11 tips for surviving a music festival

Posted by Sarah Duff on 27 September 2012

Here are 11 tips (garnered from years of experience) for surviving – and having fun – at a music festival.

Rocking the Daisies 2010

1. BYOB

This is an obvious no-brainer one – bring your own liquor. It gets expensive out there, with all the Jagerbombs and rounds of tequila so
Remember that at a lot of music festivals, you’re not allowed to bring glass in, so decant your poison of choice into plastic bottles before leave home. Don’t be an idiot and try and sneak glass in – there’s a reason why they ban it. From experience, I’ve learned that you always need more mixer than you think.

2. Hand sanitiser is your hygienic friend

In the absence of proper ablution facilities and coconut-infused handwash, I highly recommend taking a super-sized bottle of hand sanitiser to de-bacterialise yourself after trips to the Portaloo. On the hygiene note, wet wipes are also a festival essential. They are multi-purposeful, providing a mobile shower, handwash and facewash all in one.

3. Take a glacier’s worth of ice

Seriously. It melts fast and there’s nothing worse than warm beers on day three.

4. Pack for summer and winter

Cape Town summer can be unpredictable. I’ve been to summer music festivals where one day you’re so hot you don’t know what to do with yourself, and the next you’re wearing two pairs of leggings, a jacket and a beanie.

5. Don’t dress like a camper

There will be people at the festival with their DSLRS taking photos of festival goers for their fashion/Cape Town/lifestyle blog. You’re not going to make the cut if you’re wearing khaki hiking pants and a fleece. Here are my tips on how to dress for a music festival (just because you’re camping doesn’t mean you need to look like a camper). Also try and take as little as possible – it’s inevitably a hard slog from your car to the campsite with your cooler box, tent etc.

6. Dress up

Co-ordinated outfits at Afrikaburn 2012

Having made point 5, it should also be said that dressing up at a music festival, especially in co-ordinated outfits with your mates, is rather a lot of fun. It also makes it easier to find your friends (see point 7) – especially when they’re wearing shiny velour tracksuits and huge blue wigs (true story).

7. Bring your Nokia 3310

Your iPhone is not going to last very long at a music festival, what with all the Instagramming, Facebooking and tweeting about how much fun you’re having. Instead of social media-ing your every move, bring an old unsmartphone

8. Make a meeting place

Having said that, your smartphone-addicted friends may not be able to revert to a phone without predictive text and Google Maps. Their phones will be dead by Friday at 9pm. You will get separated on the way to the bar and you may never find them again. Make a central meeting place and tattoo it on their hands so that you’ll be able to rendezvous even when plastered. Or you could forgo the meeting place and wander around until you make new friends (also recommended).

9. Take a family-sized pack of vitamins

This guy clearly didn't take any vitamins

And liver recovery pills. You’ll thank me on Monday at the office.

10. Pack padkos

Hangover breakfast of champions on the skottel

It ends up being a super expensive weekend if you’re buying a gourmet burger every couple of hours. If you’re budget-conscious, then bring your own chow. If you’re super organised, you’ll bring a skottel and cook up marvellous bacon-and-eggs breakfasts to feed your hungover friends. For the less organised, I can recommend avos (they don’t need cooling), tomatoes, bread rolls, apples and energy bars for when you wake up so hungover you can’t even make yourself a sandwich.

11. TP

Last but definitely not least, is toilet paper. This cheap but essential item should go in your bag before anything else.

I like music festivals and I write about them on this blog. Here are some of my favourites:

Flamjangled Tea Party

A super chilled, hippyish festival in Durbanville near Cape Town with a mixture of acoustic, folk and electro music.

Why the Flamjangled Tea Party is like no other music festival (2011)

10 things I loved about the Flamjangled Tea Party (2011)

www.theteaparty.co.za

Rocking the Daisies

Rocking the Daisies 2010

Cape Town’s biggest festival, Rocking the Daisies takes place every year in Darling on the first weekend of October. There’s a huge range of entertainment on, from bands and DJs to films and live comedy.

10 things I learned at Rocking the Daisies (2010)

www.rockingthedaisies.com

Afrikaburn

This isn’t a music festival – it’s described more accurately as an arts festival but it’s so much more than that. Based on the famous Burning Man festival in the US, it’s a community gathering where anything goes. It’s the best festival I’ve ever been to.

Afrikaburn: the best festival in the world (2012)

www.afrikaburn.com

Lake of Stars

An amazing, chilled music festival on the shores of Lake Malawi, with musicians and DJs from Africa and around the world. It’s held in October every year.

Lake of Stars Festival (2011)

www.lakeofstars.org

If you haven't partied with this guy yet, you haven't been to a Cape Town music festival