Vagos Metal Fest and very-nice but not "Metal" (still love it) Vilar de Mouros!🤘❤🤟

Party San open air in Germany. 9-10k people who are just there for the music without any of the gimmicks, no party tourists like in wacken ruining the experience etc. My tips are: be prepared for every weather, i was at a festival in may where we hit -16°C at night. Be prepared for extreme cold every time no matter the time of the year. And always make sure to have plenty of water in your system, drink a lot of water, just do it. Be prepared for pickpockets especially at bigger festivals, have your money secured. Secure your tent and camping equipment. I experienced tornadoes twice (though the really tame German version) and while other peoples tents were flying away, mine was secured at the ground with no chance to take off. Take your time to secure it even when it takes 20 minutes more after the festival to disassemble it, it's worth it. Be prepared for rain, have plenty of dry clothes including underwear, have your water sensitive stuff packed away safely and store your clothes dry. Comfort: bring a camping chair and make sure to sleep in some comfort, it is a huge game changer to be refreshed for the new day of seeing bands nonstop for 12 hours. While an air mattress is nice, it has some disadvantages. You need an airpump and if it is damaged then you're in trouble. Especially annoying when it slowly loses air so you wake up in the middle of the night realizing your mattress is empty. Bring a camp bed instead, you can save the air pump and you'll just need blankets (which you need anyway). Plus point: you can shove your bags underneath the camp bed and save space which is an issue in a tent. Being a fair skinned redhead the sun is the biggest enemy, especially when you're drinking. Always seek shadow, cool yourself down when it is hot and protect your head from direct sun as good as you can. That also includes your campground, bring something that creates shadow. I personally have a tent with a "porch" where you can sit being covered by a roof (also nice for rain). Two issues that are always annoying but especially at a festival is headache and diarrhea, take medication against both with you. Something especially for our US guests: sex. You will see nudity, you'll hear people getting laid. You're in Europe and in a relaxed atmosphere, don't make a deal out of it. And don't forget protection if you partake in such actions yourself. And one tip that some people might laugh at but is relevant for me: don't overdo your partying. If you paid a lot of money to see bands you are excited about then there is nothing worse than missing them because you are too hung over. Also there are better places for having a hangover with nausea and all that stuff than at a festival in the middle of summer in the furnace that your tent becomes during daytime in the sun.

​@@drstihl2007your last point is valid! In Wacken 1999 I missed all my favorite acts because of that, and I travelled from far away 🤣

I love Dong Open Air Festival 🤘❤️ lovely smaller Festival, 3k people, 3 days, wonderful familiar atmosphere, on top of a 70 m high hill with stunning view, in western germany (not far away from the border to the Netherlands). They usually have some known headliners, but the other Bands are international newcommers or just unknown. Whole metal genre variety. Ps: The festival name is innocent, just named after the nearby region.

Been to Wacken 3 times and this year will be my 4th time.

this man knows his shit! :)

yup this is true, once a friend of mine went to the toilets in the morning and came back without his socks. When we asked about it he just said, they ran out of toilet paper.

@@RTVLD LITERALLY! 😅

No shit?

​@@bradleyrembolt that works too!

plus potential signing sessions AND the possibility to see bigger bands nontheless

100% agree, I live in germany and have no intend at all to go to Wacken, Hellfest or Graspop. I love the smaller ones. The best festival in germany imho is the Party.San festival, if you are into Death and Black metal. No mainstream stuff like you see on the big metal festivals there.

Yessss. The main issue i had with large festivals is that sometimes you would have overlapping stages making you miss out on bands, or just a breakneck lineup with 0 breaks inbetween to just relax and chill out a bit between bands.

I'm about to watch this. Avoided festivals, only been to a local (very small) one cos I've always felt very uncomfortable just thinking about it. I decided to go to one smaller one (considerably bigger than the previously mentioned) and I hope I won't regret my decision/spending the money for the ticket/being more scared than I am now after watching this video. 🤣 As of now, I don't understand the lure of very big festivals. And while bands needs fans, so the bigger crowd the better for them, for me as the fan, the less crowd the better. 😄

@@molekyyli @Eksynyt Molekyyli Not sure if I get your concern, still I will say this; I had and still have social phobia, I hated being in school classes, being "locked" with 20 other people in a room I do not want to be with. Being uncomfortable all the time, had issues concentrating and had regular panic attacks. Concerts and festivals were and are a huge help for me. In general most of the people at a concert or festival are there for the reason why I am there, to listen to awesome music and to live that lifestyle. Especially those at Metal gigs are the most polite and nice people I have been with in a publblic area ever! What I want to say is; Do it, go to gigs and festivals. The things you will regret are those things you didnt do. Doesnt have to be Wacken, but go somewhere ;)

and put any spirits in plastic soda bottles

My local American festival has that same policy.

