Zip Ties, Duct Tape & Bailing Wire

For the past 15 years, I have been asked the same question at least once every summer, “why do you work at music festivals,” and every year, the answer is difficult to capture.  I’ve watched a dozen friends volunteer at shows only to tell me, “Heids, I love you, but I’ll never do this again,” as was the case this past show with my brother-in-law.  It’s a valid question since the whole point of music festivals is to go listen to some good music and have some fun.  What’s so great about missing the music and working while everyone else is dancing and having fun?  (hint: it ain’t the money)

It takes a special breed (combined with a splash of ADHD), something deep inside that drives you to build a community that has seemingly nothing in common with the day to day.  The cities built by armies of pacifists are designed to be our own real world, places we would rather be than those manufactured by governments and manipulated by societal norms.  And the things that happen in these make-shift communities simply couldn’t happen outside the confines of fences made from zip ties, duct tape and bailing wire.

The stories of festival builders cannot be matched and they run the gamut from medical emergencies to enlightenment to down and out belly-aching comedy.  Having been raised by a lover of histories and trained as a steward of them, I can spend hours hovering around a pot of coffee, listening to and comparing accounts of incidents occurring across the festival grounds. These stories teach lessons, both large and small, about how to be a better manager, a better leader and a better human.  They are roadmaps of potential pitfalls and speed bumps.  But most importantly, they make us laugh at our own common humanity and help to appreciate everyone for their own unique qualities.

Over the past weekend, my love for festivals was finally condensed into one sentence.  A person has more personal and physical interaction in one day at a festival than one month at home.  Getting to know new people, learning new things about myself and our common humanity, and laughing with the festival family that we have built is what sustains me the rest of the year.  It fills my cup full of happy memories, laughter and a sense that we really can work together to create something meaningful in a world wrought with violence, destruction and hatred.  It makes reading the news less painful, helps me cope in the real world, and helps me find balance when the scales begin to tip.

But the music and dancing alone couldn’t do it.  It takes the feeling of contribution that I get from watching the city walls go up, “reality” fade and knowing that I was part of something bigger, something special, something meaningful.  I have watched volunteers (and myself) grow into thoughtful, compassionate citizens who take their stories and apply them back home.  Once you’ve assisted someone in trouble in this alternate reality and helped them out of their hole, you develop a sense of achievement, a sense that you really can make a difference and that you have become a part of a greater whole.  You become a better human, more capable of manifesting solutions under stressful situations.  You develop skills that can’t be learned in the real world; how to manage all the freaky people, coordinate creative chaos and perform under pressure.  And even if the pressure gets too high, I know that the tears I cry in the summer grow flowers year round.

So there is no easy answer, no simple reason for spending more time helping than playing.  It’s just something that I have to do, something that helps me come to terms with the world around me and makes me feel as though I am part of something bigger than myself.  Oh, and the free Tshirts help too.

A few years ago, Kat Gleason wrote a story that ran in the Ukiah Daily Journal.  My role at Sierra Nevada World Music Festival was featured.  The story can be found here.