Survival Punk Rock Festival

10. Have Fun and Go Crazy

            Now you are ready and prepared to have an awesome experience at your festival. Festivals are way better than regular concert because you get so much more than what you paid. More show for your money. This is because festivals are longer, with more bands and more fun. This is kind of like the six flags motto “More flags more fun”. Who cares if you’re half deaf for awhile if you know you had a blast at your festival.

            Be crazy and spontaneous during your festival. Give crowd surfing a try, trust me it’s not bad if you follow my advice from my crowd surfing blog. I’ll guarantee you after your first crowd surfing experience you will want to crowd surf again. With crowd surfing, also try being in a mosh pit and get to tell your friends about all your new battle scars, a.k.a bruises. Usually you get a couple during a huge mosh and really hard core metal song. It happens and it always makes for a funny story to tell your friends or family.

            Also, don’t forget to get your tickets early just in case they sell out quickly during the first couple weeks. Usually the sell out quick especially if the festival is like Warp Tour or Edgefest. Once you get tickets, have a budget plan meeting with your friends so you can discuss how much should everybody spend at the festival.

            Meet and support bands is a must if you want them to stay around. Especially the new ones to the industry. Usually concert goers get introduced to their new favorite bands or new favorite genre that’s out now at a festival. Take pictures and videos and post the on Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace so you can help that band get their name and music out there to the public.

  Take this blogs in and they can help you not have such a bum time from getting hurt from crowd surfing or getting your new band merchandise stolen. I tried to cover everything I know and seen during the few festivals I have been to over the years and trust me I still learning new things every time I go to a show or festival. This blogs are just the basic survival tips I have noticed that everybody uses to make their festival fun and safe and it works every time. Also for those you haven’t been to a festival you are missing out on a fun and awesome experience. 

Also check out my Prezi presentation on history of Warp Tour. http://prezi.com/qv48a_dnevz0/vans-warp-tour/

Survival of a Punk Rock Festival

9. Making a Budget

            Festivals are always an awesome experience, but they can make you go broke in less than a second. Then the festival becomes a bum experience because you have no money to get food or buy the new band album of the headliner of your festival. It can make a huge increase on the factor if you and your group of friends sit down a week or two before the festival and discuss a budget for the day or however long your long festival is.

            Usually, festival goers mostly buy a lot of merchandise from the different band merchandise tables set up throughout the day or days of the festival.  So make a plan about how much you want to spend on your favorite band.  Also, you should decide how much you want to spend on a new band you just heard play and you want to buy one of their CDs. This is where a lot of concert goers spend most of their cash.  They suddenly decide they want a CD of the new bands they hear who are about to hit it big in the music industry. This is because we as concert goers love to support new artists who have really great music.  So with a budget in hand, you can decide on which new band you want to support.

            When making a budget with your friends, it’s always a good idea to pick a time to decide how much you want to spend on food. Trust me!   You don’t want to go a whole day without eating anything at festival.  Venues will have either a restaurant, snack bar, or both places around the concert venue.  If you have the set list of when the bands are performing,  you and your group of friends can decide which bands you don’t want to see and take a lunch or dinner break during those performances.

Making a budget helps you know how much you want to spend. Usually, you want to spend around 100 or 200 dollars for the whole festival day. If your festival is more than a day, try to spend less than 100 dollars per day.  After it’s over, you will have enough band merchandise and autographs from band members to make your friends jealous.  You will also have some extra cash you didn’t spend at your festival to help you get started with your week. To us concert goers, that’s never a bad thing because we love to go to festivals and support our favorite bands.  So it’s worth every penny spent.

           

Survival of a Punk Rock Festival

8. Getting Your Tickets Early

      Being at a festival is always a fun experience, but it also can be really expensive or hard to buy a ticket. Tickets for a festival usually start at 30 dollars when they first go on sell to the public on such websites as Ticketmaster or Stubhub. Then as the time comes closer to the date of that particular festival, you’ll start to see the ticket prices increase to 40 or 50 dollars a ticket. So it’s always a good idea to get your tickets early especially with Edgefest and Warp Tour, the most popular festivals.

     My favorite ticket ordering website is www.ticketmaster.com because it is user-friendly, and they have affordable prices. Ticketmaster also can provide you with information on what shows or events are happening in the next few months or the venue of your next festival. Sometimes you can even find better shows than what you expected.  I know I have found some unexpected gems. I found out about the All Stars Tour Festival in Dallas last summer using them. Ticketmaster has a feature where you can print your tickets for free after you purchase them.  This feature certainly makes it easier for you and your friends to avoid a long dreadful line at the ticket window at your show venue.

      Don’t get me wrong!  I’m sure there are plenty of good ticket ordering websites that you may find user-friendly, such as www.classictickets.com or www.tickets.stubhub.com. Use what you know best when purchasing your tickets online, and always be sure the website is real and legit. You don’t want to have an identity crime crisis on your hands because you have entered your information and credit card number on a fake website.

      When ordering your tickets early, know you will need to exercise great responsibility in keeping up with them. You never want to have to re-enter all your info just to get another copy of your tickets printed at 2 in the morning before your show. Some ticket ordering websites don’t even let you re-print what you order. Put your tickets somewhere you know where you can find them.  For example, you can pin them on your bulletin board, place them in a desk draw, or even give them to your parents who can keep up with things better than you. Personally, I place the tickets I ordered on my bulletin board.   This way when my friends come visit me in my dorm room, they can get jealous and ask me about the concert.

Survival of a Punk Rock Festival

7. Always Go In A Group To A Festival.

     It’s never any fun, for any reason, to go alone to any genre of music festival. Some reasons not to go alone include: getting harassed by creepers if you’re a female, getting into a fight, or getting lost at a venue. Sticking together with a group of friends is the best choice for a safe and a more enjoyable experience at a festival. Plus, with a group of friends, you can always get a good spot in an autograph line to see at a band at their table.

    At most venues there is a bar, or for outside festivals, a place to buy alcohol. For some strange reason, concert goers think it’s always fun to get drunk at festival.  Being drunk, as we all well know, makes us not have very good judgment, and mistakes are made. This is especially so for who are drunk in a mosh pit, if they get hit the wrong way, they start fighting with whoever hit them. Having a group of friends with you can also help you avoid this situation. They can pull you out of the mosh pit when things get really bad, or they can get you away from the drunken guy who is trying to swing at you. With a group a friends by your side, you can avoid a dangerous situation.

    Being a female with a group of friends can help make sure that other guys don’t touch you inappropriately or stalk you. If you’re a female, you should never walk around a venue alone.  Always go with someone while you’re exploring the venue.  Preferably, take a guy with you, but if there are no guys in your group; get one of your girlfriends to go with you. There is always that one guy that will follow you everywhere in a creepy fashion. Walking around with a friend or two will help keep you safe during a festival.

    Going with a group of friends ensures you can always share your experiences for years to come with each other. Also, you can make your other friends jealous who didn’t join your group at the festival.   That is always kind of fun to watch their reactions.  Remember to show off all the crazy pictures you and your friends took at the show as well as the ones you took with the bands at the festival.  It is especially fun to display them on Facebook or Twitter. Doing this can help a particular band get their name out to all of your friends on your friend’s list. I’ve always gone with a group of friends to concerts, and it has always been an awesome experience.