1. Holy crap that drive out there sucked. The website and materials claim that the grounds are just a short 35 minutes from downtown, but that is not accounting for the fact that there are 800 billion stop lights in between the end of the 290 toll road and the turnoff for the grounds. We spent just under an hour driving out there, in crappy stop and go traffic for much of the drive. And it was not due to a big crowd going to the Fest, because like 2 cars turned off on that road with us.
2. Parking at 1pm was fantastic, because not a soul was there. $20 for a slot in a field, which was about 100 yards from the front gate. Easy peasy. Also, the will call experience was super easy and the bag check was cursory at best.
3. The venue was cool as hell. When you walk through the big wooden wall into the forest, it really was kind of magical. Lots of vendors and weird things set up among the forest, as well as the Forest stage, but I really liked that portion of the venue. The main stage was all dirt and mud in front, which was not optimal, but they don't have C3 money pouring grass and water on these grounds yet. Also some strange people juggling and dressed up as Robin Hood and a super tall deer girl thing, which was odd but kind of fun. Curious to know what it would have looked like at night in the forest. I bet cool.
4. Beer selection was legit. Several Big Bend Brewing beers, some other good local stuff from Austin, and then a handful of offerings from the Houston Brewery which now shall not be named because they just sold out to Budweiser like chumps.
5. Attendance was awful. I don't know what the final numbers will be like, but there were about 20 people standing at the main stage for the Emily Wolfe show (who was really good, by the way), and maybe 50 there at the main stage for the Leopold and His Fiction show. Psychic Twin probably had about 50 as well. Maybe the crowds were coming to be there for Courtney Barnett and Explosions in the Sky, but it was definitely weird being able to walk right up to the front of any stage during the middle of a show. My kids are going to be very confused if they ever go to ACL and see massive crowds. I know the Wolfe show was at 1:30, but still, it was weird to see the place so deserted.
6. Hot dog jousting on mini motorcyles was freaking hilariously bad. The tiny bikes couldn't really move in the sand when they had a full-sized man on board, and the hot dogs that were velcro'ed onto the riders' heads just fell off every 20 seconds or so, regardless of whether they were hit with the swim noodle. The 10 people in the stands, boredly reviewing their phone screens as this went on, could not have been less impressed.
7. And then the rains came. Holy crap, man. We were huddled under a tent in the Kid Kingdom area for about 30 minutes before the water started getting high enough to pour into my shoes, and then a guy carrying a huge beach umbrella came by to tell us that the grounds needed to be evacuated. Awesome. So we jogged through the downpour to our car, splashing through rivers and huge ponds of standing water, finally making it to the car feeling like we had literally jumped into a river. Totally soaked. Then the roads out of there were closed and flooded (literally had to pull the turn around don't drown action at one point), until we finally got back to the highway and got back into the mass of people driving back through the 800 billion stop lights back to Austin.
I enjoyed two of the shows that I got to see - Leopold and His Fiction was really great - but feel bummed that I missed out on the rest of the stuff I wanted to see. The venue was neat, but if this fest is held out at the Forest again, I think I'd skip it and save myself the road rage.
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