"We definitely have become one of the flag holders of that scene," says Gem and Jam partner Josh Pollack.

As the dance world pushes further into the nonphysical reality of the metaverse, electronic festivals continue consolidating under corporate ownership and events experience a stop-start-stop again comeback during the pandemic, the current challenges for indie dance festivals are myriad and existential.

But one such longstanding fest is holding a candle for a certain kind of bespoke, rootsy show with no corporate ties — an eclectic slate of music, along with programming like talks, workshops and yoga, and strong ties to the West Coast’s hallowed transformational festival scene.

The 14th annual Gem and Jam festival begins today (February 3) at the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson, Arizona. Extending through Sunday (Feb. 6), the event takes the first half of its name from its overlap with the longstanding Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase, which draws experts and enthusiasts of the field from around the country and beyond.

In fact, Gem and Jam began in 2005 as an afterparty for the Showcase, eventually growing out of Tucson’s live music venues and, in 2013, expanding into a full festival format. Since this expansion, Gem and Jam has operated via private funding. (After taking a year off in 2019, the event was one of the few festivals to happen in 2020 as it took place just weeks before the pandemic hit the U.S.)

As events cautiously return this season, approximately 6,000 people are expected to attend Gem and Jam this weekend, with the festival able to expand its footprint in the fairgrounds as crowd size grows in the coming years, as organizers expect it to. And while it will be cold this weekend in Tucson, with nightly temperatures dipping down to the mid-30s, Gem and Jam partner Josh Pollack says that hosting the event so early in the year gives it an advantage.

“Because we coincide with the Gem Show, we are kind of like the first festival of the year,” Pollack says. “We’ve been really lucky in that regard, because we don’t really have much competition with other independent or more major festivals.”

Featuring a lineup including jamtronic veterans STS9, Dirtybird founder Claude VonStroke, live electronic fusion band Dirtwire, psytrance icons Shpongle, Swedish bass favorite Liquid Stranger and many other non-mainstream electronic and live acts, the lineup hearkens back to the heady early days of California’s Lightning In a Bottle festival and Symbiosis festivals, along with the dozens of smaller, more renegade gatherings that happened throughout the region.