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Festivals don’t just happen, they come together through months of careful planning, some seriously elevated stress levels and the sheer dedication of events management and promotions companies. It’s the little details that can have the biggest effect on your festival experience; such as the length of queues, the cleanliness of toilets and the responsiveness/friendliness of security staff. Sunset Event’s Southbound festival scored quite a few ticks in the “High Distinction” box.

But event coordinators can only do so much – the enjoyment of a festival often comes down to your own personal planning; and when a festival stretches over two long, hot days and nights, and you’re about three hours from home, there are some vital decisions to be made that may make or break your weekend…

To camp or not to camp?
Once you’ve decided to attend the Festival, the first choice is whether you just want to see the bands, whether you want the full camping experience, or even the Pampered Camping option. Whilst the day-trippers may have had themselves a couple of decent nights of sleep, they missed out on so much! Some of the most memorable experiences of the weekend were spent in the campers-only Base Camp; chilling out in the groove tent, drunken Karaoke and crazy zombie movies on Spliff Cinema. The undoubted highlight for many people would definitely be Saturday night’s intense drum circle in the Healing Centre. It was a melange of frenzied and physically painful beating of drums, bells and shakers; with no rules except a common time signature to hold it all together. It surely brought out the hippie in everyone, as percussionists and spectators formed a conga line around the drummers which spilled over into The Lounge as the drumming concluded (and may have lasted all night.) Other perks of Base Camp would be the incredibly short lines at food vendors, and all importantly, the immaculate toilets.

Air mattress or roughing it?
With all the excitement and noisy neighbours; it’s hard enough to sleep without also being impaled on a twig; but if you were one of the “lucky” ones who were sent to camp in the Overflow Area, you would be congratulating yourself on the decision to leave your heavy air mattress, and subsequent hour of foot-pumping, behind. Luckily, there was the opportunity for a massage back at Base Camp (for a nominal fee) for those with sleeping injuries. There is something to be said for paying the extra $100 for a Pampered Camping ticket though – a short walk from the car carrying nothing but your clothes, where your tent and comfortable mattress is already set-up and the ground is lovely grass, rather than lumpy dust and cow pats. Alternatively, that $100 could be spent on drinks, guaranteed to help you get a good night’s sleep on uneven ground.

Shall we drink to that?
The heat topped out at 37 degrees on Friday; which sent many a punter charging for the bar. But in that kind of heat, with very limited shelter around the stages, do you really want to further dehydrate yourself – or spend any more time than absolutely necessary in hot, plastic ablution blocks? Evidently, this was not an issue for many, who in true Australian style, powered through the heat without concern for dehydration, which made Karaoke a great drunken activity to round off the day. There was obviously a larger than expected demand for water though, as bar staff struggled to keep enough water bottles cold to keep up with orders; a problem that was remedied on Saturday with huge bins of ice. For those of us who don’t bounce back the next morning quite as easily as we used to, much of Friday was spent chugging water in whatever shade we could find. As for Saturday – all bets were off and even Sunday’s designated drivers hit the bars without much thought for tomorrow’s trek home.

Stay in familiar territory, or brave the unknown?
Saturday morning saw the addition of a whole new section of the Festival; with the opening of This Stage, The Coconut Club and a whole swathe of associated bars, food vans and retail stalls. For those who had made themselves at home on the other side, there was not a whole lot of extra appeal to venturing into the new area, that is, until the realisation that Gomez was playing on this stage sunk in. It was so worth wading through the seething mass of people to check out these seasoned gods of folk/indie/psychedelic rock (call it what you will.) With the exception of a few kiddies who were just trying to get a good position to see Pete Murray; the crowd was absolutely blown away.

The Grates or Faker?
One of the toughest decisions of the weekend. Both of these home-grown acts toured in 2008, stopping off in Perth to deliver electrifying performances. Sometimes the only way to decide between two great acts is to be a sheep – if all of your friends are going to check out Faker, then you check them out too – it’s better than being alone in a crowd (let’s just hope the Grates don’t clash with someone you like at the Big Day Out!). Incidentally, Faker put on a stellar show; complete with front-man Nathan Hudson’s characteristic climbing all over the stage, other band members, the fold-backs, the rigging and even the precariously balanced speaker stacks, keeping us visually amused whilst we enjoyed their great rock sound.

Franz or Karnivool?
Another difficult choice; as headline acts often are. Some may say it’s a little crazy to see a locally-spawned act over an international powerhouse, who may never return; but Franz Ferdinand was a little disappointing at the Big Day Out a few years back, and although it would have been great to give them another chance, they were all the way over on the far stage (out of familiar territory). The earlier choice to see Faker also managed to put you in an ideal position to see Karnivool. There were definitely no regrets here – Karnivool are rock gods; it’s almost criminal that they aren’t a massive, internationally renowned band. They have a new album coming out this year, so we shall see what the future holds.

Sleeping or rioting?
After an electrically-charged and alcohol-fuelled Saturday evening, the festivities began to wind down to a close around 2am – that is, the organised events – the campers however, had not quite had enough of a good time yet. Whilst naked pole-vaulting and security-buggie theft sound like a lot of fun, it also sounded a whole lot like a crowd threatening to get out of hand. With the risk of sounding like a Nanna, Why can’t you all just go to bed? We have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow! Considering the amazing weekend preceding Saturday night, it’s no real shock that no one really wanted the fun to end. Post-festival discussions concluded that more activities, food and music back in Base Camp (perhaps without alcohol sales) may have gone some way towards keeping people happily occupied, whilst us Nannas and those braving Summadayze the next day got some much needed shut-eye. However in the interest of road safety and the sanity of event staff, it probably went about as late as it could.

The weekend has been dubbed a great success. What a great way to start a new year. Private group discussions are already well under-way, planning ways to make next year’s experience even better.

Were you there? Find yourself in our huge gallery