last year I lost my phone in the pit at the Venue then found it broken into pieces after...Im deff not doing that again.
Oh and I'll deff make sure to set my alarm clock so i dont sleep in after crazy warehouse shows and miss a fav band playing the next day at 1pm...thats all for now..

DO get to Common Grounds a few hours before the band you want to see
DO get in the check in line before 4pm or so on Friday
DO make lots of friends
DO buy tickets before Oct 15th
DO bring plenty of antacids and pepto
DO your home work and have a schedule in place
DO bring plenty of cash and buy merch from all the bands you have stolen music from
DO pick a with fight Tom Gabel (if he so decides to grace us with his presence and/or if you seem him in Tallahassee)
DO enjoy satire and D4
DO eat at that pseudo Jamaican place


DO NOT get too drunk to early
DO NOT try to walk to the venues from the secondary official hotel..forget what its called but its a hell of a walk
DO NOT park illegally
DO NOT mock the harvest of hope guys
DO NOT name am item at your restaurant after Tim Tebow
DO NOT drink after someone else; unless you want Fest aids

and most importantly...


DO NOT be a teenage anarchist and try and fight the cops. Last year there a bunch of festers decided to party in a part of town with some locals "with nothing to lose". I don't give two shits if the cops were out of line; disturbing the peace is an opinionated matter and the court system will not side with you. Assuming you are doing nothing more than stumbling around town and supporting the local economy, the police will not bother you at all.

DO:

tip your bar staff.
drink some water now and again. Saturday is 14 hours of bands, peaking drunk-wise at 5pm SUCKS!
look after your feet, it's humid and you're on them all day, they'll probably get blistered if you're not careful.
eat at Caribbean Spice, Reggae Shack and Gator Dawgs.
buy lots of records and other shit, like Ghoti34 said.
get to the smaller venues/CG a band or so before the one you want to see.
make a shit-ton of cool friends.

DONT:

try and stick to a complicated schedule. you'll spend all day between venues and miss bands.

Do:

Dance for the early bands.
Work your legs out in the coming months.
Support BtMI! and catch their sets and houseshows.
Smile and tip well.

Don't:

Plan on finding reasonable free parking.
Bring a pet if you can't provide food, fresh water, and shelter for it on your own.
Be a dick to cops or city officials without legitimate reason.
Crowdsurf or stagedive more than your share or bring beer into a pit.

Do get Matt Young Livers to cook vegan ribs from the asian supermarket
Do watch the wildcard bands you umm'd and argh'd about
Do talk to strangers


Do not drink yourself blind unless you don't mind missing a whole bunch of sweet bands
Do not underestimate the Florida sun in the long CG queues
Do not worry about your friends, they're probably someone else having a better time without you

need to book flights
roll on Fest 9

My Do's/ Don't
- avoid the Common Ground as much as possible
- don't get too drunk to early (but keeping a good level over the day)
- bring a big pack of beer to the warehouse shows and not only what you need for yourself
- check around if you can give somebody a lift to or from a house show or the motels that are not downtown if you have a free seat
- watch and support smaller bands, rather than standing in a line for a band you can see all the time
- eat at least once weekend something else then at 5 star pizza
- watch Dave/ Dystopia smiling all the time, while he works as security on stage at the venue
- avoid "Walking the wolf" -> Giveblood knows what I mean

This is a pretty lame thing to say. Feel free to leave your bullshit negativity at home this year.


Jon

THAT is a pretty lame thing to say. Hooray for not taking a joke.

If it was a joke then it had about as good a delivery as Dane Cook, which is to say terrible.

Jon

DO enjoy what you're doing wherever you are.

DON'T worry that something might be more fun in another venue and let it spoil your fun.

This is a very good point and I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it. Also be aware that after a certain time (I think maybe 2am except Sundays) you won't find beer for sale anywhere it seems. Unlike a lot of places throughout the world it seems the 'dodgy offie' as we call them here is an unheard of thing! I found it best to stock up my room with booze in the morning then I didn't have the hassle of trying to find any after the shows.

I love it. good british planning ahead there Tim first timer here so what is the brand of beer i need to be stocking up on after i've had my breakfast. Also i'm assuming this crate of beer will help me secure a lift to the far away warehouse shows?! Do people just spill out the various venues with an idea of which house show they are gonna head for?

Well I'm a cider drinker so will be stocking up on Strongbow, but if beer is your thing then it has to be PBR. Cheap and widely available. Drunk by punks across the US because of it, in that respect I guess it shares a lot with Strongbow over here!

as shows normally finishes 30 min before alcohol sale stops, you still can stock up - either on the main road or simply on the way .. timmy is right with pbr, but I always bought some special offer... at that time rather drunk, I don't acre too much which beer I drink and I don't mind giving some free beer away, but of cousre its then ratehr some special offer