How stringent are Music Festivals?
 

I'm going to my first Music Festival (Pitchfork)... and i was wondering how stringent are they on alcohol? The website says that everyone will be searched on arrival.

Has anyone been to Pitchfork in the past?

i've never been to Pitchfork but any festival i've been to has patted me down at the gates and did so to everyone else. contraband is removed and not returned. if you're lucky you get to keep entering the festival, if you make a scene you get to go home.

there are ways of sneaking alcohol onto the field but it's a hassle.

I haven't been to Pitchfork but I've been to other festivals in Chicago and I'd say you're better off not trying to bring in alcohol. Just buy beer there.

They pat down and i'm guessing check inside backpacks?

From what I remember, yes. It's really not worth the risk.

I hate being 19

I didn't realize you were underage. In that case it's REALLY not worth the risk.

Haha yes, i figure since it's not just some local show i shouldn't risk it. Broken Social Scene and Modest Mouse!!!

It must really suck going to a festival in america and being under 21.

Do some festivals over there forbid you from bringing in alcohol? You can bring all the drink you want into festivals over here as long as you don't bring it in glass bottles. They usually pat down everyone and search the odd bag for drugs or glass bottles but every time i've managed to sneak drugs in :) For large festivals they usually don't have the time or patience to search people properly.

Alcohol at festivals here is banned to but I have always managed to sneak it in. Not because I'm underage, but because I'm poor and the booze is always so bloody expensive. I can only speak to Australian festivals, yes they are stringent, but no they are not that stringent that they go through every single item in your car like a police raid or something.

Once we simply put all the booze at the very bottom of the pile of all of our camping stuff. We told the officials that if they took everything out could they please put it back because it took us ages to fit everything in the car. They waved us on. I usually put mine at the very bottom of my clothes bag, concealed with clothes or a towel or something. They never find it. They're not going to go through absolutely everything you own.

Some people I know have gone to ridiculous lengths though, like filling up tissue boxes with goon bags and then sealing them up again, stuffing booze down the middle of their rolled-up sleeping bag, pouring booze into coffee thermos...

That being said, if we ARE caught with alcohol on us, it is just confiscated - no fine or anything. Even if there are underage people it's doubtful they'd book us or charge us or anything, they'd just confiscate the booze. So I'm not sure how it works where you are, it's not worth risking it if you can get fined...

Drugs I would never, ever try to bring in because they have sniffer dogs everywhere, and those dogs are amazing.