To the delight of music fans and molly dealers alike, festival season is upon us, marking the end of winter with a flat cup of overpriced beer and a 21+ wristband. In the warmer months ahead, expensive multi-day fests will descend on major cities. Venues and lineups are curated either to attract particular people, or as many people as possible. Highly specialized fests like Brooklyn's Afropunk or California's Desert Daze offer a succinct view into a specific subculture or music scene, maintaining a consistent vibe that's easy for fans to navigate. Fests like Coachella, however, whose massive draw requires the lineup to reflect an amalgamation of all pop culture, require a state of mind ready to deal with every type of music fan, and every type of music.
In my years attending and covering festivals around the world, I've found that all the successful ones, no matter how different, cast the same spell. A Dionysian spirit courses through participants, allowing them to transcend the confines of society and truly feel free. Regardless of genre, crowd, or venue, the phenomena is always the same: through a combination of music, drugs, energy, and lack of authority, the disparate egos of festival goers becomes a collective id. Beers are shotgunned in the morning. Girls transform from Kylie-esque Instagram thots to flow-y bohemians. Clothing is often replaced with layers of glittering body paint. Strangers from different worlds bond, sharing currencies like bottled water, acid-laced pita, and mushroom tea.
Every fest is a microcosm of its corresponding cultures, requiring different things from attendees — whether it be mental preparation or a fanny pack full of fun. As it's important to plan in advance to ensure your trip (literal or figurative) is a positive one, here are some canna-products to enhance your festival experience, wherever it may be. Just remember, the world is fucked and capitalism is evil — but every now and then you should get weird, be free, maybe put on a flower crown, and make some freaky friends in a desert or polo field.
Select CBD Revive Pen
Use for Grimy Hippie Drug Fests
(See: Rainbow Gathering, Burning Man, Lucidity)
Revolving more around drugs and community than music or entertainment, these real-deal hippie gatherings have the potential to send one to the dark side of the moon if you're not careful. While Burning Man has evolved from weirdos lighting up an effigy in the middle of the desert to an experimental art gathering favorited by the richest people in the world, care should be taken in that its massive, lawless, and chock full of research chemicals like 2CB and less-than-common hallucinogens like DMT. The Rainbow Gathering, on the other hand, is just sketchy as fuck. Meeting every July in secret forest locations around the world since 1972, the loose, traveling community of outcasts (train hoppers to bikers to Dead Heads to punks) continues to be plagued by murders, overdoses, and violence, representing a morbid facet of the hippie lifestyle that's often overlooked.
If you think you're brave (and experienced) enough to attend a drug fest whose roster may or may not include a forest full of murderers or desert full of tech bros — we're honestly not sure which sounds worse — make sure to go armed with a Select CBD Revive Pen. Combining the medical benefits of CBD with an invigorating grapefruit extract, the pen will help you regain energy, clarity, and a connection with the real world in the event you take too much of something. THC can jumpstart hallucinations or intensify another drug's effects, but CBD has a soft, grounding effect — one that's particularly helpful for coming off psychedelics no matter where you are.
For more on Select Oil, visit the company's website here
Jane West Collection's The Compact
Use for Hot and Corporate Desert Fests
(See: Coachella, Stagecoach, Electric Daisy Carnival)
The popularity of Coachella and Stagecoach, two of California's largest music festivals, continues to confound me. First of all, the sea of MAGA hats, cowboy boots, and blinding whiteness that is the Stagecoach audience speaks for itself. And as for Coachella, if spending days on end in the boiling hot desert accompanied by thousands of the most annoying people in LA wasn't nightmarish enough, the exorbitant amount of money you're sure to spend over the course of the weekend funnels directly into the pockets of the fests' gun-toting, homophobic, and anti-cannabis owner.
Rants aside, the first weekend of Coachella kicks off April 13th. Everyone you know is probably going and the lineup is good, with The Weeknd, SZA, War on Drugs, Migos, and Cardi B as headliners.
Though weed is technically legal in California, these big corporate fests are always crawling with cops and are not overtly cannabis-friendly. Desert cops are, somehow, even bigger dicks than normal cops, so discretion in these cases is never a bad look. Enter: The Compact, my favorite kit from Jane West's eponymous line of smoking accessories for women. Mimicking a makeup compact — complete with mirror (!) for the much needed mid-fest touch up — the design includes everything you need to toke on the go: metal pipe, poke stick, dual flower compartment, and lighter. Pop open the compact, apply a fresh coat of lip gloss, and pull out some nugs to share. You might just flirt your way to an artist pass.
For more on Jane West, visit the company's website here
Huxton Stash Pocket
Use for Massive/Strict Normie Fests
(See: Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Governor's Ball)
Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and other "Massive Normie Fests," as we'll call them, function like the Walmart of music festivals. Their objective: mass produce the festival experience with artists everyone knows performing songs everyone's heard a million times. While Bonnaroo kicks off Tennessee's summer in June with a lineup that includes Eminem and Sheryl Crow (wtf?), Lollapalooza's eerily similar lineup closes out Chicago in August.
These festivals are notorious for having strict security, tons of teenagers, and, in the case of Bonnaroo, go down in prohibitionist states. If you're a woman, now might be the time to utilize the super secret cop-proof compartment we were blessed with at birth. If you're a guy, however, you're going to need some help getting weed in there. (Let's be realistic, no matter who you are, bringing a THC Trojan horse is never a bad idea at these mega-fests).
The Huxton Stash Pocket is everything you need to not get caught at the gate (as long as you figure out how to hide the 4.5"x6" bag on your person correctly). The product is double-lined with "activated carbon lining," but also has a double velcro seal and an odor-absorbing flap. In other words: the pouch is completely smell-proof. At the same time, its water-resistant exterior keeps out harmful moisture, like nervous sweat or flat beer. The best part? If you traveled across the country to party in Tennessee or wherever, this might be your best bet for bringing some festival goodies back home on the plane without TSA being any the wiser.
For more on Huxton, visit the company's website here
Beboe Box Set
Use at Fests for People Who Look Down on Fests
(See: Basilica Soundscape, Sustain/Release, Desert Daze)
Fests that cater to those who consider themselves too good for all other fests warrant a complacent attitude because they're cool. Like, really cool. If Bonnaroo is Walmart, Basilica SoundScape is the appointment-only showroom for Gaultier's haute couture. Often curated by visual artists or other creatives, performances (usually within the psych, folk, punk, noise, and metal genres) play off the character of the chosen venue.
For example, an installment of "All Tomorrow's Parties" (RIP!) I attended in 2010 was curated by Jim Jarmusch and took place within the dilapidated grounds of the now-demolished Kutsher's Hotel in the Catskill Mountains. With no security or backstage, artists and guests shared the same experience.
If you're attending a festival of this caliber, settle for nothing less than Beboe's Box Set. Dubbed the "Herme's of Marijuana" by the New York Times, Beboe is the creation of Scott Campbell, famed artist and tattooer to the stars, and Clement Kwan, a fashion executive turned cannabis entrepreneur known for his work with brands like Dolce and Gabanna and global fashion retailer YOOX. The impeccably designed three-piece box set includes a tin of Pastilles (each with 5mg THC/3mg CBD), the signature rose gold sativa blend pen, and the new "Downtime" indica blend pen. With an exquisite eye for design, Beboe's carved an artful sphere, redefining the term high fashion in the process. If you're going to the hip kids' fest this year, this is a guarantee to get you a seat at the cool table.
For more on Beboe, visit the company's website here
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