Glitter streaked under my eyes like warpaint. Crop top, cutoff shorts – I've got on the winning uniform. It's go time.
It's the summer of 2019, and Lizzo's hit song Truth Hurts has recently exploded onto the airwaves. In the dead heat of Austin, I make my way through the thickening crowd swarming towards a small, tucked-away stage to see her perform.
Clearly, the festival organizers underestimated Lizzo's rise to super fame. It's as if I'm in that scene from the Game of Thrones episode, Battle of the Bastards. I am Jon Snow, crushed amid an ocean of bodies.
A woman shoving past me shouts, "If I see any more glitter, I'm gonna kill someone."
I gotta get out of here.
Before surviving this battle, I enjoyed my fair share of music festival victories.
I reminisce on my highlight reel: watching Tame Impala as the setting sun illuminates a candy-colored sky, Kendrick Lamar's voice pulsing through the crowd, my friend and I singing our hearts out to Gorillaz's On Melancholy Hill.
Musical festivals allow us to discover an unexpected love for new artists, connect with strangers, and unplug from the normalcy of adulthood. To dance and play, as a seasoned festival goer may say.
But as the popularity of music festivals continues to peak, I can't help but worry about the future of live music.
Music festivals are live music at scale, designed to keep attendees spending more money and time for the best experiences.
The cost of general admission, food & drinks, and hospitality is more than enough to buy a plane ticket to an international destination on one's travel bucket list. The lines are long enough to make Disneyland jealous.
The Facade of Coachella Culture
What frustrates me the most about music festivals is the Coachella-fication of live music experiences. Among Millennials and Gen Z, there's a pervasive pressure to validate your fun festival moments by sharing them online.
To gain social clout and affirm self-worth, one must show proof they were there. To see and be seen. Can't we have fun without flaunting it?
I suspect this all diminishes the interconnectedness between the audience and the performer.
At a music festival earlier this year, I'm distracted by the giant screen on stage showing footage of the crowd instead of the artist. I see hundreds of people holding up their little personal screens, recording the show, which I assume many will post to their Instagram Stories.
The desire for one's life to be watched and consumed feels quite alienating to me. But even if we resent this on-display lifestyle, it's so ubiquitous that many of us have absorbed it into our priorities.
When a coworker asks if I did anything fun over the weekend, I worry that my answer is not "high-quality content-worthy." If it's not something I'd share on social media, don't share it (such as deep cleaning my bathroom, but actually, there's a trend on TikTok called CleanTok dedicated to this exact activity.)
But I reject the idea that a life worth living is one that can be shared and followed. Online influence does not equate to fulfillment. How good it feels to be alive in the moment rather than documenting it on the screen.
Listen Local
Perhaps the crowds, cost, and hype of live music festivals will force me into retirement.
An alternative option is watching virtual reality festivals like Meta's Decentraland. But the Luddite in me can't watch one minute of this:
The better option is to "listen local" by attending artists' standalone shows and supporting smaller venues.
If you want to join me on this mission of reclaiming intimate live music experiences, here are a few tips:
Join artists' email distribution lists so that you receive updates about their upcoming concerts.
If you're traveling, research the local venues to see what artists are in town.
Follow music communities that host micro-concerts, such as SoFar Sounds.
And while you're at the show:
For the love of live music, please put your phone in your pocket. Even better, switch on Airplane Mode as if you're at the movie theater.
Take a picture with your mind and imprint the scene into your memory.
Get lost in the performance. Really watch each musician – see how they play their instrument. Feel their energy.
Bob your head, sway your body, dance like nobody is watching. It will invite others to do the same.
I promise you will enjoy seeing the show through your eyeballs rather than your screen.
At my last concert, I see a single lighter held up amongst the sea of phones.
A flame of hope for our future.
Your imagery is so good I almost want to dawn some glitter and go to a music festival! But the more mindful suggestions of a concert nearby seem more my speed too :)
This hits on a lot of why I could never get into festivals. That and the amount of people makes me SO anxious. Smaller intimate shows have always been the preferred go to for me! But either way, you can't escape the screens.
"Even better, switch on Airplane Mode as if you're at the movie theater." Oh no, it's often so bad at movie theaters too. One time someone was snap chatting the experience 😵💫