Wakarusa off to a festive start
Festival attendees enjoy the laid back atmosphere of the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival.
Friday, June 8th, 2007
So far, so good at the Wakarusa Music Festival.
Attendees of the fourth-annual festival, held four miles west of Lawrence at Clinton Lake, were greeted Thursday with short entry lines, looser security regulations than in previous years and calmer climates.
“It’s been a constant party with people you don’t know,” said Caitlin Boykin, Denver resident. “You say ‘hello’ and sit and chat for hours.”
The 19-year-old arrived at the festival gates at 3 a.m. in a car packed with friends, waiting to watch some of her favorite bands, such as Widespread Panic, Lotus and Medeski, Martin and Wood. She couldn’t believe all of the bands were playing in the same lineup.
“I’d go see all of them by themselves,” Boykin said.
She said she looked around the lake, made food and picked ticks off her body when she awoke at 10 a.m. Thursday.
She expected to go through drug checkpoints when entering the festival but said security personnel only opened her car doors to check for festival tickets. Even then, Boykin, who is attending the festival for the first time, said she was still nervous about security.
“It’s just stuff I heard about from last year that sounded absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
One changed regulation this year is that glass containers are now allowed on camping grounds, but still not within the festival, said Jed, a GT Security staff member who didn’t want to give out his last name while he was working.
“Everything is running really good and everybody’s nice and relaxed,” Jed said. “We’ll see what happens in the next three days.”
His job with GT Security, which is based in Tulsa, Okla., required him to check bags for weapons and fireworks as fans entered grounds near the larger stages at the festival. He also had to throw away alcohol into a large steel garbage can whenever someone tried to enter the grounds with it.
Ty Haas, Overland Park senior, was also working at the festival while others partied around him.
Festival goers stopped by the Hy-Vee General Store tent where Haas worked to purchase water and energy drinks, as well as duct tape, tarps and rope to use at their campsites.
One intoxicated attendee passed out in front of the Hy-Vee tent early Thursday morning, and as the tent employees tried to call First Aid workers, they saw another man urinating inside the store on one of the tent flaps.
“Maybe that means this year will be a little more rowdy,” Haas said.
Lani Hamilton, a 22-year-old from Iowa City, Iowa, and her friend Melodie Proffitt, a 26-year-old from Des Moines, Iowa, were anything but rowdy as they cooled off underneath a tree near a line of vendors Thursday afternoon.
The two music fans were in the second car permitted into the festival late Wednesday evening when the campgrounds officially opened.
Hamilton had just purchased a wooden ring from a vendor and said in addition to shopping, she also enjoyed dancing and going to bars at the festival during the day.
She said she was more worried about tornadoes than security personnel at this year’s festival.
“I think it’s fine,” Hamilton said. “I think they’re doing their job, right?”
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