To sleep or stay up?
Wakarusa festival goers make the decision to party into the early morning or get some shut eye.
Monday, June 11th, 2007
When Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals closed out the Sun Down Stage around midnight Friday at the Wakarusa Music Festival, the show was far from over.
Around 2 a.m., Yonder Mountain String Band finished their set at the Revival Tent, and thousands of festival attendees had to make a choice; sleep or stay up?
“I'll probably stay up until 5 or 6 and chill around the fire,” said Kenny Holloway, a 19-year-old from Miami Beach, Fla.
Holloway wasn't about to call it a night after seeing Yonder, one of his favorite bands. He wanted to get the most experience for his money and he was arguably getting a good deal.
“I got tickets to the whole four-day show for a pack of smokes,” he said.
He said his friend ordered her tickets in advance, received them in her mail, and then craftily picked up an additional set of tickets in the will call line when she arrived at the festival. She traded the extra tickets to Holloway for a $4 pack of Camel Lights.
Wakarusa Days 3 and 4
Photos from days 3 and 4 of the Wakarusa Festival at Clinton Lake State Park.
Holloway had a good time seeing Yonder thanks to the box office's mistake.
“They rocked out dude,” he said.
He didn't bring a tent to the campgrounds, but he was equipped with a blanket and a pillow so he could “sleep wherever,” he said. He found a temporary home with friends parked in a campground located where two of the festival's adopted street names intersect.
“I'm going to go back to 5th and Crazy and get a little more crazy,” Holloway said.
Josh Bailey's eight-hour shift in an information booth near the Revival Stage was about to end at 2:15 a.m., and he said the booth was much busier during the day.
“But it's pretty dead after the main shows,” he said.
Volunteers run the booth during the festival, helping people search for lost and found items and answering festival goers' questions.
“The big two questions are schedules and water,” said Bailey, a Lawrence resident.
The Sunshine Cafe and Catering booth, also near the Revival Tent, was still serving turkey legs, rice and bratwursts at 2:30 a.m. Wayne Tortora, Cafe employee was happy any time even a single customer stopped by the booth for a snack.
“I was getting lonely man,” Tortora said to customer in a gray hooded sweatshirt who purchased a bratwurst.
Tortora said he, his boss and one other worker split up booth shifts during the festival for sometimes as long as 19 hours each. He said the booth was busiest during breakfast, lunch and dinner hours, and he said he had already turned down the propane tank that heated the deep silver serving trays that held the food.
He said as long as he made $80 an hour in sales he would keep the booth open-- even if that meant all night. The majority of his customers this late at night were “probably either insomniacs or intoxicated,” he said.
Tortora, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., guessed he would probably close the booth around 6 a.m. Saturday. Then he too would make the decision to “stay up, hang out or pass out,” he said.
The choice was clear at 3:45 a.m., for Branden Day who arrived at the festival Thursday morning from Montrose, Iowa.
“I got something to eat,” he said, “and I'm passed out.”
He lay deep within a fold-up chair under a tree at his campsite, drank his final beer of the night, and said that day he had seen “a lot of good shows and cool people.”
Sonja Bjordad was still going strong, smoking a cigarette with a group of about 50 campers who surrounded a fire pit in the Campground Village section of the festival at 4:30 a.m.
“You get energy when you come to a festival,” she said.
Bjordad arrived at Wakarusa around the time Ben Harper finished his set Friday night. The massage therapist from Duluth, Minn., said she came strictly to hear Widespread Panic Saturday night. She didn't bring a tent and said she had “no idea where I'll sleep.”
When the dawn began to rise above the trees that surround Clinton Lake around 5 a.m. Saturday, many eyes were still open to see it.
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