Seven years after influential booker René Contreras decided to start a festival that defied the Los Angeles music industry machine, Viva! Pomona retains a surprising amount of credibility. Standing among an impressive list of Southern California music festivals that bring together current and nostalgic favorites, few lineups offer the recurring curatorial nuances and discovery opportunities that Viva! Pomona does.

Like every year, the festival’s 2018 lineup is stacked with buzzy darlings that include Girl Ultra, The Marías, and Dromedarios Mágicos, but in most cases you’ll be hard-pressed to connect names to sounds without a few Google and Spotify searches. And this remains the festival’s greatest strength: exposing devoted indie audiences to the kids making excellent music from the relative anonymity of their bedrooms.

Though Viva! Pomona is a veritable treasure trove of emerging talent, we’ve compiled a list of exciting local artists bound to make a splash at this year’s festivities. We always recommend you arrive early and catch the up-and-coming names, but for this festival in particular, the benefits of timely attendance seriously bear repeating.

Viva! Pomona takes place at The Glass House in Pomona, CA on August 18-19. Check out the full lineup here.