A Guide to Enjoying any Festival

Every year, slowly but steadily, summer finds its way to Berlin. And with it the festivals pop up, seemingly endless. Your Facebook feed is basically exploding and they all appear like your wildest summer dream come to life. But where to start, which to choose, and who should join the perfect festival squad? …Struggles, so in the end you surrender and end up at Volkspark-Friedrichshain, having a barbecue. At least that’s how it feels like to me.

So, when Somersby – the fruity Scandinavian Cider – invited us to the Helene Beach Festival, of course, we went – Far to the east, actually, as east as it gets if you weren’t planning a spontaneous trip to Poland. The thought of half naked bodies, sun screen and apple cider, convinced us to pack our things and leave Berlin for the weekend. A summer beach festival located directly at a beautiful lake, with a wide variety of artists was waiting for us. Summer – music – chill – Let’s do this!

We expected our summer music dream vacation to come true, – but even a beach festival is still a festival, and that means there were a whole lot of people trying to have a dang good time! Which is great! We live in Berlin, we totally get the desire to enjoy dancing and the total loss of social conduct. But after weeks of being trapped in hot Ubahn trains all we really wanted was music, time to chill and some space.
If you’ve been to many festivals, you’ve all probably had this moment once or twice.
We did have that sudden feeling of being overwhelmed at Helene Beach, briefly. 72h ahead of us, but were we really ready for this? … Of course we were, because we followed a basic checklist that can make you enjoy any festival.

1. Look for creative ways to camp

If you don’t really feel like waking up at seven in the morning because your neighbor just put on his boom box and started a dance routine in front of your tent, well, then you really gotta find a spot that’s more excluded.
Due to our late arrival at Helene Beach we chose a more creative way of camping as the actual camp sides were already overcrowded. So, we walked, and walked a bit further and ended up camping directly at the lake. We didn’t really know whether that was a designated camping side… but shhh, no one cared. Sometimes you have to walk a little further to really get what you want.
A place to chill – check!

2. Find your festival companion

Yes, you all love each other and you came as a group and you oh so want to stay together, … but seriously, if you actually don’t want to do the same things, you better split up. That’s not a bad friendship, that’s wise. As long as no one goes alone, … but even that can be entertaining on a festival from time to time.
We were two people anyways and pretty much agreed on everything that we wanted to do on the festival, – so:
Festival companion – check!

3. Find your go-to-drink

Don’t get this wrong, we have all seen what alcohol and festivals do to people. So don’t go down that road. Keep your hands of undefined liquor in plastic containers and find yourself a classy drink and have a good time.
As we were planning a summer beach weekend anyways, Somersby Cider was just the way to go. All the Scandinavian summer feels we got from this delicious fruity cider that weekend. Hmm…
Awesome refreshment – check!

4. Only listen to the music that you truly love

A festival with a very diverse line-up can be a blessing and a curse. You might end up in front of the main stage, tormented by a band that you don’t even know, just because your waiting for the band that’s on in two hours and you so wanted to get into the first row. Helene Beach made that pretty easy for us. The festival area was pretty extensive. So when we kind of felt like Jennifer Rostock was just yelling at us, we left, got us a Somersby and came back for Fritz Kalkbrenner one hour later.
Music – check!

5. Find your vacation spot

If you want to get away from the crowd, then just do it! There is always a way. Even if it feels like they’re a swarm of bees buzzing around you.
We wanted to get some space and chill at a lake, so we did. Again, we just had to move our feet – an effort we happily made. We got our own little beach, nice background music and a festival less then ten minutes away.
Avoid the masses – check!

6. Have some humor

Sometimes you just have to laugh about things. That makes it so much easier. You can always enjoy a festival! You just have to get creative.
We definitely laughed a lot and created our very own version of Helene Beach, with some music, a Somersby Cider and a lot of chilling.

Thanks for the invitation by Somersby!

Text & Photos: Andy D.

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Andy

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