other festivals run on the same three days in September: Dancefestopia, Infrasound Equinox, Goldrush, Breakaway Philadelphia and Global Dance Festival. Between them they put 213 different artists on stage that weekend. Imagine shares none of them.

None of the 25 artists on our Most Booked board are on this bill either. That is not a knock. It is the same fact from a different side: this is not the working circuit playing another date.

What this is worth to you

Exclusivity gets used as a marketing word. Here it is just arithmetic, and it has a practical edge.

For most festivals, missing one is survivable — a good share of that lineup will be within driving distance again before the year is out. That is not true here. If you skip Imagine, our records show no second chance at any of these 46 acts in 2026. Not at a different festival, not in a different city. The ferry to Orcas Island is the only route we can find.

Everything above is recomputable from our public catalog. Numbers were checked on 20 August 2026, and a lineup addition tomorrow could change any of them.

Tickets

Ticket links below are affiliate links.

Imagine sells through its own site rather than a ticketing partner we work with, so there is no link for it here — go to the festival directly.

Electric State is free on the App Store, on Google Play, and at electricstate.app — lineups, artist pages and the boards this post is computed from.

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