You made it to the festival! Now what?

Take the time and do it right.  I know you are ready to explore, but don’t worry, you will get there very soon (step 3!).  Trust me, if you don’t  do this now, you never will.  Take a few minutes to really set up your camp – not just your tent.  Make your bed.  Organize your kitchen.  Get your shit together!  (See our post on how to set up camp)

Share a beer.  Or a coke. Or a smoke.  Whatever you have to share.  The point is, meet your neighbors now, in the daylight, while sober.  Make friends.  We have many very close friends that we met simply due to proximity at a music festival.  If we hadn’t made each others’ acquaintance on the first day, we may have spent the whole weekend stumbling past each other on the way to our tents, instead of creating a community neighborhood in our camping area, and a lifelong bond!

Yeah!  Your shit is together, you’ve made friends with the neighbors, had a beer and some time to relax, now it is time to go check out your new home for the next several days!  Explore every nook and cranny while you have the chance.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve left a festival saying “I didn’t know that was there,” or “The what?  No, I didn’t see that!” 

Check it all out now, so you know where everything is and what you may want to spend more time experiencing later.  Get your bearings, find the shortcuts to the stage and back to camp, make a note of all the porta-pots (especially where the out-of-the way ones are – they may stay clean the longest!) 

Learn the ins and outs of the place so you can festy like a pro!

Please.  It’s easy to start partying right away, and get caught up in the madness and excitement right away, but there will be plenty of time for irresponsibility later.  This is day one, and it’s a marathon, not a sprint, remember?  

Get some good food in you while you still have an appetite.  Trust me, you’ll thank me tomorrow!

See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?  Now you are ready to safely slip into full-festy mode and go out and enjoy everything the festival has to offer, knowing you have a comfy bed waiting for you back at camp!