Grooveshark

A few months ago we offered tips on how to sneak into your favorite concerts. While those tips undoubtedly secured your admission into every concert from Radiohead to Ricky Martin, you may find that festivals are an entirely different animal. They’re often prohibitively expensive, have legions of security guards trolling the premises, and typically require some sort of pass to confirm that you did in fact pay to attend.

While these obstacles seem impossible to overcome, they’re actually just minor inconveniences that can be easily disregarded as you illicitly gallivant from festival to festival. Some might argue that sneaking into festivals is wrong and immoral, but what is truly immoral is an “alternative, eco-friendly”(read: hippie) festival charging you $12 for chicken fingers. The wanton hypocrisy of hippies draped in hemp making inordinate amounts of cash must be thwarted, and you are just the person to do it.

Here are some helpful hints:

Find Out What The Passes Look Like

We wrote about this on the aformentioned How To Sneak Into Concerts post, but it’s a little different for festivals. Most of the time the only proof of admission is a standard colored wristband, an item easily found at a local office supply store. If they have a badge, you might be in trouble, but never underestimate the power of being able to tell people that you lost it.

Lie, Lie, Lie

This is for the bolder festival sneaker. If you’re feeling particularly daring, simply walk up to the press tent and tell them that you signed up for press passes months ago. You might even want to pepper the conversation with abnormally giddy asides about how you’ve been looking forward to it for months. When they inevitably don’t find your name on the list you have two options:

– Look really, really, sad. Drape a look of disbelief across your face and implore them to continue searching because they obviously made a mistake. Tell them that you work at a notable, but small website and you’ve been covering festivals for years. Before you do all of this, make sure to peruse the internet to find a website that they won’t be able to contact, but still might have heard of. You don’t want to say “I’m with Rolling Stone” because they’ll be on the phone with Jann Wenner in the blink of an eye and you’ll be strung up by your Buster Browns in no time.

– Get indignant. I was in Edinburgh, Scotland this summer and found myself in a town without vacancy in any of it’s hotels. After hours of scouring the city and experiencing mounting frustration, I pulled out the “indignant American card”. Basically, I just walked into a fairly posh hotel, told them I had reservations, and when they told me that they didn’t have any record of said reservation I got indignant. I told them that I’d made the reservation months ago and didn’t particularly want to sleep in the foreboding train station. They produced a room within the minute.

You can use this technique when picking up your fake press passes, but be careful not to overdo it. There’s nothing a hippie likes more than to spite the indignant. It could pay sweeping dividends or it could mean you being escorted off the grounds.

3. Know The Area

Many festivals are hastily constructed affairs that often have glaring problems with their set up. A lot of them take place in random fields in the middle of nowhere, so it’s not like you’re going to be prowling around with hoards of people around. Do some research! Find the holes in the fences, find the places where you can slide under the fences, and figure out what little area of the festival seems unusually understaffed. This is your Graceland.

Festivals are so big that they can’t send security to every area of the grounds. Find that area.

A Little Bribery Never Hurt

Two true stories:

Story #1: At Langerado I desperately wanted to be in the photo pit for The Walkmen’s set. However, I didn’t have the necessary credentials to gain access. I noticed the photo pit security guard looking peculiarly dejected, and I approached her to find out what was wrong.

“What’s wrong?”- I very astutely asked.

“I’m hungry”- she replied in a manner that suggested she was indeed hungry.

“Let me get you some chicken fingers”- me, with metaphorical wheels turning.

“I love chicken fingers!”-her.

So I paid the $12 for chicken fingers and watched The Walkmen from 3 feet away. Never underestimate the power of fried food.

Story #2: After The Raconteurs set at New Orleans Jazzfest I made it my personal mission to meet Jack White. However, because they don’t let curly haired youths with stalker tendencies anywhere near Jack White, I was forced to seek other options. After failing to gain guest passes from people exiting the stage, I retreated to an old standby. Rather than creepily offering money for passes, I simply approached a random pass holder and said, “I will break the thumbs of all of your oppressors should you give me that pass”.

I got the pass.

A lot of the times the security at festivals don’t consist of savvy, motivated personnel. They’re constantly fighting sweltering heat for very little pay, and thus don’t really have a vested interest in the economic success of the festival. This is probably why people are able to sneak nitrous tanks into festivals despite the explicit sign that prohibits drugs of any kind. Quite simply, security frequently just doesn’t care.

If All Else Fails, Buy The Cheapest Possible Ticket Regardless of What It Says

Even if you’re 53, buy the children’s ticket. The people checking at the door are “checking” in the loosest sense of the word. By that, I mean they don’t check. At all. If an adult general admission ticket is $200 and the children’s ticket is $50, it’s time to revisit your youth.

• Posted in All of The Rest