How to survive a wild weekend at OppiKoppi when you're over 30
Don't want to get home from this epic music festival feeling like you've been mud wrestling the forces of evil for the past few days? Follow this advice
Festivals are fun. This is an objective fact and the reason why tens of thousands of people routinely head out to remote plots of land to listen to music.
Freed from the pressures of having to wear clothes as status symbols or take particular care of their hygiene, people at festivals are scientists engaged in a mad experiment to see how much unadulterated fun can be extracted from a weekend.
This is the reason why festivals are also soul destroying. Returning to the real world after a weekend music fest can feel like pitching up to the start of a marathon after having been run over by a leaky garbage truck hours before.
By the time 30 hits, however, your body’s party recovery system is outdated, slow and prone to crashing
Bouncing back from this kind of thing is light work when you’re in your early twenties. At that age your body is made of the same stuff as Wolverine’s. By the time 30 hits, however, your body’s party recovery system is outdated, slow and prone to crashing.
All of that doesn’t stop festivals from being a hoot. And, one of SA's most popular, OppiKoppi, is taking place on a farm in Limpopo this weekend (August 9 to 11).
Whether you're over 30 or not, if you don't want to get home from this epic music festival feeling like you've been mud wrestling the forces of evil for the past few days, follow this advice:
PREP YOURSELF
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail or something like that. The point of that oft quoted pop psychology platitude is if you don’t have all your ducks in a row, your endeavours will be plagued by disaster.
It cannot be overstated how much this applies to OppiKoppi. It will be blisteringly hot, then unbearably cold. Someone will get lost, your phone battery will die and you will have no signal.
Before you leave sit down and make a list of everything you'll need, then add the things you think you may need. Finally add the stuff your mother believes you will need. Take all of that with you.
IT'S POINTLESS TO TRY AND LOOK COOL
No one cares. Not a single person running around the dustbowl that is OppiKoppi is interested in your fashionable athleisure wear. Your covetable Ivy Park sweater will probably will get ruined in some drunken fireside accident.
In your youth trying to look swaggy is a curse you repeat because you don’t know any better, but by 30 you should have developed enough common sense to know that some items of clothing are too expensive to be wasted on an environment nicknamed “Mordor”. You’re going to get home and burn it all anyway, so go to Mr Price, buy three plain everythings and wear those.
HYDRATE
This seemingly obvious nugget of wisdom is ignored because people believe fun and water don’t mix. The truth is that water is the foundation upon which fun is built.
Furthermore, although beer has water in it, it is not a substitute. When you return to the real world, your hydrated body will not only thank you; it will build a shrine and start a religion with you as its messiah.
EAT REGULARLY
See previous entry.
REMEMBER YOU'RE STILL A SPRING CHICKEN
Thirty is not old. In fact it’s rather young. Sure by the time you reach, or are approaching your third decade, you should know that having tequila for breakfast is an objectively awful idea, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and enjoy some youthful irresponsibility. You’ve still got the last morsels of your youth to eat, so gorge yourself. Your body can take it, just don’t push it. Enjoy!