“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
Music festivals offer one of the most unique and spirited experiences that will ensure memories that last a lifetime. Taking your best friends by the arm, dancing away to your favorite tunes, witnessing something magical in terms of performance and meeting new people who have the same twinkle in their eyes. The Festival experience is one of the most immersive and pure events that will be part of your musical calendar, bringing all the true values of music to life as we all are celebrated and united as one. For a few days, we are disengaged from our troubles and despair as we celebrate life through music. The festival environment doesn’t just refrain itself to the physical boundaries of the arena; it stretches far beyond into the most beautiful memories that remain etched in our minds forever. Staying with friends in this environment is what simply elevates this experience further, making festival camping one of the most singular experiences of a music festival. Stepping aside from any luxuries, we spend time together within the intimate confines of a camping tent sharing stories filled with love, life and laughter. The highly-anticipated Enchanted Valley Carnival that will bring this unique semblance of music and camping together is right on our doorstep. We take a look at the tradition of camping at music festivals and how the EVC experience will promise you a similarly unforgettable experience!
Newport Jazz Music Festival, Newport, United States
To understand how the concept of on-site festival camping began, we must take a few strides back, even into territories of non-Dance Music cultures. While music gatherings have always been a cultural necessity for many communities, one of the first noticeable music festivals at a major scale that attended to diverse musical tastes and nuances can be credited to the iconic Newport Festivals way back in the 1950s. The Newport Jazz Festival in 1954 followed by the Newport Folk Festival catered to a growing audience for jazz, funk & folk-music listeners. Featuring academic panel discussions followed by live musical performances on a lawn, the festival became one of the first pegs on the Festival wheel that is running even today. However, one of the most definitive music festivals of the modern era would have to be the Monterey International Pop Music Festival. Organized under a time-window of seven weeks, the festival was deemed historic in terms of bringing alternative music cultures to the performing stage. (Readers might also recall this as the festival where Jimi Hendrix very famously set his guitar on fire before smashing it to bits!) The Music Festival had held onsite camping for its patrons – on of the first of its kind, bringing an all new dimension to the music experience. The concept was widely accepted by all as after the show, you wouldn’t be ushered away from the arena, you could soak in the experience with your friends while touring endlessly over the festival site before settling into a cozy tent with your best mates discussing everything about the night.
Crowd watching Janis Joplin perform at Monterey Music Festival, California
The Monterey International Music festival paved the way for countless other revival festivals such as the Miami Pop Festival before another historic music festival arrived that changed the face of performing arts forever. The Woodstock Music & Art Fair which took place on August 15-18, 1969 may just be the most famous music festival ever. The event attracted 32 acts that performed in front of over 500,000 people. The festival was generally meant to be a profit venture, but when 500,000 people showed up (organizers sold tickets for just under 200,000) and they didn’t have adequate fencing, it became a free concert! Furthermore, the festival also spawned the acclaimed film which won a 1970 Oscar for best documentary. Once again, on-site residence was a new concept for festivalgoers who found that the experience could be elevated outside the music arena by exploring various other expressions of art and culture. In the late 1960s, the Isle of Wight Festival became one of the most iconic festivals in Europe, bringing in people from diverse settings into a delightful music festival and camping environment. The unanticipated high turnout lead to Parliament passing the “Isle of Wight Act” preventing gatherings of more than 5,000 people on the island without a license! Interestingly, one of the individuals in attendance was Andrew Kerr, who was heavily involved which the formation of the Glastonbury Festival.
Woodstock music & art fair, New York
Glastonbury Music Festival, Glastonbury
Isle of Wight Festival, Isle of Wight, England
The Glastonbury Festival, till date, is now one of the most prolific music festivals of the world, hosting some of the definitive musical acts, while giving its patrons a unique and unforgettable festival experience. Art, music and culture find their place over acres of land owned and organized by Michael Eavis who offered many different camping areas, each with its own atmosphere. Limekilns and Hitchin Hill Ground are quieter camping areas, whereas Pennard Hill Ground is a lively campsite. Cockmill Meadow is a family campsite and Wicket Ground was introduced in 2011 as a second family-only campsite. A disabled campsite is also available in Spring Ground. Campsite accommodation is provided in the cost of a standard entry ticket but festival-goers must bring their own tents. Tipi Park offers solar showers and a log-fired yurt sauna to cap off the experience! Meanwhile, back in the US, in the early 1990s, we were seeing the birth of one of the most bold and adventurous music concepts in the form of Lollapalooza. The first Lollapalooza took place in 1991 and was credited with helping to promote the popularity of alternative music culture. In 2005 it was moved to a single location which took place over a single weekend, Grant Park in Chicago. Since 2011 versions of the festival also took place in Brazil and Chile. Camping at Lollapalooza brought together fans of different music cultures under one sky, giving birth to a new form of acceptance of alternatively growing musical spheres. But it would have to be Coachella that taps on diversity more than any other festival. The festival, which became the role model in festival programming and production standards, made its debut back in 1999 where lesser known acts such as Richie Hawtin, Christopher Lawrence and BT made appearances on the festival stage! Besides the emphatic musical diversity, Coachella also started allowing tent camping as an option for festival lodging by 2003. The campground site is on a polo field adjacent to the venue grounds and has its own entrance on the south side of the venue. 2010 introduced many new features, such as re-entry from the campsite to the festival grounds, parking next to your tent, and recreational vehicle camping spots (recreational vehicle camping was offered one year only). For that festival, there were more than 17,000 campers. At the 2012 event, on-site facilities included recycling, a general store, showers, mobile phone charging stations and an internet cafe with free WiFi.
Camping spread at Glastonbury Music Festival
Camping spread at Glastonbury Music Festival
Tomorrowland, Boom, Belgium
Of course, the very next year, a little known festival called Tomorrowland sprung up in the town of Boom in Belgium, that effectively revised everything we thought we knew about Dance Music culture. Turning dance music from an underground closed-door experience into a open-sky festival experience, Tomorrowland alongwith many other festivals such as Global Gathering, Bonnaroo, Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival, Ultra Music Festival and many many more turned Dance Music into one of the most defining music cultures ever owing to its phenomenal success as a performing art. Making camping one of the prime attractions of the festivals through their innovative Dreamville concept, the organizers have put increasing care and attention to finer details for campers in order to accentuate their experience.
Dreamville, Tomorrowland
The EVC Tents from last year
Coming back to India, Enchanted Valley Carnival brings this immersive and undeniably beautiful experience to India and can be credited as one of the first to do so at such a major scale. With the inaugural event last year, patrons stepped out of their engaging urbanscapes and stepped into the magical EVC universe, amidst breathtaking landscapes, staggering stages and under beautiful starry nights that unites people from all over the globe. The experience from last year, still fresh in the minds of attendees, marked a new era of outdoor festivals, owing to its stellar lineup and its unique camping facilities. Attendees once entered the EVC realm, left three days later, reinvented and rejuvenated. This year, once again, all checklists have been crossed off. With a tantalizing list of acts lined up, promising one of the most unforgettable events of the musical calendar, the experience will be complete with camping, multi-parties and even a silent-party! Come be part of this magical experience!
If you haven’t already, and we strongly recommend you do, head over to the link here to book your tickets now!
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