Doing Boomtown sober
I thought it might be helpful for anyone considering doing the same to share my experience of attending Boomtown completely sober. I'm a forty something bloke and at previous festivals I've drunk beer all day and night and dabbled in this and that. This was my first sober festival and I very nearly bailed on the whole thing but decided after a few months off the booze that I was hopefully strong enough. Ironically my weekend started with an additional drug test in the white tent as the dog smelt something delicious on me!
For starters I deliberately decided to limit myself to just two nights as I was worried about falling asleep with the 4am bass and overstimulation. I was right about that and in total I probably had 5 hours sleep over the weekend. Generally I just stayed out dancing with friends until the big stages shut as I couldn't see the point in lying in my tent sober and listening to the music from a distance.
I mostly just drank water and coffee except for the occasional luke warm Cerona Cero alcohol free beer. Over the weekend I only spent about £20 on drinks, so yeah sorry Live Nation! I gave myself permission to eat whatever and whenever I wanted and made sure to chill out up at Ancient Futures / Thrutopia when it was all getting to much. There were some good morning classes up there and even did an ecstatic sober dance!
The dust, noise, volume of people is a LOT when you're completely sober so I wore my Loop's most of the time plus face covering to dial it all down a bit. Some of the music sounded incredible, Floating Points, Hi Vis, Four Tet, Krust & Die in particular. I really appreciated the effort all the crew put into the festival.
A lot of the smaller areas in Downtown sounded far too bassy and I couldn't hang around there too long, especially the 360 one. Andy C at Lions Den also sounded quite bad to my sober ears but appreciate I wasn't down at the front getting stuck in. I swerved anything too hectic but did enjoy a dance at Tribe of frog on my back up the hill.
The best thing about not being drunk or high is that you're not always chasing the next drink, loo break, line or whatever and you can stay in one place and really enjoy it. The worst is when strangers give you a sloppy drunken hug or just talk absolute bollocks! I had a few pints spilt all over me which was horrible but what do you expect at a festival?! Toilets are also quite nasty sober but not as bad as I feared.
When I got back home I felt great! Like running a marathon but with the extra dopamine from the music, dancing and hanging out with nice people. Would definitely recommend going sober if you're strong enough mentally but you do need coping strategies to deal with potentially not being able to get to sleep, the overwhelm without a beer jacket and the relentless sub bass that follows you everywhere. You also notice a lot more shit than your average punter which can be hard when you see someone having an argument or not looking very well.
I was thinking today it would be interesting to see how the vibe might change if more people were sober at Boomtown. That edgy druggy atmosphere is part of the attraction for some I guess but when sober you do notice how lost some people look, sort of present but not and I was looking at them thinking will you actually remember any of this?! Ah well, if I'd read all this at 18 I might have said piss off you sad, old, clean living bastard!
P.s. I'm not trying to judge anyone for their choices, just sharing my perspective for what it's worth.