Outside Lands: Refugee camp from hell?
By Sarah Fraga
Four words come to mind when I think of summer 2011. Outside, lands, San, and Francisco. Outside Lands, taking place in Golden Gate Park, is the Bay Area’s largest, most widely known music festival and definitely the highlight of my 2011 summer. But when I asked fellow Outside Lands attendee and Arcata High Senior Cory Sprague to provide me with four words about Outside Lands, he described his experience as, “Refugee camp from hell.” “Refugee camp from hell” brings to mind images of people in shelters in constant torment and misery, surrounded by many others who are also in constant torment and misery.
Wondering if I recalled the most wonderful time of my life incorrectly, I turned to the very reliable source called my journal. I found the words ‘incredible’ describing the music of The Black Keys, ‘pure fun’, ‘hippie dance fest’ describing the ambiance of John Fogerty, and ‘wonderful weekend.” Lastly there was the sentence, “Ah, I love life.”
Questioning my own memory, I sought some outside sources. I spoke with experienced Outside Lands go-er and Arcata High Senior, Kaylee Savage-Wright. As well as attending this year’s Outside Lands, Savage-Wright has attended the previous two years, and recognizes the pros and cons of the festival. “My favorite things about Outside Lands are seeing the bands I wanted to see, of course,” Savage-Wright said, “but also seeing new people for the first time and falling in love with their music. I love the general atmosphere of the festival, meeting all kinds of crazy people, and the line-ups are always amazing. The one main thing that sucks is how expensive the food is. I tend to starve while I’m there.”
The food prices at Outside Lands are like the amount of people that attend–growing within each year. Pizza was four dollars in 2010, and in 2011 pizza was nine dollars. Since most everyone who was entering the park had already paid 200 dollars for their ticket, smuggling outside food in was an only option for those on a reasonable budget. Looking around I saw apples and energy bars being pulled out of backpacks and purses, but thankfully the security guards and workers there didn’t seem to mind.
To make up for the highly priced food and merchandise, free gifts were given out to attendees such as face painting, airbrush tattoos, shampoo samples, and a variety of toys and from the Toyota punch prize wall. Rewards were also given out to anyone who rode their bike to the park or picked up and recycled a set amount of bottles. The rewards were not difficult to earn, seeing that by the end of the weekend it was tricky to set foot on the ground without stepping on trash.
These motivational benefits added to the many other ways the attendees were challenged to help decrease the carbon footprint of the festival. Everyone was encouraged to choose refillable water bottles over plastic ones, to bike or carpool to and from the festival, and the food sold consisted of local restaurants and farmer’s markets. Even one of the smaller stages, where smaller name (opposed to Muse and Arcade Fire) artists like Best Coast and Eskmo performed, was powered entirely by solar energy.
With many people unable to eat and 60,000 bodies separated to five stages only to be crammed back together again, sharing an uncomfortable amount of air and sweat, one could agree with Sprague’s “refugee camp from hell” comment. There were even reports of a woman urinating in the middle of a crowd because the sea of people prevented her from using a portapotty.
But if you take away the body odor, bowel movement misfortunes, and the lack of nutrition necessary to live, you will see what Outside Lands was created for: music. And with Outside Lands 2011, the audience got just that: good music, mind-blowingly breathtaking music, and for some of us, bands that caused us to “fall in love with their music.” With buzzing in ears and smiles on faces, everyone leaving the park on the last night of Outside Lands could tell you that they got just what they came for. Of course, they would be very loud and obnoxious because they wouldn’t be able to hear what they were saying, but it would be enough to make you want to go the next year.
Filed Under: A&E
Legend has it that the Pepperbox originated in the 1930s, when Arcata High had just moved to the current campus. There was a box in the library called the "Pep box," where students put in suggestions for teachers and administration. This box also happened to be a used pepper (the spice) box. When the Arcata High Student newspaper was founded, it was appropriately given its current name, "the Pepperbox".