Same at Motocultor (Brittany, France). Having to leave the glass bottles in the car and hopping to the nearest supermarket to stock up on metal cans was a bore, but no glass shards anywhere was worth it!

I would say this applies to almost every festival. Glass is just pretty dangerous in general.

Yes, yes! Woodstock in Poland is great festival, as regular there (since 2014) I truly love that place, two things that may be important: 1. This is very large festival, for most metal bands it is physically the biggest crowd they will ever play (words from few interviews). Camp ground is well organized, but it's worth noting- cause not everyone loves that big festivals 2. Woodstock(new name Polandrock) is festival with various genres of music from pop through metal to folk or electro. Community is based more on similar values (helping others, not being creep, the bar isn't high, just be nice human and care for "our piece of land"- part from our oath)

From time to time I take hikers from the street in my car with me and one time (somewhere pre corona), I took some guy from poland with me and I had some metal running and we came to talk and he told me about this festival :D

Yes i love Przystanek Woodstock/Polandrock my first time there was in 2019 when i was still 17 with my older brother and it was awsome been there every year i could excluding 2020/21 because of corona. the poeple there are awsome and the organisation is pretty good and best thing ther is no "tickets were sold out in 20 min " bullshit because there are no tickets and you can just go there and bring a tent with you and BOOM you are part of the festival crowd (yea you dont have "tommorowland" level stages but who needs them when the music sounds the same with or without it in the end ). also all the sponsor stages(the festival is funded by sponsors thats why its free) and workshops are awsome aswell and the best thing ist that you also can find raves and "private" partys all around the camping ground that are basically small stages for them selves and gett always bigger crowds the later you are into the festival

That’s sooo cool, you were a lucky kid!

Did you happen to see Nightwish that year? That was one of their legendary performances.

@@ACGmusic0117 I would like to answer your question like this - From 2013 until today I have seen Nightwish live in pretty much every European country and in Mexico. In June the concerts in Stockholm and Vaasa will follow. Also, I'll see Floor in Den Haag and Hamburg with her solo tour in a view weeks. Does that answer your question? Kind regards, Kelsea - NWA Germany 😉

@@Kelsea-2002 good answer!

@@ACGmusic0117 😘

We've got to the point of having a whatsapp group checklist that runs for days and days before the festival just to make sure we've got everything. One guy brought a 5-man blow up pool and another guy brought a 40 meter piece of flexible piping so we could fill it from one of the standing water points 😂 Drunk in that cold pool at 4am, one of the best times of my life haha

I went to a local small 3 day festival some 10 years ago, the only reason I remember it is because I did go alone and was indeed adopted by a nearby large group who saw me setting up my tent alone. Good times.

@@kumquatmagoo There is always the risk of the pool being filled with pee after a couple of days.

@@entwurfung That might be the done thing at Wacken, but not at UK festivals! 😂😂 Seriously though, I will get to Wacken one year. I owe it to myself.

I was surprised when I attended to Maryland Deathfest and it wasn’t as big as I thought. It was a good festival, but just as big as these European festivals.

Full Terror Assault, Sonic Temple, Sick new World, Blue Ridge Rock fest, Maryland Deathfest, Psycho Las Vegas. All are in the US and there are many more. Yeah some dont have camping but also many do. And yeah many also host a lot of rock bands but so do Graspop, Wacken and Hellfest. Americans try and make conversation trying to praise the place they are in at the moment. It's a thing they do. Mostly small talk. Dont take it too serious. Canadians do it too. Also South America has plenty of fests too but North Americans never seem to go there for some reason. Fear? I dunno.

Very good tip!

This is a very important tip. Don't be too caught up in "I must see all the bands I like!" and be sad about missjng some - consider how many great shows you DO see during a few days. Plus, as mentioned in the video, making friens from all over the metal globe and all the other experiences you can find all around the festivals apart from bands playing.

👏👍👍🤘🤘

D&B (and Metal) for life!!!

D&B and Metal festivals are super alike. Same vibe, same understanding, same energy, same love. I met so many other metalheads at d&b events I was really surprised at first. Now me and my friends seek out the guys with Malevolence, Meshuggah and Burzum t-shirts to befriend lol

same with graspop and alcatraz

Some of my best friends are those guys that I see once a year at particular festivals. We pick right up where we left off, and as the years go by our collection of stories is getting better and better. We've had new people join, some people leave to have kids (then come back with their kid years later!), and even a couple of people who died in the interim. I get that same feeling for a few days when I get back home from the festival, but I know that I'll see them again in a year, if not before. Nothing quite like getting wasted in a field with a bunch of strangers that all have something in common. Metalheads are the loveliest people on the planet.

