Tiesto
Every year, the University of Pennsylvania’s Social Planning & Events Committee (SPEC) organizes Spring Fling, a two-day festival in April that is arguably the biggest and best college festival on the East Coast. Viewed as a “last hurrah” before the start of dreaded finals week, Spring Fling’s biggest highlight is the concert, which is held at Franklin Field on Friday night. Since I’ve been a student at Penn, Fling performers have included Snoop Dogg, Kid Cudi, and Lupe Fiasco, so we were all anxious to see what SPEC had in store for us this year. Yet again, SPEC did not disappoint us, for this year’s Spring Fling concert opener and headliner are Passion Pit and Tiësto, respectively.
Given the recent craze in electric dance music, we could only hope that a headliner along the lines of Avicii and Skrillex would be performing at Spring Fling this year. Needless to say, we were pretty ecstatic when Tiësto was announced as this year’s headliner (props to you, SPEC). Now let me tell you something about the concert. There are two types of tickets: floor passes and general admission tickets. If you want floor passes so that you can get up close and personal with the performers, as well as your peers, you have to physically wait in line to purchase the passes in person, but if you’re content with watching the concert from the bleachers, you can purchase general admission tickets online. Now, floor passes have always been popular among students, who usually line up about an hour in advance to when the tickets are supposed to be sold. However, NO ONE was ready for the frenzy that accompanied this year’s sale of floor passes. I guess everyone really wanted to be on the floor for Tiësto and Passion Pit. I’m not ashamed to admit that my friends and I were no different.
The day before tickets were sold, we discussed how early we should get up to line up for floor passes, since we had heard/assumed that the demand for them would be much higher this year than they had been in the past. We agreed to line up at 5 AM (tickets were sold at 10 AM), which was still obscenely early to me, so I set my alarm and went to bed. Thirty minutes later at 1:30 AM, I heard frantic banging on my door. “THERE ARE MORE THAN A HUNDRED PEOPLE LINED UP ALREADY. WE HAVE TO GO NOW,” my roommate frantically yelled. Oh damn. After a five-second internal struggle, I tossed on whatever clothing was on my floor and stumbled out of the door. As we approached the location where the tickets were going to be sold, my jaw dropped. Not only were there so many people there, but also people had set up couches, tents and even futons to wait out the night. We got in line and set up camp. We were determined to get these tickets.
Now, I have never before camped out overnight for tickets, but it was definitely an experience never to be forgotten. Since this was my newbie experience, I wanted to share some pointers to help you get through the night:
1. Bring a blanket and pillow. And a folding chair: Seriously, this will just make your life so much better. Camping outside overnight sucks. Camping outside overnight when you’re freezing sucks infinitely more.
2. Bring sustenance: Bring beverages and snacks. I happily munched on Doritos (not the healthiest option…) and drank water all night. At least you won’t be suffering from hunger pains!
3. Play music: Although sitting next to the frat stars who were blasting their electronic dance music all night long hurt my ear drums a little, it made the camp out experience so much better. In fact, the camp out turned into a semi-dance party. There was even a dance off involved.
4. Bring friends: Our group ended up being about eight of our friends, and we just talked and caught up. I even got tons of laughs in, despite the fact that I was in disbelief the entire time at the fact that I was actually camping out for the night.
These are just a few pointers. I’m sure there are a ton more, so please comment with your additional tips!
I’m happy to say that after eight hours of camping out with my fellow Penn students, I did succeed in getting floor passes to the Spring Fling concert. I guess I’ll have to wait until April to see if the nightlong wait was worth it!
By:Katie Kim
RTRCampusGirl has 208 post(s) on RTR On Campus
