I am not a fan of trance parties for my own, personal reasons so Rocking the Daisies is one of the few festivals which I attend. This year's festival had very high expectations with great headliner acts, much more space for camping, almost double the tickets sold and a very high price tag on tickets.
The weekend turned out to be, what we dubbed, "Rocking the Queues" with everything at the festival requiring a person to stand in a queue. The problem was simple. Too many people and not enough of anything to go around including toilets, water (which ran out during a heat wave) and security. On Friday night someone slashed through my tent with a knife and stole all my clothes and toiletries which just left a very bad taste in my mouth. What really killed it for me, though, was the reaction of the organisers. When people Tweeted and Facebooked their complaints to the RTD team, the responses were aggressive and sometimes just plain rude. As a PR person, this really upset me, knowing what further reputational damage the company was doing. It felt to me that if the organisers had just looked up from counting their money and focused on after sale service, some of the problems could have been amended.
The weekend was a great excuse for me to finally try out the new Hyperlapse app by Instagram which allows you to film your own time-lapse movies on your phone. It was great fun filming bits of the drive up and speeding it up and it made for a really great memory video which I made after the weekend using my iMovie app, another winner which I have used on quite a few occasions while working. The video can be found on top of this post and I have to give music credit for the song titled Innocence Lost by Erik Hassle ft Tinashe.
Due to the heat and total lack of running water, I spent a lot of time under the gazebo at the tent with my friends. This, weirdly enough, was a major highlight for me. I found that it was a great time to catch up properly which you may not be able to do when you are out at a club. When we eventually made our way to the main stage though, Crystal fighters, Rudimental, Shortstraw and Beatenberg were awesome! I am a big fan of Crystal Fighters so for me, their performance was the highlight of the festival. They had incredible stage presence and their music had a wide range of sounds spanning across genres which made them interesting to listen to. Someone actually said to me "wow! This is better than their recorded stuff." This is, as far as I'm concerned, the sign of a truly gifted group of musicians.
One thing that RTD always seems to get right is the food area and this year was no different. From raw vegan to food trucks to Butlers Pizza, the food stalls this year were a real winner. Having tried an assortment of foods, I would have to say that the bunny chow from Durban's Finest Curry was absolutely the best. I ordered the Butter Chicken Chow and my friend Caitlin got the lamb option (not sure what kind of curry it was.) When she found the lamb too spicy we did a swap and boy, was that lamb one delicious! All food vendors were on top of their games with queues always running swiftly and food being served fast and hot.
So despite the bad stuff, I still had an absolutely killer time hanging out under the gazebo with my friends and chatting, about the heat mostly, and whatever else came to mind. Perhaps next time we consider spending so much money on a festival, we can go find a nice guest house somewhere instead.
Side Note:
Some good Samaritan showed up at my mom's house and returned the bag on the Sunday after Daisies! It had a travel tag on it from years ago and her address was still there. At least I can say that there are still good people out there. Whoever you are, kind sir, I salute you and I am so grateful to you for returning my bag!
Cheers, darling x
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