My Festival Awakening at Spring Awakening 2018

My first festival was Spring Awakening in Chicago from June 8-10, 2018, and it was the perfect first festival experience. I was going through an extremely tough time and was granted the opportunity to escape for a few days, and I’m so thankful that I did, because I wouldn’t have had the rave journey I’ve had or become the person I am today.

I had just come home after finishing my sophomore year of college. I was originally supposed to stay in my college town and take classes, but after having multiple life issues including a breakup, a relative getting sick, and my dog dying, it became necessary to go home to my parents’ house for the summer (yeah… I was going through it).

My friend Lena texted me one day inviting me to go to this festival in Chicago called Spring Awakening. I was a little surprised, because even though we had known each other for over 2 years, we’d only hung out twice and didn’t talk much. She was (and still is) an avid raver, so I had mentioned to her once before that I liked EDM and would be open to going to a rave with her sometime- I just didn’t think she’d randomly invite me to Chicago

My anxiety immediately kicked in. I barely knew her, I didn’t know anyone in her group, I’d never been to a festival, it was expensive- I looked for every excuse in the book to say no. But something inside of me told me that I needed to take this risk after the difficult semester I had. Everything began to fall into place: someone in my neighborhood was selling their ticket for super cheap AND I had enough frequent flier miles to use towards my flights. It was meant to be.

Heading to the festival from our hotel on day 1, I was nervous. I was wearing something out of my comfort zone and was with one person I barely knew and 3 others that I just met. (John, Nick, and Arden.) Stepping onto the festival grounds was intimidating- the stages were HUGE and there were so many people! We first headed to Tritonal, of whom I knew maybe 2 songs by. For a dancer, the nerves were keeping me from doing a whole lot of dancing- I was taking in everything around me. Suddenly, some guy came up and hugged Lena, and introduced himself as Simon, who had met Lena at a prior festival. His two friends introduced themselves as Charlie and Filip. Tritonal began to play their song “I’m Ready” and Charlie immediately grabbed my hands and started jumping and dancing around with me. I was finally moving!! I began to feel more comfortable and READY to take on the weekend.

Our group of 5 grew to 8 and we stuck together the entire weekend. On the first day, after seeing Tritonal, we saw AC Slater, Alison Wonderland, Oliver Heldens, and Tiesto. My favorite set of the day was Alison Wonderland: she was incredibly powerful onstage and out of everyone at the festival, I knew most of her music. Her remix of “New Rules” had helped me get through those difficult months, so her playing that song was my first experience of being impacted by hearing a certain song live.

On the second day, we saw 3lau, Nghtmre, and Big Gigantic. Before Big Gigantic, my group went to see Cash Cash while I stayed by myself to see Flux Pavilion; I had an amazing time venturing off by myself and eventually finding my way to the rail! When Big Gigantic came on, it took me awhile to find my group but once I found them, Big Gigantic played a song that ended up becoming one of my absolute favorite songs: The Little Things.

On the final day, we saw Joyryde, Slander, Seven Lions, Zedd, Porter Robinson, and Kaskade. My favorite set of the day was Porter Robinson- I had never heard of him but I was blown away within the first 5 minutes. My favorite memory from this day was when Kaskade played “Disarm You”- it had begun to rain lightly and the fireworks were going off, making for a beautiful setting. This was when I had my first ever rave fam hug and cry- we all joined in for a group hug and filled each other’s ears with “I love you!!”

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I wrote this back in June of 2018, and even though it’s been three years since this festival, I still get butterflies whenever I reminisce. What stuck out to me throughout this adventure was how friendly and open everyone was- people looked out for one another and genuinely wanted to get to know others as well as form deeper connections within their circle. This experience helped me open up my heart and be open to new adventures. I gained confidence, self-love, and most importantly, a sense of belonging. No matter where I went, I always felt a bit out of place; Spring Awakening 2018 was the first time I fully felt like I belonged somewhere, and thus, my love of festivals was born. It’s been three years of chasing music and finding beautiful people along the way, and I couldn’t be more grateful for how this journey began.