How to have sex in a port-a-potty—and 11 other festival survival tips If you’re going to a festival this summer, we thought we’d provide you with a few pointers.
If you’re going to a festival this summer, we thought we’d provide you with a few pointers, some field-tested, sweat-soaked, port-a-potty-scented tricks of the trade, culled from our collective 175 years of concert-going experience. Don’t do the brown acid. Or the mystery vape from the guy in furry boots who calls himself Zynlord and says he’s “kind of a microinfluencer.”
Sneak in the booze
No one should be taking out a personal loan just to get buzzed before Hozier makes you weep about trees and exes in a field currently infested with crypto bros and influencers pretending to be druids. And even if you can afford the tepid canned mezcal, most of it ends up sprayed all over you during an accidental body slam in the drum circle.
So what do you do? You flask up. You smuggle. And you do it well, because 2025 festival security is basically TSA with facial recognition, drug-sniffing dogs, and AI scanners that can see your insecurities.
We recommend taping a durable, high-proof spirit to your inner thigh. Bonus points if it’s something artisanal and undetectable, like clear rye. Trim the area first unless you want your whiskey retrieval to double as a wax appointment.
Either be a girl or bring a girl
There is no container more secure and efficient than the over-the-shoulder boulder holder. Joints, pills, powders, condoms, a tall boy, the aforementioned flask — it’s like a Swiss Army bra. Security still won’t go near boobs, even in the biometric era. We recommend bringing a friend with generous cup sizes and chill vibes. She’s your mule and your conscience.
And she will, helpfully, be the one to tell you when you’ve had too much tequila.
Pre-download your maps and stuff
Signal will die. You will be lost. The rave forest will blur together like a DMT trip rendered in Adobe After Effects. Save a map of the venue, a set schedule, and whatever else you think you’ll never need but definitely will at 4am in the quiet chaos of a stranger’s air mattress.
Don’t have too much cash
Don’t bring your wallet. Don’t bring your Venmo QR code necklace. Don’t bring your grandma’s debit card that you borrowed for “gas.”
Because if you bring money, you will spend it. All of it. On things like a single “immersive hydration experience” (read: flavored water mist), or a shirt from an NFT-themed funk band that was funny at the time (shirts should always be purchased here exclusively).
The good move is to stuff $60 in small bills in your underwear and roll with fate. When you run out, don’t worry — someone on shrooms will absolutely buy you a $27 hard seltzer because you look “like a glowing forest sprite.”
Befriend the guy with the big flag
Every festival has one: tall dude, bucket hat, tie-dye muscle tank, holding a massive pole with a Shrek head or a Limp Bizkit logo or a laminated photo of Danny DeVito. This man is your lighthouse in a fog of flesh and chaos. Lose your friends? Find the flag.
Do one profoundly stupid thing
Festivals are designed for the kind of behavior that would get you tased at a Walgreens. So allow yourself *one* truly idiotic act. Climb something you shouldn’t. Join a dance circle you have no business being in. Kiss someone in a full-body Pikachu suit. Try stand-up comedy in a wellness tent. Take a hallucinogen and go to the silent disco alone.
Just make it memorable. If you come back from a four-day festival with no stories that start with “So there was this guy juggling fire near the medical tent,” you did it wrong.
Get yourself good and laid
This might be trickier if you followed Tip #2 and came with a significant other, but hey, we’re not here to judge your relationship structure. You do you.
Because other than a livestreamed TikTok house party or a Burning Man cuddle dome, there is no easier place to get weird with a stranger than at a festival. People are euphoric, sweaty, semi-hallucinating, and not looking to swap LinkedIns.
So make eye contact. Pretend you’re deep. Say something about how the moon looks disappointed in you. It’ll work.
Then go get freaky in a 85-cubic-foot plastic tomb of sin. (Aren’t you glad you hid six ultra-thin rubbers in your concert date’s bra?)
It wasn’t me that fucked in a port o potty but my dear friend John and his ex Maggie. This wasn’t your run of the mill shitter either. This was 3rd of July middle of summer hot and the location was the Taste of Chicago. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the Taste but it is a 3 week long obese gorge fest where all people do is eat, drink and take smelly shits. Roughly 2 million people attend the taste on July 3rd alone, so based on my math, I have deduced that 600 deuces were dropped in that port o potty. He laid down his boxers, sat on them and she rode him while he covered his face with his shirt. All the while we stood outside cheering. But alas his boner couldn’t make it past the smell.
Encourage people to stage dive, then fail them
This is not mature advice, but it’s spiritually correct.
