Like anyone who loves going to music festivals, I cannot tell you how many I’ve attended: 50, 75, 10 — After a while they all run together into a single hot, soggy time dancing under open skies marked by torrential downpours, mind-blowing sets, and epic antics.
Make your jokes about dirty hippies with charred brains, but the reason festies blur together is because they’re all basically the same. The music changes, and the vibe changes, but they all abide by the same tried and true formula: music + outdoors + camping – glass = a great time.
As festival season comes upon us again, the Advocate has put together a quick guide with up front FYIs and things you can do to have a great concert-going experience. We’ve also included a list of the biggest shows coming to the area.
∎ Make a plan. When you drive in, a dude will hand you a pamphlet or booklet with the music schedule. Take a moment and check it out. Figure out which bands you have to see and circle them. Tuck it into your backpack and for the rest of the weekend be the only one in your group who has any idea what is going on.
∎ Drink responsibly. Don’t start drinking until around 4 p.m., unless you have time for an afternoon nap; then go ahead and crack a beer at dawn. Drinking early with no time for rest is a great way to make sure you fall asleep by 8 p.m. and miss the best bands.
∎ Stake out your home base. A flag, some PVC pipe, and even more personality should do it. Searching for your tent in the sea of similar temporary abodes is hard, so stand out by flying your colors. Attach a flag you like — mine is a big red crab on a field of blue — to PVC pipe and lash that sucker to your shade structure. Balloons also work well for this purpose. With a flag, even your most blissed-out friend will be able to find his way back to home base.
∎ Get a good camping spot. At venues that feature car camping, park as far from the next car as possible; this is all the space you’re going to get to camp. If you’re not camping by your car and can pick your own spot, here’s what to do:
∎ Take the high ground. There’s usually some rain at a festival. You don’t want your sweet site to turn into a swamp after a quick storm.
∎ Never camp next to a Port-A-Potty. It’s tempting to have a bathroom close by, but the toilets will start to stink and people do throw up in line waiting to use them. You don’t want that next to your grill.
∎ If you want quiet, camp in the family camping area. It’s also the cleanest area with the best bathrooms and possibly showers.
∎ Never camp next to the outer fence. Most venues line concerts with fencing to keep out crashers. These barriers become hotbeds for drug dealers who didn’t buy tickets or don’t want to bother to lug a nitrous oxide tank through security. Also don’t support the Nitrous Mafia, the East Coast hippie crack cartel, and don’t buy balloons. The NM brings a filthy, forget-music-do-drugs vibe to every event they attend. Recognize them by their surly demeanor, crisp trucker hats, wide shorts, and dreads — and walk away.
∎ Bring rubber boots and a rain poncho. It seems no festival is complete without a sudden downpour, the sog and mud of which hangs out for the rest of the event. Sandals cannot stand up to the sticky suck of six-inches of mud, you need something sturdy that will keep your feet dry; rubber boots are cheap and work well. The poncho is something I did without for years of festival-going. It’s summer, I figured, a little rain will feel good. Maybe for the first few minutes a little spritz is nice, but a day of rain and wind can soak through your clothes and extra clothes, quickly leaving you chilled to the bone. Bring a poncho, bring several, or at least some trash bags that can be converted into ponchos. If you didn’t bring one, head over to the beer tents. Some of the more chill brewers hand out poncho swag, but it runs out fast.
∎ Water. It’s hot, you’re dancing, and likely drinking a lot of beer. You will have a terrible time if you get dehydrated. It’s 10 times worse than a hangover. Bring lots of water. As the drill sergeant said in Jarhead: “Hydrate!”
∎ Bring food and cash to buy food. To save money, you may be tempted to swear off buying expensive burritos and parking lot grilled cheeses, but at some point you’re going to eat through the chicken wings and eggs you brought or be too far away from home base to chuck together a PB&J. You’re going to be glad you’ve got a food budget; a frugal $50 will do. On the other hand, if you eat from trucks all weekend, your stomach will take it out on you later. Bring some chow to grill the first day, some fresh fruit, and sandwich stuff, too. In a pinch, nacho chips and peanut butter is quite good.
∎ You’re not going to shower. If you want to be clean at a festival, good luck. Showers aren’t typically provided and if there is a shower truck the lines are long, time under the faucet is short, and the water is cold. Bring baby wipes and plan on taking the most satisfying shower of your life when you get home.
∎ Pick a place at the stage and stick with it. A study of Deadheads found that at a general admission concert, the groovy group has an unconscious order. At the front are the rail rats, the people who want to be as close to the band as possible, at the flanks are the dancers, toward the middle and back are older fans, and along the back are where all the vending, legal and illegal, is going down. If you go to concerts with friends, pick a spot. This way, when you all get separated — and you will all get separated — reconnecting will be easy.
∎ Forget about your smartphone. You will never hear it ring above the music and din. Bumping around against hundreds of other people, you’re not going to feel the vibration either. Don’t rely on phones to communicate at shows.
∎ Throwing elbows. You’ve found a great spot just a few rows back from the stage, everyone’s dancing and having a good time. Then three guys with backpacks show up and stand right in front of you. It’s time to throw elbows. Throwing elbows means dancing in a bit of an exaggerated fashion, leading with the bows. It should only be deployed to push back creepers and people who cluelessly enter your space — about two feet in either direction.
∎ Pass the dutchie on the left hand side. Sharing is caring. That said, never take candy from the diddler. A diddler is a creepy guy who travels solo and hangs out near the stage staring at all the girls dancing in their twirly skirts. This guy is not your friend, no matter how many times he tries to hug you. But of course, you can throw him your elbows.
∎ Just bring one. One person, one backpack, one cooler, one tent, one sleeping bag. That’s all you need. Bring a wagon if your cooler isn’t on wheels, but anything more and you’ll be looking to trade away half your stuff for a bottle of water before you even get halfway to your camping area.
∎ Zip-lock TP. The Port-A-Potties will run out of toilet paper. Bring your own and protect it in a waterproof bag.
∎ No glass. The no glass rule has been in effect for concerts since the ’90s — for good reason. Everyone’s stumbling around, messed up, in the muddy dark. Busted glass everywhere would be a foot-cutting nightmare. Fortunately, brewers small and large have noticed the glass-ban and you can buy microbrews in cans now — which means there’s no reason for you to drink Rolling Rock.
∎ Flashlight. Bring one, or two if you want to share. Keep it in your purse or pocket. It will come in handy more times than you think. Once the sun goes down, the only lights are on the stage.
∎ Go it alone. Take some time at each festival to go on a walk by yourself. Stop in and meet people at other camps. Bring some brews or chips to share; now you’re one of the people making the festival more interesting for everyone else. You’re part of the festival, not just a concert-goer.
∎ Bring shade. Whether it’s an umbrella, a pop-up tent or a tarp, you need to have a shade structure at your camp. It will be hot. You will want to relax in the shade. There is not natural shade in camping fields. For my first festival, we brought no shade and I ended up rolling under a car to get some relief.
∎ Trash bags. Bring ’em. The dude at the gate may give you a bag, but you’ll need more. Don’t forget to bring two extras for recycling.•
