Waking up relatively unscathed on Saturday was clearly too good to last – Sunday morning hit me in the face like a ton of bricks. It had rained on my way back to the tent the night before, and an open tent flap (which happened to be above my sleeping bag) meant we needed to do some emergency late night waterproofing and then fight for dry floorspace before trying to go to sleep. But it was the last day of the festival, so we could take it easy.
There were gaps everywhere where a few hours before, the tents had been piled on top of each other, clearly a large portion of campers had left early, which was admirable. We took down our tent, packed up and milled around for a bit (watching Beach Party) before joining the massive car queue in the parking lot.
The drive home was pretty subdued as we were all sorta on autopilot. It was the perfect time for reflection – a lot of Capetonians have told me Rocking the Daisies is their favourite local festival, having experienced it I can see that there’s definitely a lot to like. Big international headliner, loads going on over carefully mapped out and signposted zones and clean, working toilets with hand-basins with soap were the things that stood out the most to me.
The weather was also great, at least by my standards – being able to wear long sleeves and not come home covered in sunscreen and dust was a nice change from my prior festival experiences, though the cold was really horrible at night.
So is it my new favourite festival? Well no – I had a great time but honestly it was just too big for me. The distances between everywhere felt really immense and, being sold out, it was absolutely crammed full of people. It was also a little too, ‘classy’ is the wrong word but I mean they had a tent where girls could GHD their hair and some of the food stands were a bit too artisanal and boutiquey for my taste. Basically I just feel more comfortable when things are a little rougher around the edges.
But those are just my personal preferences; it’s a great festival worthy of its reputation. I’m looking forward to seeing who’ll they’ll bring out next year.
– – –
Beach Party | Rocking the Daisies
| « FRIDAY | « SATURDAY |