It's usually hellfire

Just a small correction, in Czechia it's Kurva, the w is the polish version. :)

The "thing missing" is alcohol. It's physicals withdrawal symptoms.

I'll share one "life hack" for BA, there is a city pool around 20 min walk from festival area, you can use their showers and relax in cool water :) (and they have food and beer inside)

Always wanted to check out that one

@@wyattsmetal Recommend it. Really relaxed festival and you can just go swimming in the sea next to it, if it's hot.

@@wyattsmetal Definitely recommended. Getting tickets for this year's Tuska is still possible, and the lineup is--at least in my opinion--pretty awesome this year.

Just came from my third Tuska festival and despite the downpour on saturday we still had an awesome time with barely any issues! I'd say that the rain even helped us have more fun watching Memoriam while they joked about the situation, not to mention having an aesthetic drizzle while Lorna played Pain Remains. The festival goers have always been very friendly (bar drunk assholes who are few and far between) and the pit etiquette is pretty good. The three outdoor stages in addition to the Kvlt stage didn't make scheduling with a group of four all too hard either. The fact that you can leave to the mall helping organize the event at anytime for normal priced food is also a huge life-saver.

I'm a local. It's a great black metal festival, run by some very ambitious people. Hot tip you have to take advantage of. Make sure you visit some of the geothermal public pools in the big Reykjavik area. Well, they're all geothermal with selection of hot tubs, jacuzzis and saunas/steamrooms and they're not expensive at all, compared to the fancy "lagoons" or spas we have scattered over the country as well.

Have fun \m/

Shit, I'm so jealous of you. Ascension Festival always has a good lineup, and then it's in Iceland, such a beautiful country. I hope I can go there one day. I wish you a lot of fun!

gotta ask as a fellow commonwealther (resident of the great white north) what did you do when it came to camping gear? did you just get stuff when you landed in country or did you end up bringing something over with you?

@@zekeooo2 never brought gear with me... most of the time at Wacken and Summer Breeze I rented a pre-pitched tent through Zeltheld, and for the others I just pre-searched a place to by a tent! Argos, Decathlon, etc!

you should go to alcatraz or graspop, great festivals, i want to go to summer breeze soon love that festival

Dude the bin jousting is hilarious they take it so seriously 🤣🤣🤣

When i went to a festival, the party wasnt that extreme. I didnt really participate, mostly because i was exhausted due to a heatwave. Without the heatwave it probably would have gotten more wild. But i definitely did have fun partying at the camping.

@@tijmen5355 I really depends on the size: bigger festivals tend to have more extreme partying. But much depends on the wetter, and whom you meet.

CANNED RAVIOLI!!

Is there a site you recommend with a kind of agenda?

I definetly agree with you

Agreed. Been there and at Wacken 5 times so far. I do like both and they definitely have their own vibe. Summer Breeze, as many other smaller festivals (though, I wouldnt necessarily call SB "small"), has the big advantage of shorter distances between things and the tickets are cheaper. Also the choice of beer in the infield is much better than at Wacken

Have fun and don't be scared to talk to people. Going alone can feel scary and you may feel exposed or maybe intimidated by other bigger groups in their camps. There's no reason to be scared. Get to know your neighbours, offer to help out with things or ask them for help if you need something or just to socialize. If you want, you'll be absorbed into their camp before you know it.

It will be awesome! I went alone last year and you can make friends before you even arrive on the shuttle busses to the campground. See ya there, rain or shine \m/

I went to Download in 2010 and had a great time! You'll have a blast!

Do tell us more about your extreme privilege

I go to Download and Bloodstock every year, you'll love it. 😃

And how was Download festival?

Many Europeans don't know the struggle of having to cross an ocean for festivals 😅 which I'm jealous of!

As a person coming back home, yearly fom 2014, with lung infections from hot-cold-wet weather, it actually is fight for survival, and I never thought about this way and now I can't stop laughing 😂

"Fight for survival with live music" Indeed, but you're not alone in that fight. 😅 If you have some trouble, there'll be a dozen guys and gals to offer immediate assistance. Once, I was knocked out cold in the moshpit (got hit in the head by accident), and the next thing I remember was sitting a hundred meters away from the stage, and seeing a handful of folks with a worried expression on their faces.

I did Woodstock-Brutal Assault-Summer Breeze on one year... Ironically, from the cheapest to organize to the most expensive and furthest. On SB I was so sick, but still stand for 12h a day, I was like "I didn't make overtime for 5 month straight to now resign because of some pain while breathing". My health took massive hit, after few months I was more or less healthy. I regret nothing 😅

I am a little jealous, not gonna lie. We luckily only have to drive 1,5h, but having a festival this big (and great) near by sounds amazing.

Hi! Do you really live in Dinkelsbühl?

Thank you!

See you there mate.