You here all sorts of different tips about how to make the best of your festival experience from friends and even us, see our 8 Essential Music Festival Items To Pack That No One Tells You About. However, there are a few schemes that we have developed that come in handy to “cheat the system” if you will. Yes, the morality of these tips could be questioned, but when it comes to roughing it at a festival, you’ll take any help you can get.
1) The Porta Potty Hoax
Waiting in line at the DMV can seem small compared to the lines for the Porta Potties in the music festival grounds. You could spent countless time waiting your turn, while you miss a big chunk of the show you planned on seeing. This brings us to our first cheat- The Porta Potty Hoax, and one of our personal favorites. For this to work best you’ll need a friend, and to turn on those acting skills that you’ve been hiding.
Let’s say you need to use the bathroom. The first step is to grab a friend to accompany you to the front of the line. You hold your stomach and pretend to look sick. Your friend keeps a comforting hand on your shoulder, and as you make it to the front of the line starts making a scene and saying things like, “I’m so sorry, my friends sick and needs a bathroom now!” Like clockwork, the people at the front of the line always let you cut and voila, you’re in and out from the bathrooms in a matter of a minute or two, instead of a half hour.
2) The IN On Where To Find OUTlets
Your phone is such a useful tool at a festival, however, it never seems to stay charged. You may spend parts of your day searching for an outlet to use, and then sit by your phone while it charges so no one steals it. We don’t see the point in wasting your time charging though. There are hundreds of vendor tents in the camp ground. The trick is to either make friends with one of the vendors, or find one that looks trustworthy. Just about every vendor has multiple outlets behind their counter. Just ask one of them if you could charge your phone in one for a while. And there you go, you have a safe place to leave your phone, and when you come back from the show your it’s fully charged!
3) One Person’s Trash, Is Another Person’s Dinner
Depending on what festival you are attending, they may have certain programs that are meant to help the environment and leave no trace. If they have one of these programs, they usually reward people for picking up trash with a meal ticket; 1 full trash bag equals 1 meal ticket. With food being so expensive inside the festival grounds, we definitely suggest taking advantage of this deal. There are a few ways you can stock up on those meal tickets and eat like a king:
- Bring your own trash bags and collect all the trash around your campsite.
- Go around to other sites and offer to take their full trash bags off their hands (people almost never know they can get meal tickets for it).
- Go around to the different public trash cans that are full, pull the bag out, tie it, and boom- another meal ticket!
4) The V.I.P. Vandoozle
At every festival there is sure to be a VIP section with tons of perks ranging from famous artists and celebrities walking around, free food, immaculate bathrooms, and more. However, unless you have the connections or money to get into VIP, you will probably never see the light of this exclusive section. Well… maybe not, as our next cheat could help you out. What you have to understand about volunteers at music festivals is that they are usually just people like you and me that decided to work a day in order to get a free ticket. They aren’t getting paid for their work, and for sure don’t want to start any trouble. If you haven’t figured it out already, it is very likely that one of these volunteers is guarding the VIP section. The trick is to just walk by them and into VIP like you belong there. If you act like you are supposed to be in there, the person guarding the entrance won’t even realize what happened, and even if they do and you keep walking, it is rare for them to chase you down and call you out on it.
5) Be The Good Deal
Chances are that it cost you a pretty penny to attend a music festival. Even worse, once you are inside, the prices at the vendors are usually outrageous, but what choice do you have? You’re trapped in there. Well, why not make some of your money back and offer the people another option- sell something! No, we are not talking about drugs and other contraband that you could go to jail for. Sell things that people want- delicious food, refreshing drinks, cool art, etc. If you sell it at a reasonable price, you’ll be astonished at how much money you can make. If you did this everyday for a few hours, you could easily make back your ticket! Don’t know what to sell? Check out, 9 Legal & Easy Ways To Make Money At A Music Festival.
6) Make Room- It’s Dancing Time!
No one wants to be packed shoulder to shoulder at a show because it is so crowded. You want to have room so you’re able to get your dance on. However, space can commonly be hard to come by at popular shows, and we don’t want that to ruin your concert. These hacks will help you get that extra space you wanted:
- If you are really into dancing, make sure to dance hard and crazy. We’re talking arms flailing and feet constantly moving. People will definitely see you (you’re hard to miss), and give you your space for fear of getting hit or run into.
- If you’re with a group, and you’re carrying a big totem, people tend to leave you space behind you, as they can’t see the stage with the totem blocking their view.
- If you have a backpack or CamelBak, feel free to take it off and place it in front or in back of yourself. People are usually pretty good at not stepping on your personal belongings, and thus, more space for you.
- Similarly, if you’re at a show early and able to lay out a blanket, people tend to avoid it completely giving you tons of space!
- Dancing with a hula-hoop. For many festival goers this is a true art. The real art is the fact that people won’t get too close to anyone dancing with a hula-hoop.
