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Summer is officially here and as per usual, it comes with a mandatory bucket list of things you have to do to even earn the right to claim that you indeed had a summer and participated in it rather than spending your time re-watching Breaking Bad. You know, so that when you‘re 80 years old you can start your sentences with „when I was young“ and actually have a story following it. Basically we are all just doing our best to have some stories to tell (in between episodes of Breaking Bad) when we‘re old.
And a music festival is on everyone’s summer bucket list, in caps lock, highlighted and underlined. But how do you survive (and hopefully enjoy) a music festival when you are not by any definition old, but well, slightly mature? You can‘t throw on a pink unicorn onesie and call it a day. Not unless you want to break the internet as „Excited mature man listening to rock music” the next day. You can rock n roll all night, but mostly until 12 a.m., when snoozing sets in. And you can‘t sleep face down in the mud and resemble anything close to a decent human being in the morning, you tend to travel with an organic buckwheat pillow.
Life is just not fair like that. You had your time for mud sleeping and unicorn onesies. Now it’s time for 12am curtain call and buckwheat pillows.
So how to survive a music festival with dignity when you are a mature gent? Don’t try to pretend you’re 20. Embrace the (old fart) maturity!
Roll in
Once slightly accidentally we took a wheeled suitcase to a festival. Which might seem completely out of fashion. But to our great surprise – best decision ever! As a general rule, there is (or at least it feels like) about a 5 km walk from the car park to the campsite. So why would you break your back dragging (the mountain of) stuff there when you can wheel it in on a trolley? Be the smart old fart and laugh at all the teenage Sisyphuses.
Stray away from festival fashions
Festivals in general are a big throwback Thursday to the one that started it all back in 1969. But while a hippie inspired outfit is festive in your twenties, anyone over 35 sporting florals and fringe just looks like maybe they got left behind from the original one. There’s a reason why “an old hippie” is never a compliment…
Bring that foldable seat
In your twenties you don’t bring a chair out of principle. It seems counterintuitive to the spontaneous relaxed (hippie) vibe that you are going for. But later on, when there is no firm ground to stand on as earth has turned into mud as far as the eye can see, you start to wonder what was so lame about the chair?..
Get yourself a head torch
and a long-lasting battery. You’ll need it.
Pack those earplugs
At one point in your life you are the annoying happily drunk ghost of a man, prancing around the campsite with a portable boombox on full volume at 5 in the morning, busting out dance moves that would make Beyonce proud. Then there are times when you’re the person trying to sleep in the tent. Just make peace with the fact that the other guy will be there. Prepare accordingly.
And in the truest old fart fashion – go in and get out early
There is no bigger buzzkill than being part of the zombie-horde dragging their tired asses and muddy tents out all at once. Not only is it slow and inconvenient, it just kills the whole illusion of a world where everyone is happy, friendly and tipsy, and no worry exists. So get out before that and keep the illusion untainted.