Summer Homes: A Celebration of the Modern Music Festival Scene

“Don’t skip over the small bands during the day. Even if you don’t know them, man, they’ve got some energy.” Supporting local and up-and-coming art has never been unimportant, to say the least, but this past June the sentiment rang louder than ever. These innocuous words of wisdom would any other day seem common sense, but, coming from an idyllic-looking former Deadhead basking in the violet light of Death Cab for Cutie’s Saturday set at Firefly Music Festival, they became a microcosm of the larger charm of festival culture.

Just one of my many newfound friends later lost to the hustle and bustle of the Woodlands’ pits, the gentleman who offered this advice was far from alone in his beliefs. Throughout the weekend, massive crowds gathered at stages like the Bud Light Dive Bar, where Magic Giant crooned to a hundred people packed into a viewing area made for thirty, the Treehouse (and its low-rise stage, which was no match for throngs of half•alive fans), and the Hideaway Stage, aptly named for its cozy location just off the beaten path where the likes of Hippo Campus and later Jukebox the Ghost played backed by a soaring forest. Even after three days, the fest had enough music and enough enthusiasm from attendees to give every act the star moment they yearned to have—an endless sea of fans taking in their momentous live shows.

It seems a major feat for a band billed at the bottom of a fest lineup to bring in such expansive, invigorated crowds, and partially this is owed to the sheer size of fests themselves. Ever since 1969’s Woodstock brought in a million concertgoers, festivals have been rapidly expanding, and Firefly is not alone in its ability to lure in fans. As reported by Nielsen Music, a whopping 32 million people attended at least one music festival in 2014, with the average festival goer travelling over 900 miles to attend. It’s become a trend that seems to no longer rely on a fest’s ability to book big-name headliners to entice visitors; festivals have gone from a local activity for music lovers to a social movement and near rite of passage for the summer season.

Perhaps that’s part of the beauty of festival season: it brings together people of countless backgrounds under the common bond of the experience. For those three or four days, you can be whoever you really are (or whoever you really want to be), because the likelihood is that you won’t be the only one. In fact, no matter how outlandish, those tens of thousands of strangers around you won’t even look twice, because anything goes. Festivals draw every crowd from young teens to pop aficionados to retirees to indie-centric college kids, and for a little bit they’re all the same people with the same goal—to escape the hazards of everyday life and enjoy something so much bigger than themselves.

Something special that seems to happen at festivals, surrounded by so many people of so many backgrounds, is that unbridled creativity comes to light. Festivals like Glastonbury are known for their sea of flags, and seemingly in response others here in North America have caught on. At Firefly alone, one could see a spattering of Danny DeVito-themed posters, a cardboard “Bolbi Malone” (Post Malone’s signature tattoos on the Jimmy Neutron recurring character’s likeness, in honor of the former’s Sunday set), and inflatable dinosaurs all bouncing along to the music.

The spirit of self-expression has permeated all aspects of festival culture, from the ever-popular glitter hair looks to signs even more creative than a high school class election’s, and it’s an awe-inspiring thing to witness. In a world full of conformity and uniformity, the general anonymity that festival weekends allow is all it takes for folks to feel most at ease with their most expressive selves.

At the end of the day, though, the heart and soul of these events is their artists. In an informal survey I conducted of festival goers, all of them gave the lineup as a major reason for attending. People, after all, want to see the bands that make them fall in love with music, and having a lineup of 10- 12 favorite bands can prove to be much more financially savvy than attending just as many individual shows.

When asked about a favorite memory, it wasn’t about enjoying food or taking in the atmosphere that stood out the most, but seeing bands with like-minded music fans. One respondent reminisced on Music Midtown 2018, where she “was able to meet up with friends I made online… we all stayed together and saw our favorite bands together,” while another looked fondly back on an impromptu set from a big-name artist at Sea Hear Now 2018. “Bruce Springsteen surprised everybody by coming on stage to play a few songs with [punk band Social Distortion]. The crowd went crazy— it’s New Jersey, everybody loves The Boss!” No matter who you ask, their favorite festival memories stem from the music itself, and with fests offering bigger, bolder, more varied lineups, that may soon be an opportunity for all music fans, even those of under-the-radar or underappreciated genres.

Even still, there is much work to do before festival lineups can be allinclusive, musically and socially. Vox did a deep dive earlier this year into the vast gender disparity at festivals, highlighting the fact that headliners are overwhelmingly male, and only 35% of total artists were female. It reflects the deep-rooted social issues of the value of art, and the value of women’s art especially. One group, Book More Women, is aiming to change that by highlighting the “pervasive gender imbalance that currently plagues music festivals” in order to “provide a visual representation of the problem, start conversations, and work towards better representation on future lineups,” in line with the social awareness that drives so many when it comes to supporting groups and deciding which fests to attend.

However, the future is not entirely bleak. Where certain fests lack, new opportunities arise; in response to the lack of hip-hop representation on Boston Calling’s 2019 lineup, Massachusetts artist Cliff Notez launched his own fest, “Boston Answering,” which was a massive success for local fans and musicians alike. The fest, as WBUR reports, was something of a challenge to the systems that have oppressed local art (and especially art created by marginalized communities) for as long as commercialization has been prevalent in the music industry. It’s a testament to the power of festivals, whether big or small, that they’ve become so differentiated. Whether catering to a niche or appealing to the masses, music festivals seek to create a sense of belonging for all members of society, and events like Boston Answering and the Book More Women movement are especially important in elevating the most at-risk voices.

Whether you spend your summer cruising up and down the country following festivals or you’re new to the multi-stage scene, there’s an event for everyone. Taking the time to take in the sights and sounds, enjoying the bands you love and those you’ve never heard of before, and simply recognizing the overwhelming beauty of it all is evocative at the least, and inspirational at its most impactful. There’s no right way to attend a fest, and no right way to enjoy music—just don’t forget to follow the bag policy.