How To Best Survive Your Festival Experience
You have to do these things if you want to survive.
This weekend, I hopped on board a Music Festival Trip’s bus to embark on an adventure I never anticipated to be so eventful. While this trip was filled with sunshine, heavy beats, and awesome vibes, it was also filled with moments of insanity and lesson’s learned the hard way.
Festival goers everywhere know the basics of attending these raves: keep your friends close, your Snapchat open, and your drinks handy. If you’re lucky, your group of friends won’t get separated.
But there are a couple other things that any attendee should keep in mind before stepping foot onto the dance floor. Following these survival tips will help maximize your festival fun, and prevent any tragedies that could put a damper on your day/night/weekend.
Charge Your Phone
Don’t walk into those gates without a battery of 100%. That phone becomes more than a camera and a way to communicate with those who aren’t lucky enough to be with you at the event, that thing becomes your lifeline. Without a charged phone, you have no way to contact festival friends that can go missing from the group, you lose the ability to GPS your way home, and you relinquish your ability to record any memories on your camera.
Stay Hydrated
No one would voluntarily stand out side in the blistering heat unless it were for a festival. Taking place in the middle of summer, festival season is filled with bro tanks, crop tops, and beads of sweat running down our bodies. On top of the music, festivals are a giant dance party and generally become tightly packed like a tuna can. The combination of heat, movement, and booze are a recipe for heat exhaustion and hangover headaches from hell. Keeping water handy at all times will help prevent heat-related dizziness, alcohol-related dehydration, and will help keep your body cool and functioning to it’s maximum ability, which will keep you shuffling from sun up to sun down.
Don’t EVER Leave Your Group, No Matter What
DO NOT BE THAT PERSON. Whatever you do, no matter the situation, do not ever abandon ship. Your festival family is attached to you like Velcro for good reason. Losing each other in a giant crowd of strangers can be a terrifying scenario. If inebriation and dead phones become elements in this predicament, it can only go farther downhill. Don’t let your time at a festival be ruined because you HAD to go with this person to the other stage or because you HAD to go look at the merchandise this time. Nothing is a good enough reason to leave your crew. Value your safety, stick together.
Make Sure You See Who You Want to See
Yes, you came to party and make new friends, but you also came for the same reason everyone else did: to hear some of your favorite artists perform live. Let’s face it, the lineup is what brought you hear, and one of those headliners are one of your favorites. MAKE SURE you see them. Don’t let friends talk you out of it. If you must compromise and split up set times to see three different artists in the same hour. Make it happen.
Take Pictures, But Don’t Record Everything
Making memories permanent by capturing them in a picture is wonderful. IPhones and GoPros help music lovers keep moments with them forever by recording bits and pieces of their favorite artists, and allows them to share those moments with friends and family forever. But don’t let your focus remain on your phone’s screen for the majority of the time. Remember to live in the moment and take in the concert first hand. It’s what you paid for. If you wanted to watch the whole show on a screen, you might as well have stayed at home and streamed it online. Take a few pictures, record a video two, and put the phone away.
Everyone is due a weekend of carelessness and adventure from time to time, but making an effort to stay safe and party smart must always hold priority in the process.
