Here’s How To Not Be A Huge Dickhead At Music Festivals This Summer

Over the years, as festivals have gotten bigger, better, and more expansive, the cliché of the festival dickhead has changed.

Of course, the festival dickhead has been around since the dawn of human civilisation, posting in whatever the Neanderthal equivalent of the Facebook event page is and asking for set times.

It’s a scientific fact that whenever more than five people meet up in a boggy field somewhere, one of them gets overwhelmed with the sudden desire to stand on the back of everyone’s heels and loudly talk about other, better boggy field meet-ups that they’ve been to.

But these days, the festival dickhead has become increasingly devious in their dickheadry. They are awful in new and fresh ways, pushing the boundaries of acceptable social behaviour like the Mozart of dingbats.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s not because you’re lucky enough to never have encountered a festival dickhead. Statistically speaking, it’s much more likely that you yourself are the festival dickhead.

To that end, here’s our guide to avoiding morphing into the modern festival dingleberry; a foolproof means of making sure that you get through a festival without someone pegging something at your head.

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#1. Practice Good Hygiene

I used to read a lot of poetry as a teenager. None of it has stuck with me. What has stuck with me, haunting me like a curse, is something that a musician friend told me once: if you can smell your junk while standing up, it’s time for a shower.

This baseline requirement of hygiene remains true when it comes to festivals. Not once should people be able to smell you before they see you. Not a single time.

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#2. Remember, Nobody Wants To Hear About How Much Better Last Year’s Line-up Was

You might think that your conversations at a festival are personal, just between you and the person you’re talking to. They are not.

Everybody can hear you, which means that everybody is secretly trying to telekinetically explode your head while you’re standing there loudly ruminating on how much more fun you had last year, when the festival was smaller, and better, and more fun. Keep the criticism to to yourself. You’re not Bernard Zuel, you’re a numpty in a festival shirt with sunstroke, blasted on watered-down whiskey.

#3. Have Empathy For The Very Tall

Listen: tall people at festivals are annoying. We all know this. Unless they’re standing at the very back of the mosh, they’re blocking somebody’s view.

But they’re annoying in ways that they have no power over. Just because a tall person is tall, it doesn’t mean that they should necessarily be that much farther away from the stage than everyone else.

Don’t glare at tall people; don’t step on the back of their heels; don’t make snide comments about them. If anything, give them an approving nod, a way of silently saying, ‘I know you are tall, tall person, and so you expect me to be angry at you, but I understand that variety is the spice of life, and that you have no control over your height.’

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#4. Treat The Portaloo As You Would A Dear Friend

If there’s one argument against the idea that the human race can progress, it’s the portaloo. That thing hasn’t changed in decades. We might have put man on the moon and extended the human lifespan, but when we’re away from plumbing we still have to shit in a plastic hole filled with chemicals so strong that they’ll wilt your nose hair from six miles away.

But just because portaloos hate you, it doesn’t mean that you should hate them. Portaloos are temperamental creatures, at their best when they are treated with respect and kindness. Do everything you can to keep the poratloo as close to its optimum condition as possible.

After all, loving a portaloo is a way of loving your fellow festival-goers.

#5. Do Not Accidentally Spill Your Drinks Down The Back of The Shirt Of The Person Standing In Front Of You, For Christ’s Sake

Seriously, this happened to me when I was at the front row of The Drones in the inaugural Fairgrounds year and it was one of the three worst things that has ever fucking happened to me.

I’ll remember the face of the person who did it till the very moment I die, and will curse them with my last whistling breath.

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#6. Wield The Power Of Being On Someone’s Shoulders With Great Responsibility

You’ve probably noticed a recurrent thread running through this article, which is: have as much fun as you like as long as you don’t obstruct the reasonable fun of others.

That’s particularly true when you’re getting up on someone’s shoulders. Sure, it’s fun — you’re up so high! We’re all so proud of you! — but it’s also a tried-and-true way to piss off everyone around you. When you’re up there, remain aware of the punters around you, lest they spend the set staring long and vicious daggers into your back.

#7. Look After Your Trash

Not to get all Captain Planet on you, but if you leave plastic strewn around a field because you were too munted to place your overpriced vodka and Red Bull can in a bin, then you are a bad person, and will be haunted by misfortune for decades.

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#8. Text Me More Specific Directions Than, ‘I’m Standing Near The Portaloos, No Not Those Ones, The Other Ones’

Goddamnit Geoff, I told you before, I do not know the difference between the three identical types of toilet block.

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Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Junkee and more fun than this article makes him seem. He tweets @Joe_O_Earp.

Photo Credit: Jack Toohey/inthemix at Splendour in the Grass