Music festival season is finally here! If you’re heading to one soon or if you’re getting ready to get tickets to one, the excitement must be overwhelming. If this year just isn’t the year for that to happen to you, maybe there’s a little bit of a sting thinking about it (at least your bank account’s doing a little better though).
As a person with a love for music that ranges across a multitude of genres, the presence of these festivals gives me an unexplainable feeling of content. It’s not the most common occurrence to find your favorite indie band performing the same weekend with your favorite rapper right before your favorite DJ takes the stage. It’s a giant melting pot of emotions, nostalgia, and adrenaline. Losing myself in these amazing sounds and people who appreciate it as much as I do is close to a dream come true for me.
Music festivals build a special little world that traps you in for those few days that it runs across. It’s a world tailored to tingle all your senses, with sights and smells that you can only seem to associate with this special realm where everything seems to be invincible to you. It’s meant to make you feel like you just stepped into a movie scene. It’s meant to thrust you front and center of an experience where you call the shots of what you want to feel and think about.
My first music festival was a decision that I felt I spent half my life getting ready for. My favorite band was playing and the thought of saying no to it never once crossed my mind. Those few months leading up to the day of ticket sales felt like years. I was calculating every penny coming out of my wallet, and my eyes glazed past every article of clothing with a radar that rang every time I saw something that I could wear. Getting those tickets knocked the breath out of me. I was making playlists for each day of it and I was listening to it everywhere I went imagining what hearing it live would feel like.
I remember every feeling leading up to those moments all too well. I was with my best friends, 15 of us crammed into a single hotel room. It smelt like a mixture of perfumes and cologne with a slight tinge of alcohol.
I remember seeing the stages laid out far out ahead of me. I remember the way the lights shined a little brighter as the sky got a little darker. I remember crying when my favorite song played and losing my voice singing along and screaming to everything that was every act was playing those nights.
If you’re one for experiences like these, it’s sacrifice with a big pay-off. Music festivals are only getting bigger and better, and there seems to be one popping up every now and then with sick line-ups. Make those opportunities happen. They’re worth everything.