I had a fabulous time with the rest of the Getaway digital team at our first Rocking the Daisies festival this past weekend. We loved the vibe, the bands, the pumping electro tent, the hippies, the environmental initiative, the delicious festival food, and the beautiful weather (for half of the weekend).
This is what I learned at Rocking the Daisies. Hopefully these pearls will come in handy for someone next year.
1. You’re never too old to rock at Rocking the Daisies. Check out the photo of the octogenerian partying it up in the electro tent at 11 am on Sunday morning. This guy got the dance floor going with his incredible energy and never-seen-before dance moves. Rock on dancing gnome!
2. Wet wipes are absolutely essential to survival at a music festival. They are multi-purposeful, providing a mobile shower, handwash and facewash all in one.
3. Drunk people waking you up early in the morning are irritating. Drunk people at 5 am on Sunday morning right next to your tent screaming ‘I’ve gone full retard!’ and ‘My penis is in Ryan’s face!’ are the most irritating people imaginable.
4. Pronutro bars offer a complete breakfast in a bar. I think that’s what the wrapper says, and it’s true (and I’m not sponsored by Pronutro, so this is totally unbiased). A chocolate and banana Pronutro bar saved me from what seemed to be inevitable death-from-hangover on Saturday morning.
5. It helps if your festival friends are super organised camper people who make espresso and scrambled eggs with mushrooms on the skottel as you emerge from your tent in the morning.
6. Even if you wear two pairs of leggings, boots, a beanie, jacket and seven jerseys, sometimes the only way to stay warm is to huddle six people around some cigarettes in your friend’s tiny two-man tent.
7. The beauty of a blisteringly hot Butlers Pizza at 1 am after litres of beer can never be underestimated.
8. Rocking the Daisies is a great place to take photos. There’s a visually striking mix of beautiful, stylish people; completely wasted grizzly mad old guys wearing crazy clothes; colourful tie-dyed hippies; rainbow-hued giant daisies and a big dam. You can get really close to the stage to take awesome music-journalisty photos of the bands.
9. Remembering to bring toilet paper would have been a good idea. Not sure how we managed to overlook this while we packed everything else we would possibly need during the weekend (including multiple outfits and masses of accessories), but we did. You can get lucky and find some TP in your portapotty if they’ve just cleaned it, but on the whole TP availability was pretty intermittent.
10. There was a mass exodus of people on Sunday morning when they woke up to horrible weather, hungover and broken after a weekend of partying. This was actually the best time to be at the festival – it wasn’t crowded, there were no queues for pizza and the bands were really good. Lesson learned – don’t give up on Rocking the Daisies when you feel horrible and it’s raining on your non-waterproof tent.
