Everyone knows that the best way to get into a popular music festival is to secure a ticket well in advance.
It saves you the nightmare of travelling all that way to find that the tickets are sold out, and having to listen to the reverberated echoes of your favourite songs from outside of the fence. Besides, it’s money well spent: you’ll have an awesome time and simultaneously support the music of your favourite bands. But sometimes, circumstances don’t allow for such careful planning–you may find out about the event too late, or find out that the vacation you planned on a whim just happened to coincide with a great gig. Desperate times call for desperate measures…or maybe just a few easy but strategic moves on your part. Get the dirt on how to get into a music festival when you don’t have a ticket.
1. Do your research.
Now that you’ve found out about this awesome event that everyone’s raving about, it’s time to investigate: who’s performing? Where kind of location is it being held in? How do the tickets work–are there separate tickets for different days or does one ticket entitle you to go in and out for the whole duration of the festival? This step is crucial in finding out how best to proceed with your action plan. Perhaps you’ll even find out that there are still extra last-minute tickets on sale.
2. Join the in-crowd.
Tap into the local music scene. Check out some local gigs, explore popular clubs, and meet people who have the same music interests as you and/or are heavily involved with the city’s music scene. Have awesome conversations about music. Dance lots, have occasional ear-gasms when the DJ plays a sweet mix. Casually slip in a conversation about the music festival of interest, and how you didn’t manage to get tickets. Find out if they can help you in any way. Worst case scenario? You’ve made a perfectly awesome friend and fellow-music lover.
3. Know your stuff.
You don’t have to be a musical genius to appreciate a good beat, but you’re going to embarrass yourself if you haven’t the slightest clue who most of the artists are. Even if you only really want to go to the music festival for one or two performing bands, make sure to familiarise yourself with the music of most of them. This will definitely widen the range of the people you meet and make conversations more interesting. What’s more, it’s a great way to get excited about the event and discover new music.
4. Stay at a youth hostel.
This seems to be my number one solution to most vacation-related scenarios, but it’s true: youth hostels are the breeding ground for new experiences and chance encounters. It’s a great place to meet people with the most incredible stories–and to get potential contacts. Last summer, I met one of the backstage crew for the Sonar Music Festival in Barcelona at the pensionata I was staying in, who knew a performing DJ who could give me extra tickets.
5. Know the performers.
Sometimes, some of the less prominent artists will be performing in more low-key gigs in nearby cities near the time of the festival. Going to these is a great way to find people who are potentially well connected to the event, or to even meet some of the performers themselves.
Article written by Chihiro Isozaki.
