Festival Season Survival: A Veteran's Field Guide
Twenty festivals, three continents, one ruined pair of boots. Everything I wish someone had told me before my first main-stage weekend.
The difference between a legendary festival and a miserable one is decided weeks before the gates open. It is decided by your packing list, your meeting point and your willingness to skip the headliner everyone is pretending to enjoy.
Rule one: your feet are the festival. Broken-in boots, two pairs of good socks per day, and blister plasters you will end up donating to strangers. Rule two: the best sets happen at 2pm on the smallest stage. The afternoon is where you find the band you will claim to have discovered.
Hydration is a personality trait by day two. Electrolytes before noon, water between every beer, and eat real food before 6pm while the queues are short. Your future self, watching the sunset set from a decent vantage point, will thank you.
And when it rains - and it will - lean in. The crowd that stays for the storm is the crowd you came for.
