There is a moment during any music festival when I want to tear my skin off and go home. It’s not after the two-plus days of wet wipe “showers”. Or the thigh burn from hovering above a toilet seat (if there is one). Or even the powerful smell of aged cheese and human waste that’s released from the ground on the final day. This moment can happen minutes, even seconds, into the weekend. And it will continue to happen many times a day for however long the thing goes on.
This moment is triggered whenever I have to wash my hands, and the dangly bit of the wristband will inevitably get wet and stay like that for at least an hour. Maybe longer. You can ignore it for a while, but then you’ll give someone dressed like a banana a high five and you will feel it, moist and scratching, against your forearm. If you’re wearing long sleeves, forget about it. It will press against the cotton and create a soggy patch that will nag you for hours, like a 4am drum circle one campsite over. Showering? A sensory nightmare. What I’m saying is: wristbands are a necessary but annoying part of “festival admin”. You wear them because you must.
