Festival Etiquette
I must have casually mentioned (over a million times) the past few weeks that I’d be seeing Stevie Wonder perform. The day finally arrived this past weekend and I made my way to the Hard Rock Calling Festival in Hyde Park. I’m not particularly used to outdoor concerts, especially not ones of this scale and throw the word ‘festival’ in there and I start to panic a bit. However, over the course of the 10 or so hours I spent in Hyde Park on Saturday, I learned a few things, so here’s a handy guide to festival etiquette.
Think your footwear through
The amount of discarded flip flops I saw when all was said and done was ridiculous. Hyde Park looked like the place flip flops go to die (ahh, if only). How did these people get home? Barefoot? Piggy backs? Buckles, straps and laces are your friend.
Peeing on someone’s leg is never a good idea
After elbowing, shoving, bitch slapping and punching my way to the front to await the arrival of the legend that is, Mr Stevie Wonder, I stood talking to my friend when all of a sudden I felt something warm and wet on my foot. I look to my right to see the guy next to me peeing in a cup. Clearly, he didn’t have very good aim, as a good amount of his bodily fluid landed on my foot. To say I was mortified doesn’t even come close to covering it. As I looked at him in utter disgust, he simply said ‘sorry, couldn’t help it. There was nothing I could do.’ Well, he’s wrong on two counts there – he could go to the toilet, or take a running jump off a cliff. See? Two options.
On the subject of pee…
I, personally, would not use one of the loos at these things. You could catch any number of diseases just opening the door. If you care at all about hygiene, you better figure out some sort of way to control your bladder. I’ve been informed that it’s common practise at these festival thingys for guys to pee in cups and hurl them through the crowd. Umm, what in the what?! How on earth did this ever become acceptable?! If I was out to enjoy some music and suddenly saw a cup full of pee hurtling through the sky in my direction, there are no words to describe the wrath the douchenozzle who threw it would feel.
If you’re short, that’s your problem
Listen short people, we can’t help it that we’re tall. I paid my money the same as you. Asking me to move every two minutes won’t help your cause. Acting like the world owes you shit just because you literally pulled the short straw won’t work either. So, drop all the heavy hints you want, as loudly as possible, about how you can’t see – I can’t hear you all the way up here, shorty.
Have wet wipes (multiple packs of)
A few hours after arriving at the venue, my feet were ridiculously dirty. I’m not even sure how because I didn’t move around that much. Then my hands were filthy. By the end of a day I was walking around like a doctor who’d just scrubbed in for surgery, afraid to touch anything. If only I’d had 5000 packs of wet wipes, this could all have been avoided.
I don’t know how people do these two or three day festivals, which require sleeping in a tent and such like. Clearly they don’t value things like hygiene and cleanliness. Though that being said, for the two hours Stevie was on stage, I almost completely forgot about the random dudes urine that was festering on my foot. Ahh, the power of music.
Tags: concerts, festivals, Stevie Wonder
