We’ve spent so much time at music festivals over the past decade, the experiences are now one big pulsing memorymonster. Celebration, sweat, dance throwdowns, terrible food an unending stream of incredible (and not-so-incredible) music all blend together, with a digital mountain of pictures and in-depth recaps gathered along the way to prove that it all happened when we finally fall off the snake. No matter the lineup, no two festivals are the same – and there’s a vital balance to strike for a fest to be successful.
We’ve dug through a decade of notes, gripes, recaps and gushing reports on the scene to bring you an essential list of 8 qualities that make the ultimate music festival experience. With these key points covered, a musical-marathon journey is all but guaranteed, no matter who’s jumping around onstage. We’ll skip the most obvious part, because that’s the main reason we’re all here: the bands.
Security
When you’re entering the gorgeous polo fields in the deserts of Indio, CA for the Coachella festival, a certain tension hangs in the air near the entrance. Perhaps that’s due to the clusters of uniformed cops hanging out, seemingly waiting to pounce after security pats you down in a way that would make the TSA look like 4th Amendment activists. While the gatekeeper in your way sniffs your bag for any stinky contraband, you may very well forget you’re there for a festival instead of a Scared Straight program.
And then there’s Bonnaroo.Once we passed through the main entrance to the campground, these were the only cops we saw all weekend:
Literally. The two dudes from “Reno 911” (who we happen to miss like hell, by the way). Once inside the campground, the people charged with keeping the peace are, for the most part, geriatrics on horseback. They don’t have guns, batons, tasers or even slingshots. They’re there to help, and there’s no grey area about that. The freedom and granted responsibility to police ourselves at Bonnaroo is a crucial factor in maintaining that unique energy so specific to ‘Roo. Rarely will you see a bro-fest alpha battle in Centeroo or the campground – it’s just not that kind of festival.
Variety of Activities
Head off the standard beaten path at Outside Lands for a little side-journey through the woods in Golden Gate Park, where fans can indulge in everything from the dessert heaven of Choco Lands to costumed freaks taking part in any number of odd antics, and a little extra privacy for relaxation. When the sun goes down, the setting gets downright magical.
Sword swallowers, an evil-clown circus and all manners of artery-clogging edible delight were waiting for us there, with Choco Lands bringing a little too much temptation for those $8 s’mores.
Food
Leave that nasty fried circus tripe behind. Food is now a festival focal point, and Outside Lands recruits the Bay Area’s most unique food vendors. Setting up shop in the forested area between the main stages, curated delights include Outside Lambs, the new Cheese Lands, Wine Lands and the dessert magnificence of Choco Lands. For foodies, stoners and the famished, there are few better festival options across the entire nation than what Outside Lands has to offer. Poutine at a music festival? Yeah, let’s do this.
Activism
BonnaROOTS Community Dinners spin the eating experience into a step of local activism. These locally sourced, four-course feasts allow festival-goers to eat for a cause at a beautiful 110-person communal table, taking place right under the gorgeous Tennessee skies. All of the proceeds from the dinners go directly to BonnaROOTS partners, Oxfam America and Eat for Equity. Oxfam America saves lives, develops long-term solutions to poverty, and campaigns for social change; Eat for Equity builds a culture of generosity through community meals that benefit various nonprofit organizations.
Additionally, solar panels from SolarWorld, the largest U.S. solar manufacturer for more than 35 years, now offsets electricity used to power the music performances. A 50-kilowatt array, which festival attendees paid for out of their own pockets, is the first permanent solar system installed at a major American music festival. The clean energy produced by the system is equivalent to 20 percent of the power consumed at Bonnaroo during the annual four-day music and art extravaganza.
Atmosphere
Atmosphere is everything at a festival. More often than not, festivals choke out any sense of organic fun with schticky corporate-branded promotions at every turn and a downright intimidating police presence. When set against the freedom of the Bonnaroo experience, Coachella’s Heinekin-soaked double-weekend carbon-copy explosion in the desert looks like a strobe light party at Target – with broken air conditioning.
On the Outside Lands festival grounds in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, it’s clear that organizers have taken great strides in greening the entire festival. Concertgoers were greeted with free bike valets, farmers markets, urban agriculture workshops and even a stage entirely powered by solar energy (the Panhandle stage). A proper preparation, given both that San Francisco is so well known as a progressively green-minded city, and the fact that the park itself is full of wooded areas and pathways between stages that resembled nature trails.
VIP restraint
Don’t those people look like they’re having fun? Yeah, that’s Queens of The Stone Age they’re attempting to talk over. The VIP section at Lollapalooza has been rebranded to the less-snooty “Platinum Pass” area, but its ridiculousness and fun-corroding placement is undiminished. Throughout Queens of The Stone Age’s set, as tens of thousands of devoted fans crushed to the front in a sweaty herd, no more than 20 total people were in the gigantic 18-foot barricaded VIP zone, leaving a wide open gap between the fans and the band, resulting in an inevitable energy disconnect. The situation was no better with Nine Inch Nails, as hammered fortysomething popped-collar married couples danced with each other as if they were at a Jimmy Buffet concert.
The VIP zone at the main stage has expanded considerably since Live Nation dug their fingers into the Voodoo festival as well, essentially taking up the entire right side of the audience area. This led to Eddie Vedder commenting multiple times about the “jacuzzi section or whatever the f*ck that is over there” during Pearl Jam’s set.
VIP sections need restraint, and for all the peripheral amenities offered it’s perfectly possible for organizers to deliver a pinkies-up festival weekend to those heavier in the wallet – without sacrificing the rest of our experience in the process.
Attention to (Bathroom) Detail
As anyone who’s been through the puke-inducing hell of a mid-Summer general-admission experience can tell you, ten rows of port-a-potties that get emptied once a day aren’t going to cut it. We think you can use your imagination on this one…
Branding
Atmosphere is everything at a festival. Comparatively, other festivals choke out any sense of organic fun with schticky corporate-branded promotions at every turn and a downright intimidating police presence. When set against the freedom of the Bonnaroo experience, Coachella’s Heinekin-soaked double-weekend carbon-copy explosion in the desert looks like a strobe light party at Target – with broken air conditioning & the TSA for security. While Coachella promoters celebrate overflowing demand by promising exact-replica weekends back to back (putting zero effort into making each a unique experience), Bonnaroo simply kept working to improve its single-weekend domination by fine-tuning an already fantastic formula, and emphasizing fun and awareness over third-party promotional overdrive.
