Everything about Childish Gambino’s Pharos Festival was mysterious, even to the attendees and especially to those that didn’t attend. You needed the Pharos App to get in. The Pharos App from beginning to end was a trip because it made people feel intrigued. There were pages within the app asking questions like “Who are we?” and even some mention of a “Vibration Code,” but no one knew the meaning of all this until they set foot inside the grounds.

Pharos was more of a gathering than a festival, and attendees figured that out quickly when the only act they would be seeing was Childish Gambino. Gambino sent the curious crowd to a secluded area in order to get the first listen to his new music. The location was in this really cool area that was some sort of famous spiritual cleansing center. There were campgrounds and people that weren’t attending Pharos were randomly camping on parts of the land.

Childish Gambino came on stage and had tribal wear on including a yellow-looking hula skirt, his dreadlocks were glowing in the dark. People that thought they were going to what they thought was a music festival were in for a surprise when Gambino did not play any familiar music, it was ALL new music. Gambino calling it a festival made people think there were going to be more people on stage with him, but it was more of a listening session.The first couple of songs were really rock sounding. There was also an r&b element because of the gospel choir that performed on stage. The new Gambino music featured a lot more singing and not so much rapping, so don’t expect rapping, but his vocals were on point. 

The visuals were 3-D and projected in a dome, it was like the visuals were coming at you. There were projections of the planets and solar system around the crowd, and the planets grew bigger and bigger as if people were getting closer and closer. Everything was on beat.

In a seperate part of the Pharos grounds there was a theater where they were screening the first episode of the show, Atlanta.

You may be wondering why there was not too much coverage of the event, that is because people weren’t allowed to use phones. All phones were kept in a sleeve that only this magnetic plate could open. If anyone was caught using a phone they were kicked out immediately. That didn’t stop people from taking photos or leaking audio. Take a look at some of the footage that people were able to post.

Check out some posts from attendees at Pharos HERE:

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