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F E S T i V a l l O O k S

Omo Ifabua

Maggie Gannon

HO O KU P C U LT U RE

at festivals

With summer approaching nearer and nearer, individuals await trips to stadiums, vast fields, and parks all around the world to unite with strangers in a music, inhibition-reducing joyride known to man as the festival. Festivals are a safe space for those to shake off their winter blues and welcome in the summer fun surrounded by others doing the exact same. Whether it is finger pumping aggressively to drum and bass or floating around carelessly to bohemian folk music, festivals of all kinds have gained prominence within society over time as a means of uniting people - and unite they continue to do. Whether it is simply a quick peck in a mosh pit, or a night’s stay in a stranger’s bed, hook-up culture and love interests are universally known to run rampage during the festival season.

After that first sip of warm, illegally-smuggled in alcohol hits your lips you become relaxed and geared up to meet your true love in a field. Surrounded by everyone else in the same alcohol-fuelled, euphoric state makes the likelihoods of hitting it off with an equally-drunk raver arguably high. The same love for British band, The Hunna and an even greater love for vodka, can kickstart a summer fling to remember. Furthermore, music runs deep for couples who met in their late teens at hallucinogenic, hippie carnivals and stayed together ever since, frequently telling strangers at dinner parties how they met over magic mushrooms. The power of the festival should never go understated for young adults who make the pilgrimage every year hoping to find love and come out with a life-long partner and a week-long hangover. With an average of thirty-four million people attending festivals all over the country each year, romantic frissons are unavoidable under the bubbling July sun.

The powerful stigma surrounding casual kisses and hook-ups with strangers puts people in a pressure-induced state, drawing attention to the emphasis society now puts on getting with others for the sake of simply ‘getting with others’. This stigma has got more intense in the past decade, making young people in particular even more keen to succeed in the dating game at festivals. The security that is provided in knowing you will never see that one-night regret again without any consequences makes it easier to engage in casual hook-ups at festivals yet don’t let this prospect override the actual experience. If there is no desire within yourself the next day to text the mysterious boy who had you on his shoulder’s the night before then so be it. This flexibility of hook-up culture-despite slightly cheapening the prospect of meeting others and building relationships is what makes it so freeing and entirely empowering.

Like Tinder on steroids, festivals have acted as mass dating projects ever since the beginning of time- quite literally. Transport back to 200BC and you would find yourself engaging in drunk revelry and sexual experimentation accompanied by wild music at the Bacchanal festival in the south of Italy. This magical mixture of sex-stirring sun, pulsating music and never-ending alcohol continue to define hook-up culture, having the power to turn the reserved monk into a sex-hungry hunk, scouring for partners with the sun beating down onto his wife-beater covered back, eager to release his pent-up winter waning. Stumbling across inexperienced teens romping in festival toilets and overhearing two strangers who met in the silent disco make passionate indie love whilst a drunk couple argues in the background is a part of the festival experience. Boys posing as devoted AJ Tracey fans will secretly be awaiting finger blasting of a different kind once the sun has set and the alcohol has washed away any previous insecurity. The message is clear- don’t go to a festival expecting everyone to be awkwardly swaying from side to side avoiding physical touch in a depressingly littered park- the hook-up culture is extreme.

The casual and freeing ambience that runs deep throughout a festival can veer some away from the concept of hitting it off with a stranger knowing you will never see them again. The extreme extent to which people choose to engage in casual hook-ups at festivals can put some entirely off the idea, searching for deeper meaning than an intoxicated, awkward fling in a sea of sweat and bucket hats. Again, this choice is what makes the serial hook-up culture at festivals beneficial for everyone.