Find a group of friends. Hype up a stranger. Build the moment. Then when they leap, part like the Red Sea. It’s cruel, but it should be a victimless crime.
Bonus points if you get the whole thing on video.
Accept that your body is a lost cause and bring baby wipes
You’re going to sweat through your SPF 70. You’re going to forget your left arm exists until it starts blistering. Your feet will swell like uncooked pizza dough, your mouth will taste like battery acid, and your eyebrows will grow dust.
Lean in. Embrace the grime. A pack of baby wipes can and will save your day and be your greatest friend. They’re also great for post-porta cleanups, wiping questionable substances off your hands, or doing a group “festival shower” behind a suspiciously leaning RV.
Eat at your own risk
Festival food vendors have the sanitary standards of a medieval siege kitchen. And by Day 2, you’re going to see a $30 empanada as both sustenance and emotional therapy.
Solution? Carry a small Ziploc bag of survival snacks: beef jerky, electrolyte powder, a rogue KIND bar that’s been in your drawer since last fall. Don’t trust anything served out of a truck.
The VIP section is worse than general admission
Unless you want to vibe with sad tech bros on ketamine FaceTiming their ex-wives, stay in GA. The real party is in the dirt, on the fringe, with the guy selling grilled cheeses out of a suitcase even if you don’t necessarily want to taste his wares right now. VIP is where serotonin goes to get audited.
Festival specific tips
Coachella: You’re not going to win the fit wars. someone’s already wearing a chainmail thong and 3D-printed wings. Instead, focus on comfort-cute: something that breathes, sparkles just enough, and won’t leave you bleeding by 2 p.m. Also, hydrate aggressively. That “dry heat” will dehydrate you fast. Bonus tip: Don’t do ket in the Yuma tent unless you’re prepared to spend 90 minutes thinking you’re a Victorian widow trapped in a disco.
Lollapalooza: Grant Park is beautiful, but by Day 2 it turns into a fenced-off mud pit full of lost teens and dazed dads. Once the headliner ends, you have roughly 12 minutes before you’re trampled by a thousand people looking for an Uber surge-priced to $146. Bonus tip: The trains are your best bet.
Bonnaroo: If you want to actually see things and not just die in a hammock strung between two strangers’ tents, make friends with someone who works staff or brought their own questionable transportation device, like a golf cart. Bonus tip: Don’t accept mystery grilled cheese from the “Gooch Tent” unless you’ve made peace with spending six hours as a cloud.
EDC: Ear plugs and sunscreen. Between the deafening bass and the 110-degree parking lot heat, your body is under siege. Protect your hearing and your epidermis, or you’ll be crispy, half-deaf, and sobbing in the Uber line at 5 a.m. Bonus tip: Avoid anyone carrying a plushie. They’re either on 7 tabs of acid or they want to sell you a USB stick full of cursed techno.
Austin City Limits: ACL has the best food lineup of any major U.S. festival, hands down. Some people are there just for the tacos. Skip the 3 p.m. alt-folk act and take advantage of short food lines during mid-day lulls. Bonus tip: ACL is family-friendly on the surface, but it still devolves into chaos by sunset. Don’t try to mosh in cowboy boots.
Burning Man: Bring more water, lube, and boundaries than you think you’ll need. Burning Man is an unregulated city of 80,000 people doing art, sex, dust rituals, and experimental social collapse. Bring eye protection, a bike that can ride on Mars, and a firm understanding of your own mental limits. Bonus tip: Everything you lose will be found by a nudist shaman and returned to you via telepathy… or never.
Related: 8 wild things you need to know before going to Burning Man
Never stay to the end
You think there’ll be a magical final encore. Nah. Noise ordinances, curfews, and artist apathy mean you’ll get a three-song encore at most, two of which are acoustic remixes of songs nobody liked in the first place.
And you’ll be 10,000th in a queue of people trying to find an Uber signal while their feet bleed.
So leave while everyone else is filming the final chorus with their phones. You’ll thank us when you’re halfway back to your Airbnb, still mostly clean, while the rest of them are passed out in a collapsed tent older than their parents’ marriage.
Also, if you skipped #2 and hooked up with someone named something like “Bliss,” you probably need antibiotics and a tetanus shot. Possibly a therapist. And you definitely need to burn those shorts.
Enjoy the rock. Or the EDM. Or the hyperpop-glitch-core fusion opera. Whatever nightmare soundscape your ticket paid for. Just don’t forget sunscreen and a solid exit plan.