The more I read on RA and the deeper I fall into the abyss of awesome electronic music, I find that I'm getting a serious travel bug to check out some of the big festivals that go on every year (WMC, Movement, Mutek,), and/or go to some of the more interesting cities for electronic music (Berlin, San Fran, etc.). Now that I'm finally going to be done grad school and may actually find gainful employment (yay!), I want to seriously make these things happen.

The problem is, I don't know anyone in the US, or the UK, or Europe...I have no one to crash with, and really, no one to go with to party. I'm a social person and I have no trouble meeting people, but very few of my friends would probably not want to tag along to WMC if they listen to top 40 crap anyways.

Does anyone else have this problem? Do people actually go to these huge festivals alone? Does anyone in the RA community meet up offline to party?

Thanks.

Man I've done things like that alone, and just the other week saw Sven Vath play here in Sydney alone, the way I see it, I don't go to a show/festival to socialise, I go to hear the artists and see what they can do live, it can be really fun, you go your own pace and just blend in, no one is watching you at a show so it shouldn't matter

For me, this is a mixed bag of emotions. I've been to festivals & gigs on my own and with friends.

By far, i prefer going with a friend. The oppurtunities to cause kaos, get up to some dancefloor shenanigans are greater, making the event much more memorable.

After all, the whole party concept is about having fun with your mates and listening to the music we love. Like you, my friends are not really into the festival scene. To stop myself flying solo, I started to work at a festivals I wanted to attend.

As a result of working, benefits include: For a few hours work (not stressful and a bit of a doss) you get a free party, you meet loads of people, hangout with them and have a much more enjoyable time than on your own, event get "special camping".

All you need to do is work a couple of festivals and you will find people who are in the same boat as you. You then end up hanging out at future parties - eliminating the flying solo issue.

If you don't want to work, virtually all festivals have facebook pages, couch surfing.org has event pages, so there is a whole world of oppurtunities at the end of your keyboard. It is all about doing the research well before the event.