there should be a law for wasting beer

DO NOT bring a strange German man to your hotel room, they yell in German in thier sleep and scare all your friends.

DO make strange foreigner buy your breakfast

DO bring imodium along with the abundance of water and Emergen-C(after a long night of drinking PBR and 5-star pizza, bubbleguts will strike the next morning). Last thing you want is to blast off in the bathroom of The Venue on the 2nd day of Fest. Speaking of blasting off, I really wish the descendents were playing.

Also getting as good of a night's sleep as well as showering and washing your hands repeatedly

There were a lot of Festers laster year that looked like they haven't taken a shower since the mid to late nineties. I was sick for like a week following Fest last year and all of my friends have similar stories to tell

They've all seemed to be already mentioned:

Emergen-C
Hydrate
Comfortable shoes
Take two I.D.'s if you can, and keep them in separate places. A friend I went with last year lost hers, and she wasn't able to get into many places(I think the Laboratory and 1982 let her in)
Make sure to eat.

Honestly, everyone's nailed it, but here are the most important things:

1. I know it's tempting to camp out in the Venue for all the amazing bands that play there, but don't.

2. I get you want to see your favorite band for the 30th time, but consider skipping their set and seeing a smaller band you've never heard of. Also, if you have time to kill just walk into a random venue. How often do you get to see new music that easily?

3. This goes for every show you ever go to: Be nice and look out for each other.

4. Feel free to douse the crowd with the frothy leftovers of your PBRs, but seriously, do NOT throw entire cans. Especially not from the top of the Venue.

Please do not feel free to do this. But if you're one of those people who actually throws cans across a venue, please give/sell/transfer your ticket to someone with a functioning frontal lobe.

agreed. if you throw beer, it'll make the cigarettes we're smoking really close to people go out.

lol, but yeah, beer is for drinking and meeting people, not for throwing and maiming people... you guys have it all wrong...

Don't let drunk friends pick you up & run around with you cause you both might fall on your beers in front of a cop.

Bring backup EVERYTHING; chargers, keys, condoms, tampons, medication, info on shows (yer phone might die) & plan your days on missing shows you want to get into.

Bring something to write with. A few pens

If you wear a dress, wear bike shorts underneath them. One less thing to worry about.

Bring jacket & light clothes as well because if you're like me, you'll get hot, cold, hot, cold

Take care of yourself & watch out for others that may need help

During a show if you're super tall, let a few short people stand in front of you & thanks for everyone who asked me if I wanted to get in front of them

Clean up after yourself everywhere you go

Don't walk around town drinking a beer.

This thread has helped me so much! I should be set by the time October rolls around. The biggest thing I've taken from reading all the posts is to bring plenty of water and plan time to rest at least a little bit while still having fun.

There is alot of good advise here but I know I will break most of them out of pure over excitement.

If you want to rest a bit I found that the seats in The Atlantic (like that weird corner area with the booths) were a good place to put my head back, close my eyes, and just listen to music. It was nice.

buy me a drink and I will buy you one. Cannot wait to hang!

Couple of things that happened last year (at Loosey's) that I never want to happen again:

We are all well aware that everyone is here for a good time and that it's fun and your excited. However, especially at the smaller venues, be aware of the sound/stage crew. Most of us are surviving off of cold hotdogs and red bull with little to no sleep because of the hours. When we have to run through the crowd and everyone gets pissed and slings beer at us because there was an emergency on stage and I came through at a near sprint bouncing off of everyone in the crowd, that is a real bummer. Last year at Loosey's Teenage Softies was playing at an ear piercing level and all three of the amps clipped and caught the speakers on fire. In the process of me trying to get my equipment unplugged as to isolate the issue I got covered in beer because I ran into people running up to the stage. I wasn't being a dick, I was trying to salvage the day.

Also, the microphones and shit on stage DO NOT BELONG TO YOU! I had to retrieve mics and di boxes after at least 4 bands each day because it was a mad house and someone wanted a special souvenir. We have better things to do than track down a microphone that you took to be funny. Not to mention actions like that will get you tossed.

Last year on Friday night as I was cleaning up I walked down to the gear staging area only to discover that someone had carved into my newly refelted pool table the address to an after party. Not throwing you pizza box in a can or dumpster is one thing, but vandalism is a completely different animal and it's really not cool.

Vomit in urinals . . . seriously, I have to scoop that shit out with my hands. Hit the toilet or hit the trashcan . . . OR, control yourself and PACE YOURSELF and don't drink so much you through up.

DO NOT HANG FROM THINGS ON THE CEILINGS OF THE VENUES!! You have no idea what it is attached to and if it can support your weight or not. Last year I had people hanging from the sprinkler system at Loosey's . . . Those pipes are engineered to support you. Had one broken it would have destroyed not only all of the gear in the room but it would have also caused us to have to close for the rest of the weekend . . . That would have been a bummer.

Couple of things that happened last year (at Loosey's) that should happen every year:
My bar staff LOVES Fest and Festers. Make no mistake, this is our biggest weekend of the year and we are all stoked. 99% of the folks who came in last year were super rad. Super polite, said thank you, high fived me and my staff., bought food, had fun, drank water, etc. DO THAT!

I was sitting outside Saturday afternoon and saw a trash can completely over flowing outside of my bar. Me and a buddy grabbed some trash bags to go clean it up and were joined by at least 4-5 random festers helping us clean up/empty the trash cans around Loosey's. They didn't have to do that, but it was really fuckin cool that they did.

People drank more than just PBR's and shots of whiskey. Loosey's specializes in American Made Craft Beer and we love talking to people about it. That was super rad when everyone started coming and trying something the have never had before. It's part of the experience. Try new things!

People showed up early to see the Nightlights and ended up getting their faces blown off by the Restorations. See bands you don't know or have never heard of!!! Again, it's part of the experience.

(Didn't happen at Loosey's but was awesome) I got to sneak away (after cleaning up trash with some rando Festers) to see Nothington at Double Down. Midway through their last song at least 45 people rushed the stage and helped the band sing . . . THAT WAS AWESOME!

Most importantly, have fun and remember, the people working have a really long weekend. It's totally worth the hours, but that doesn't give you more sleep between shifts. Be cool and be nice.

Cheers y'all!
Danny and the Loosey's crew