At Submersion, every stage switch costs you half a set

Submersion has put out its set times. The festival runs Thursday 1 October to sunrise on Sunday at Paradise Lakes, the campground in Hammonton, New Jersey. It is 61 sets on two stages, Beach and Woods, plus an overnight silent disco.

Two stages sounds easy. The catch is in the clock.

The two stages are always half an hour apart

On Saturday from 5pm to 10:30pm, both stages run one-hour sets back to back. Beach changes on the hour. Woods changes on the half hour. That is ten sets in a row, and each one overlaps the set on the other stage by exactly 30 minutes at each end.

So every time you walk from one stage to the other, you arrive halfway through a set. It happens all weekend: of the 41 times two sets overlap, 29 are exactly a half-hour overlap.

The simple way to handle it is to pick a stage for the evening and stay. If you want to move, decide which half of each set you care about. On Saturday, Richard Finger is on Beach 8 to 9 and Nikki Nair is on Woods 8:30 to 9:30. You can have all of one and half of the other, not both.

Thursday is free

Only the Woods stage runs on Thursday: seven sets from 3pm to 11pm, one after another, ending with Mala from 9:30 to 11. Nothing clashes. Arrive early.

Friday: three calls

5:30. Hybrid Minds plays Woods 5:30 to 7. Artifakts b2b parkbreezy plays Beach 5:30 to 6:30. The b2b is over before Hybrid Minds is, so if you stay at Woods you miss all of it.

9:30. Djrum is on Beach 9:30 to 10:45. goddard. is on Woods 10 to 11:30. The Glitch Mob follows Djrum on Beach at 10:45. Whichever way you go, you lose 45 minutes of someone.

After midnight. Woods is done at 11:30, and from 12:30 Beach runs alone until 8am: Luke Vibert as Wagon Christ, then five more, then Tennyson live at sunrise, 6:30 to 8. Nothing to pick. Just stay up.

Saturday: the big one is at 10

Afternoon. The Potions farewell set, Beach 4 to 5, sits inside a two-hour b2b on Woods, Inspect3r with Mark McNulty and Wessanders. It is a farewell. Go.

10pm. Boogie T plays Beach 10 to 11:30. Vier starts a three-hour set on Woods at 10:30 and plays until 1:30. Stay for all of Boogie T and you miss Vier's first hour. Vier's set also covers a secret b2b on Beach, billed only as question marks, from 11:30 to 12:20, and all of Schmoop from 12:30 to 1:30. If you want the surprise, you give up most of an hour of Vier. You'll be back at Woods by 1:30 either way.

Sunrise on Sunday

Grouch in Dub plays a four-hour sunrise set on Beach, 4:30 to 8:30am. Zero is on Woods until 5:30 and D!lemma until 6:30. Four hours is long enough to see both of those and come back for the sun.

Three acts play twice

If you miss them once, you get another go. Simula plays a drum and bass set on Woods at 8pm Friday and a 140 set there at 2am Sunday. Resonant Language plays a hardware set at 1:30am Saturday and a bangers set at 2:30am Sunday, both on Beach. Numa Crew plays Woods at 4pm Thursday and a dub reggae set on Beach at 1pm Saturday.

Thirteen acts on this bill, Richard Finger and Distinct Motive among them, play Nocturnal Valley in Missouri this weekend first. Richard Finger has ten upcoming shows on our calendar, more than anyone else on this bill.

The full grid is on the Submersion event page. Save the sets you want, pick your stage for each night, and decide Saturday at 10 before you get there. Submersion is not in our ticket feed, so there is no ticket link on this one.

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

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