One of the more popular panels was named Time Traveling with Hip Hop - Discussing Science's Role in Hip Hop. The talk was led by Author and Professor Mark Anthony Neil and his special guest GZA a.k.a. the Genius from The Wu-Tang Clan. GZA was a part of the panel to talk about his new project Dark Matter, a concept album that will have songs revolving around the ideas of the universe, stars, black holes and planets. GZA isn't keeping his love of science for himself either. He has recently been going to schools, ranging from elementary to college level, to talk to kids about how interesting science can be. His approach is that everyone can be interested in science, you just have to present it in an engaging and fun way.

One of the more popular classes at Moogfest was the aptly named "Moga" or Moog-Yoga. An interesting yoga class, taking place every morning of Moogfest on the rooftop of The Durham Hotel, that taught to the soothing sounds of Moog Synthesizers. It's an interesting pairing, but also very popular as the class was full the whole weekend. Other Moogfest classes had attendees building synthesizers, teaching children the theremin and taking people on tours to the offices of startups in the city. Moogfest may seem like you are simply going to have a fun time when you buy the tickets, but, even if you don't notice it you will walk away from Moogfest being a touch smarter. It's pretty incredible.

Music

Music is the last major leg of Moogfest that we will be talking about. But, what's to say!? Moogfest did an amazing job curating an awesome musical lineup for the weekend while considering artists that worry about the future advancements in music. I don't think we could name one show that didn't include a synthesizer or electronic instrument of some kind on stage, and that wasn't by accident. Moogfest did an awesome job setting up and mounting the music performances. The larger performances happened at Motocro Park, an regenerated scrap yard that is now being used as a park for live music. The Park saw performances from Grimes, Blood Orange, Miike Snow, HEALTH and more. The park is right next door to Motorco Music Hall, which is a car shop turned music hall. The music hall saw performances from GZA, Demo Taped, and Yacht.

The Durham Armory was another often used venue throughout the weekend. The old armory is now a fully fledged performing arts venue. The large ballroom inside can fit just about 6,000 people which made it the perfrect venue for performances from Bicep, The Black Madonna, Earthly, and The Orb. The Armory's centralized location also helped immensely and was spitting distance from The Carolina.

The Carolina Theater was a major hub of the festival and was used for the larger profile shows. The beautiful Beaux-Arts style theater can seat just over 1,000 people. Moogfest had the place packed to capacity for performances from GZA, Gary Numan, and Explosions In The Sky. Some of the shows were so popular you could see the line serpentining all the way down the street of lined-up food trucks feeding hungry festival goers.

Check out our pictures from the weekend's musical performances and Moogfest 2016 recap videos below!