Festival folks

I got there hitchhiking, with a light backpack, no tent, on the beautiful hot Sunday 2nd of August 2009: At 15:30, my ride dropped me within walking distance of the field where it was held. The 500m walk to the festival area was made through a stream of festival people, which was a rather quick transition for me to get from [normaLifeMode] to [festivalMode].

I used the word “festival people” and assumed that a very clear image of what that is occurred to you. But while writing it, I pondered a little bit. Maybe not everyone knows what a "festival people" is like. How would you describe festival-folks? Sure they dress in a peculiar manner, and I though about using their dress to help you figure them out. But then, I thought that it wasn't about the dress. The dress is just a side effect of some deeper common denominator. Something that really bonds the people in a festival, and out of it when they meet incidentally. So what is that thing that describes accurately the customers of festivals?

I haven't found. I suspect there is nothing. It's all about the dress.

So, in case you are not familiar with festival people, here's a description of their appearance:

A festival-folk is very likely to be wearing at least one military looking item. Most common are the camouflage pants and ranger boots, but it can be the jacket, I've even seen a couple wearing helmets. S/he is carrying a bag on one shoulder that has seen a lot of action. The original color is hard to make out, now it is blueish-redish brown . It has a lot of patches sewed on it, next to the holes instead of covering them. Each patch has a band name on it.
The t-shirt s/he wears very often has a very deep meaning. It is either featuring the name of a band s/he likes, either a short philosophical phrase such as “There is no spoon”. Tatoos can be seen on various parts of his/her body, and pierceable places often are pierced.

S/he is drunk and behaves as such. S/he is carrying a mostly empty bottle of alcoholic beverage in one of his/her hands. S/he is very likely to be high on some harmless drug like cannabis.

On a social level, a festival-folk is very very friendly. Unless s/he is not drunk, wich is very unlikely. If you go up to him/her, s/he will gladly talk to you. S/he might even take you under her/his arm after only a few minutes of intercourse, witch can be a traumatising experience, as a festival-folk typically hasn't taken a shower in many days. You might think that s/he is only interested in the possibility of getting beer or cigarettes from you (as it is the first thing s/he will ask), but in fact, asking for beer and cigarettes is a form of politeness for festival-folk. S/he means no more harm than a dog means to undignify you by sniffing your hindquarters. His/her conversation is typically about popular-underground bands, cheap-and-good drugs, how great it feels to be so drunk, or some unintelligible speech if s/he's been on too much drugs.

I crossed many a festival-folk on my way to the festival ground. And finally I got there.

The first thing you get to see from the festival is a 100m long row of toilet-booth. This is a bit too long to walk holding your breath so you are obliged to take a few lungfull of nose-burning smell of whatever chemical compound they use to sanitize the tanks of those things, along with a subtle fragrance of urine and of excremental discharge.

After you've succesfully walked through this initiatic path, the festival area can be accessed.

The campsite

The patch of land I crossed to get to the camp site reminded me of how I figure a Palestinian Refugee camp would look like. Scorched earth, thick dust in the air, people going about with no goal, red-uniformed volunteers patrolling in small groups or on quad-bikes. One young girl begged me for money to buy beer, a wretched boy came to me with an empty cup and almost dropped to his knees hoping I would pour some of my beer in it. I didn't have any beer, but that clearly didn't compute with his acceptation of common reality.

I was headed to a particular place on the camping ground. On the couchsurfing website, a group had been started to connect travelers on their way there and make sure they would camp at the same place. My ex-roommate was settled there. The people there had released excellent information on how to find them in the thousand-tents jungle and I got there very quickly. Sure enough they had erected a “CouchSurfing” banner, but I didn't see further signs of couchsurfing-cult related items. It was only meant as a landmark rather than an aggregative symbol.
They also had erected a symbolic fence around their patch. I greeted them through it and they all turned and looked at me defiantly.
There must have been 15 of them on the place at that moment. After a short uncomfortable silence, I asked them if BeWelcome members were allowed. They looked at each other in a perplex way. In the end, I told them I had a profile on CouchSurfing too and they let me in.

One of them was very friendly. The others rather apathic. But the friendly one was out-balancing them greatly. He welcomed me with a shot of vodka, passed some food around to me, some shisha, made sure I felt comfortable. I was glad he was there. Without him it would have been very awkward.

As a contribution to the general prejudice that people have against Polish food, I'd like to add that the stuff he gave me was utterly disgusting. Excuse my french.

I also met with a friend from Hamburg that gave me a beer. I started to look on the bright side of life.