How to survive a Swedish music festial

Från en uppgift i engelskakursen vars syfte var att beskriva någonting svenskt:

 

"There are numerous preparations to be made before going to a festival of this kind. The best way of getting to the festival is by car. Someone elses car, with someone else as driver. Although it might give you a level of advantage later when it comes to deciding who should be driving home, the only thing worse than driving to a festival is driving home from a festival. Your alternative is to take a festival bus, the few survivors argue that it indeed is an experience to be driven in a old ramshackle bus by a russian without drivers license.

The first impression you get of the festival area is the parking lot, or rather a big field designated for cars. And this is also were the first dilemma arrise. On one hand the driver usually requires a break and there is usually a good deal of action in the parking area as well. Frequent festival visitors are more experienced and stand a far better chance of resisting this initial temptations that the parking lot offers since they are aware of the advantages of geting into the festival area early, despite this it is not unusual to see this clientele get stuck here as well. The advantages of leaving the parking lot early lies in the opportunity of getting a good tent spot. What a good tent spot implies differs from person to person and is highly individual and conceptualizing is futile. However, one generally wants to avoid corners of fields, since they at an early stage becomes strongly associated with excrements of different kinds. There is also an established non-linear correlation between the distance to the stage area and numerous variables such as smell, number of males wearing only one (well placed) sock, drunkeness and IQ.

When it comes to arranging your tents you need to be aware of and understand the underlying dichotomy that inevitably arrises between the local firedepartment who requires space between the tents and the other guests who, not unlike vultures, wants to take possession of your hard earned space. The optimal setup is a ring of tents surrounding a sheltered ”private” area inside. Since this question is of the greatest importance, many strategies have been tested and rejected throughout the years and the only, empirically tested, known foolproof way to achieve this is by first using setup 1 and then at the precise right moment switching to setup 2, which is illustrated below.

Neighbourliness is not required for a successfull festival, however it is preferable and commonly accepted ways of making first contact includes; playing music from the same artist, complementing each others tent ornaments or peeing, drinking or singing together. Festival etiquette can be intricate but considering the sheer amount of people around you this particular subject is an exception and one should try to combine as many of the above activities as possible to speed up the process of getting to know your neighbourhood.

This is just the introduction, to make it through day two and three you’ll need to know substancially more. How do you plan to tackle constipation? Broken friendships? Finnish neighbours? We can help you. For more information, log on to www.howtosurviveaswedishmusicfestival.se today or call 910-TOO-YOUNG-TO-DIE."