2020 is here and with it comes the newest edition of one of the best festivals in the world: Lollapalooza! This is a huge annual festival that features dozens of hip-hop, techno, and alternative rock performers over a three-day period. It happens all over the world and it features awesome line-ups for people to enjoy.
If you are one of the lucky ones, your city is the host of this annual festival such as people in São Paulo. Lollapalooza Brazil happens every year in the Interlagos racetrack and in 2019 it received almost 250 thousand people. Besides the music, there are also food tents all over the place, hammocks and chairs for you to rest, different games for you to win prizes and even a small shopping sections with different clothing brands.
Being in Lollapalooza might be overwhelming, especially if you are new to the festival life. What to wear, what to bring, where to go and how to do anything may be doubts you are having, and we are here to help! If you want to have the best Lollapalooza ever, here are some tips for the best 3 days of your life!
- Check the time and place
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Every year, the Lollapalooza website releases the date, time and even the stage (yes there are 4 stages!) all the invited artists are playing. We recommend you check at least one week before the festival so you can plan your days. Be careful to check the artists you really want to see, because they might be overlapping, and you would need to decide between some of them or watch only half of each one.
- Check transportation and accommodation
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The Interlagos racetrack is in the very south zone of São Paulo (Av. Senador Teotônio Vilela, 261), and it might be difficult for you to get there so pay attention. Here are the options for your transportation:
. Taxi or private driver: if you plan on going with a taxi driver or a private driver company, make sure to reserve the day and time at least one week prior to the festival. We recommend this because there will be a lot of demand near and in the festival days so the companies might not have a driver available.
. Train: iif you are planning on going by train, the Autodromo station (Linha 9 – Esmeralda / Osasco-Grajaú) is 6 minutes away (walking) from the racetrack. You can also get down on the Jurubatuba station and take a bus ate the terminal.
. Lollapalooza transfer: The festival offers a transfer that takes you from one of three hotels to the Interlagos racetrack and brings you back to the same spot you left. You can buy tickets and not worry about transportation. This is a good option, because it is not as expensive as a cab but is more reliable than public transportation.
. Lollapalooza caravan: if you are from Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte or Curitiba, this option is for you! The caravan takes people from those 3 places in the morning and takes them back at night!
. Stay at a hotel: If you don’t want to go back and forth between your house and the festival, you can stay in one of the hotels nearby. The Lollapalooza´s organization has separated the best options for you into their website. Click here to check it out!
- Plan your expenses and charge your Lolla cashless beforehand
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The Lollapalooza offers this amazing way for you to buy things inside the festival (food, clothes, drinks, you name it). The festival is all cashless which means you can´t buy things with “real money”. You need to charge your Lollapalooza wristband with money and that is going to be your credit card for the 3 days of the festival, and when you are going to buy something you just have to put your wristband on a monitor and it’s done! Click here to charge your wristband!
Our recommendation is that you charge your wristband at least 2 weeks before the festival because this option closes prior to it and the only way you can charge it afterwards is inside the racetrack, and believe me, you don’t want to face that.
Simple meal costs an average of R$ 15 (hamburgers, hot dogs, pastel, pizza slice, etc.). One soda costs R$10, a water is R$6 (but you can get this for free, we are going to tell you how further in the article), and a beer is R$ 13. There are also food trucks that offer coxinhas, milkshakes, ice cream (the price is relative) and in 2019 there were people going around selling a small bag of Doritos for R$ 5, a French fry cone for R$10 and even some churros! Besides that, you can buy drinks for an average of R$ 30 and some more complex and big meals for the same price (R$30).
In conclusion, you are going to spend some money, but you can also bring food from home (we recommend cereal bars, nuts, chips and cookies) but you can’t bring anything to drink. The best option is to calculate how much money you want to spend, so that you don’t end up spending more than you can!
- Wear comfortable clothes!
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Yes, we know! You want to look like those girls at the Coachella festival, Pinterest photos and, of course, like Vanessa Hudgens. However, wearing those heel boots isn’t going to be a good idea. The racetrack is big. Really big, and the stages are far away from each other, so you are going to walk a lot. Besides that, the land is bumpy and it’s all grass which means if it rains (and yes it can happen just like in 2019) it’s going to get muddy and it’s going to ruin those pretty shoes you just bought.
So, our recommendation is to get in those comfortable pairs of shorts, a good supporting top and hair ties! We asked Julia Facundo, 18-year-old student and 3-time Lollapaloozer what she thought about the clothes to wear and this was her answer: “You need to wear the most ruined and old shoes you´ve got. They are going to get ruined with dirt, mud and everything you step on!”. Now you can go ahead and plan your outfit with a good old pair of snickers.
- Bring your essentials
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The festival doesn’t have a pharmacy or utility stores so you will have to bring some things from home.
First, I think it’s a good idea to tell you that the toilets are chemical toilets, every girl’s enemy. And it doesn’t have toilet paper. First thing’s first, you will need to bring a packet of tissues or some toilet paper in your bag. The toilet area does have a sink, but it doesn’t have soap, so we recommend for you to bring some liquid soap and hand sanitizer.
Other essentials worth bringing are pads or tampons (you never know!), medication for pain, nausea and other symptoms you usually have, a portable charger, a picnic blanket (always in handy if you don’t like sitting in the grass), sunscreen and sunglasses. We also recommend buying those cheap, big, plastic raincoats (people usually sell them outside the festival at R$5 when it’s sunny and R$20 when it’s raining) because rain may come at any time!
- Use the Lolla water stations
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You are going to be under the sun, jumping, running, walking, singing and dancing for 3 days so you need to be hydrated. Lucky for you, the Lollapalooza organization had this wonderful idea to install water stations all over the festival.
The first thing you are going to do when you get to the Interlagos racetrack is to find the nearest water station. There, they are going to scan your wristband and give you some plastic water bottle options for you to choose one. And then you are set! You can fill your bottle up with water in the stations all the time! The best thing is the water bottle comes with a clip so you can clip it anywhere and not hold it all day.
- Phone charging station
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If you are one of those people that forgets to charge their phone all the time, don’t worry! Lollapalooza offers a space with some cushions and some power points for charging any electronics. However, it doesn’t offer the charger and you will need to sit there and wait when you could be doing something fun! Try to bring a portable charger or charge your phone at night and try not to use it all the time! It will be worth it.
- Have fun!
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A festival is a place to relax, dance and enjoy yourself. If you like thrill rides, Lollapalooza always offers at least one thrill ride for the bold ones and a Ferris wheel for the chill ones. You can get a tattoo, eat all day, sit near the stage waiting hours for your favorite artists or just go around the stages and enjoy the festival. Everything counts. I promise it will be unforgettable!
The article above was edited by Thays Avila. Liked this type of content? Check Her Campus Casper Libero home page for more!