Oh, music festivals. Those magical days of sweat and sunscreen! Seeing half a dozen of your favorite bands in a weekend! Drinking way too many $10 beers with all your dearest friends! The only thing that could make a music festival better, besides cheaper booze and some Silicon Valley nerd “disrupting” Port-O-Potties, is if there was no one else there. Sadly, the price you pay for attending a music festival is being surrounded by hordes of frat bros trying to pick up hipster chicks, over-excited teenagers, and girls with style blogs who didn’t get the memo that bindis aren’t fashion accessories.
The one way to keep yourself from committing seppuku and missing The Strokes because you just saw your 5th feather headdress of the day is a little masterpiece called the festival drinking game. Basically, you people-watch and drink every time you see something cliche, racist, neon, or weird. Is this game wildly judgmental? Yes, it is. Is it also extremely fun to point at strangers and yell “Drink!” Yes, it is.
Without further ado, take one sip (or gulp) of alcohol if you see:
- Cultural appropriation! Bindis, face paint, headdresses.
- Teens grinding their teeth because they bought janky drugs.
- Teens asking you to buy them beer.
- Goths staying true to their aesthetic at risk of heat stroke.
- EDM bros in neon “Life, Love, Bass” tanks.
- #Menswear bros wearing really expensive sneakers.
- White person with dreadlocks.
- Flower crowns.
- Anyone old enough to have attended Woodstock.
- Anyone born after 1991 in a Nirvana t-shirt.
- American flag patterned clothing.
- Girls with “just breathe” tattoos.
- Men with tribal tattoos.
- Unknown Pleasures t-shirts.
- Man buns.
- Sunburns that require medical attention.
- Anyone barefoot.
The goal of the drinking game is to still be conscious for the headliners. One drink = one sip of your lukewarm beer. Feel free to alter the “rules” as you deem necessary, to protect your sanity and liver. Awkward on-stage banter from a band that clearly hates each other? Drink! Stranger on Molly tries to hug you? Drink! Gray-haired guy who is probably a Getty photographer asking for a hit of your weed? Drink! But, don’t drink every time you see rainboots at Glastonbury, and don’t drink every time you see a neon light-up pacifier at Electric Daisy Carnival, because you will surely either die or be puking in a portable toilet by 5 pm, which are both horrible fates. Have fun, be safe, wear sunscreen, and don’t think about your bank account.
