The festival was a place to learn and connect with like-minded people, “to be part of something much, much bigger,” said Adam Romero, an attendee from Folsom, California. “As soon as we noticed The Planetary Society was doing something like this,” he added, “we had to jump on it.”

Attendees came together to share their interests, discover new things about space, and just hang out and have fun. On the festival’s acres of grassy ranchland, amid fields of wildflowers and cattle, people shared “love stories” of how they first became passionate about space. They played games, watched movies, and gathered around telescopes to view the moons of Jupiter and the Orion nebula.

In a glass-walled chapel — typically meant for weddings — attendees packed the room to hear talks by Planetary Society scientists Bethany Ehlmann, Heidi Hammel, and Bruce Betts. Each speaker focused on one of the Society’s three main priorities in turn, updating members on the latest in planetary defense, exploration, and the search for life.