How to Talk to Your Parents About Festival Camping

You’ve clocked six hours of sleep. You are standing in a line of 30 at 8am to brush your teeth at a pump sink. Your daily intake of crap food and Clif Bars is coming for you. The last time you showered, you were at your apartment halfway across the country. The idea of using a toilet that flushes is an abstract thought, like winning the lottery. It’s 103 degrees out, and you smell like you feel. Your dreams are consumed by air-conditioning. There is no way you are going to work on Monday—or Tuesday, for that matter—as those days are reserved for sleep. It is your third day camping at a music festival, and you are having the time of your life.

“As passé and stereotypical as it sounds today, camping at a music festival is truly a transcendental experience.”

As passé and stereotypical as it sounds today, camping at a music festival is truly a transcendental experience. The sense of community that it brings is like no other. You meet people from all walks of life who, in everyday monotony, would rarely ever interact with each other: poor people, rich people, straight people, gay people, Australians who won’t stop redlining fucking Skrillex for 72 hours straight, that old high-school buddy you lost touch with, frat bros, nerds, music fanatics, passive music fans, and possible the love of your life. Festival camping is the ultimate equalizer.

This is not to say it’s a cultural mashup of rainbows and unicorns. Let me tell you something: You do not really know somebody until you have spent three days together in Mad Max–style accommodations 15 feet from—DUN-DUN-DUUUUN—the porta-potty. The highs will be high and the lows will be low, and trust me, there will be lows to test your limits.

I have camped at more than 15 festivals in my life, and below is just a snapshot of some things I’ve had the unfortunate experience of living through: realizing there is no toilet paper in a porta-potty (post deposit) in heat that rivals the Sahara Desert; returning to camp to realize that a trash tornado has literally picked up and moved everything I own to who-knows-where; pushing my car half a mile to get to the camping spot; having all my shit stolen on day one and having to barter my way through life for the next two days; and too many mornings waking up in a puddle of sweat.

All this being said, I would not trade those experiences for the world. Like most things in life, if it were easy, you would not appreciate it as much. I have done the hotel thing, and it just does not cut it. Sure, a pool and normal amenities provide a welcome respite to a weekend of music and partying, but those things really marginalize the experience. They make it just another weekend out with your friends, and they can make you feel more like a spectator, and less like a participant. Music festivals are meant to be an escape from the real world—a place where you can be whoever you want to be for a weekend, with little to no consequences on your actual life. Camping gives you the opportunity to be a complete part of that.