I Went To An EDM Festival Fully Sober—Here’s Why You Should Too
It turns out, even at Hard Summer, you don’t need to “go hard or go home.” You can go Hiyo.
From the earlier days of music festivals like Woodstock to more modern interpretations like Coachella or Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), one stereotype remains unchanged: If you’re at a festival, you’re supposed to get lit.
Sure, there are straightedge folk in every scene, but festival culture curated a risky standard for concertgoers to be wasted on their inebriant of choice. Illicit drugs are one portion of the poisonous pie, with research suggesting that over half of live music attendees admit to using alcohol or drugs. That’s a huge health concern, but let’s not overlook the over 93% who reach for a drink.
Alcohol is a social lubricant that is easily and frequently abused. Your typical concert runs for a few hours, but music festivals can run for a few days, leading to drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, dehydration, and more.
But who said that has to be the rule? Music festivals can be exhilarating and a unique way to relish in good vibes, year round. So can a gal go enjoy a festival and not over-imbibe?
Hiyo, one of the leading non-alcoholic beverage brands, thinks so. Now that they have become the official NA brand partner for Insomniac, they invited me to attend Hard Summer to see how they’re making sobriety sexy, even for the festival crowd.
Read on for my festival experience fully sober and an exclusive interview with Hiyo’s co-founder Evan Quinn about the blossoming sober-curious industry.
Drink, Rave, Sleep, Repeat?
On August 3 and 4, downtown Los Angeles was overrun by electronic music fans ready to party for hours and hours in the hot, Southern California sun at Hard Summer. Insomniac Events (which also orchestrates major festivals like EDC and smaller concerts) took over the SoFi complex – but not the SoFi stadium itself – erecting massive stages with vibrant lights and resonant speakers.
Since the festival was essentially placed on top of parking lots, there was ample room for EDM lovers to do what they do and dance their hearts out to their favorite DJs. This year’s lineup was stacked. Industry leaders like Disclosure, Dillon Francis, Sofi Tukker, and Major Lazer drew big crowds, but the two-day festival was jam-packed with other EDM staples and newcomers alike.
Festivals like Hard Summer draw scrutiny, however, for their noise pollution and rowdy crowds. In fact, Inglewood’s mayor released a statement shortly after Hard Summer wrapped to say how “perplexed” his office was by the “sound propagation experienced in the South Bay.” To rectify the noise complaints, he said that no stages in that area would be permitted for future events.
Sound and vibration from the artists were one thing. I love concerts of all kinds for the sheer experience of feeling the music in the moment rather than just listening to it through headphones or the car radio, and trust me, my Apple Watch was pinging me time and time again to warn that my environmental noise exposure was through the roof.
But, I’ll be candid with you. I was a bit intimidated about going to a music festival due to their reputation.
When I was in my junior year of high school, a very close friend of mine was invited to her first-ever music festival, Nocturnal Wonderland. She went camping for three days at the festival and returned a very changed young woman. Not to be dramatic, but from that moment on, I felt I had lost the friend I once knew.
She tried hard drugs for the first time there, she began drinking more shortly after, and her whole aura morphed from an intelligent artist to a hedonistic caricature of an EDM festivalgoer. Now, I won’t allege that Nocturnal was what caused her to get kicked out of our high school later that year. But let’s just say that she went down a dark path, and I can’t pretend like her festival experience didn’t play at least a small role in that transformation.
So, you can understand why I’m reasonably skeptical of EDM crowds. It’s nothing against the music – I blast Dillon Francis and the likes in my ears at the gym from time to time – but rave culture raises red flags for me.
Especially as a young woman hoping to bear healthy children someday, I feel second-hand concern for those who have total binge fests of drugs and alcoholic drinks at festivals while barely dressed, making choices they’ll potentially regret down the line. I’m no pilgrim, but I’m also by no means a party girl.