The Festival day

Every year around the first or second week of January, something amazing happens for me and thousands of other people in the US: the annual Bonnaroo music festival lineup drops. And for all of us, it’s essentially our Christmas morning full of gifts (disguised as artist and band names, of course).

Well, I can confidently say that this year’s lineup has absolutely blown me away and is one of the best in Bonnaroo’s 19-year history. My music tastes have shifted quite a bit in the past year, and somehow the festival curators have answered my prayers for the artists I wanted most. It’s a dream come true for someone like me who listens to around 5 or 6 hours of music every single day.

So here I am, giddy as a kid on Christmas morning as I comb through the lineup and continue to find more and more gems. I’m already looking ahead to June, excited as can be about what’s in store for me this year during the 5-day festival. I’m already looking forward to all the shipping boxes that will end up at my front door as I order gear and other items that I know I’ll be taking to the festival in the summer. (Last year, we had a few “fake” sunscreen bottles arrive in shipping boxes around March. You can imagine what those were used for.)

I think that lineup day is one of those things that no one truly understands unless they’ve been to a festival before. For some, it’s make or break, meaning they may not even attend the festival if the music isn’t up to their standards. For others (like me), I already know I’m going. It’s just a matter of digging into new bands I’ve never heard of and finding gems that are buried in the undercard.

I’ve always viewed my experience at music festivals as dependent on the lineup. That is, until I came across Bonnaroo. The festival experience itself is otherworldly, and I will go this year onwards for the rest of my life regardless of who they book and bill. I know that concept is foreign to some who really go depending on what artists are playing. But there are a good majority of us out there that will go no matter when the festival is and who’s playing. To me, that shows exactly how powerful the festival is regarding culture, people, and experiences outside of the music. And you just don’t get that experience at every festival you attend. It’s special for just a few.

Trying Out Something New

Lately, I’ve been in the habit of trying to introduce friends and family to some of the stuff I like and what I’m interested in. I look at it as a way to open up to them about myself while also letting them know there are some seriously cool, useful, or efficient things out there in the world that they don’t currently use or know about.

One of the best ways to describe what I mean is what my wife and I just got for my mother’s birthday a few weeks ago. You see, we’ve been on a huge cooking kick, always trying to make our meals from scratch and from whole foods. Being vegan means we sometimes will throw in plant-based alternatives, but for the most part, we make everything we can from the produce we buy. So, it comes as no surprise that one of the first things we thought of to get my mom for her birthday was a one-month subscription to Hello Fresh. What better way to “force” something you enjoy doing onto your parent than sending them some shipping boxes packed with that thing?

Now, I’m not saying I love the idea of Hello Fresh since I find the costs to be way too much for me. We always end up saving money when we buy our own groceries and make meals, but Hello Fresh seems to be on par with spending money out at a restaurant, and at that point, why not just have someone else cook your food for you?

However, I do see the merit in trying it out to get someone interested in cooking their own meals more often (and preparing new/novel meals, on that note). So, we figured gifting 8 meals to my mom, meals she normally wouldn’t cook or have the time to go out and find, was the best gift we could get. It also meant she could bond with us more when it comes to diet and talking about what we cook, so it was the ultimate solution.

My mom (and dad) are both people pretty consumed with work, and they’re also resistant to “new” things. So having a little trial run that sends them their own groceries in shipping boxes, making it easy and quick to prepare is a fantastic way to get them to try new food. Even better, my mom has been on a health kick, so I’m sure she’s excited to have my dad try some of the foods he normally would turn away (especially considering how tasty some of those meals looked when we ordered them for her!).