Despite the abundance of liquid downfalls over the last week it is in fact, summer. With summer there are certain… certainties: Beaches, Beers and Festivals. Easy and enjoyable enough, but let’s get deeper: festival groupies.

You know exactly who I’m talking about. You just know you’ve turned up at a newly popular festival when you see this happen:

Thanks to whoever’s Photobucket pictures these are, because you look utterly ridiculous. Wife beater singlets should be outlawed if you aren’t steroided enough to be able to pull them off. The only thing they are missing are fluro slat sunglasses.

The kind of people that, while possibly interested in the bands at said festivals, just go there to drink until they can’t remember a god damn thing. Yes that’s right; those drunks are the ones making you wait in line to use disgusting toilets that they’ve urinated all over in their drunken stupor. Those drunks are responsible for every single line at every festival.

Festival groupies have a certain look, but the issue itself goes much further than some superficial beefcake wearing a fluro wife-beater, drinking Bundy Mid cans and pissing everywhere. As groupies, they have certain requirements, all of which you must fit into in one way or another.

These people do not care how many festivals or popular music acts are on in the summer – they are there. No matter the cost or the act. They probably don’t even like the act(s)! I mean, their friends are going so why not right? Chalk up another one waiting in a line! The festival groupie needs not a voice of financial reason. So the first requirement is Complete Attendance. You might be able to miss one, but dare miss two and your ridiculous fluro wearing days are over before they even begin.

The bogan is strong with this one.

Then there is The Trophy Partner as the second requirement. Don’t dare rock up as a third/fifth/seventh/ninth wheel to a festival. You must have a partner with a blatantly shit personality, overpowered by searing good looks. Clothing is generally optional, hence the wife beaters and poor excuses for tank tops you see everywhere at places like Big Day Out. While nudity is occasionally supported, looking like a trash bag in public really shouldn’t be. Imagine what our posh suit wearing ancestors would think!

Continuing with that theme, requirement three is obviously Fluro. If you’re a groupie, you aren’t just some fucking Joe Blow in a crowd. You’re there to be NOTICED. If the trophy partner wasn’t enough, obnoxiously bright clothing should really do it for you now. Even though you might not be wearing much clothing to start with, whatever remnants posing as clothing must be fluro coloured. Bonus points if you have fluro ‘slat’ sunglasses. You know the ones.

As we go deeper, the next requirements are gender specific – For the guys, requirement four is Muscle. Are you some scrawny nerd out to see your favourite band? Well turn right back around and scalp your ticket for a gym membership or some steroids, because you can’t be a groupie without MUSCLE. You’ll be the arse of every joke some dumbass beefcake spews out in-between sips of a Bundy Mid can!

Scrawny nerd at a Big Day Out? Oh…

For the girls, requirement four is a Fake Tan. Look a bit pasty from sitting at a desk 9-5 everyday of your miserable life in-between festivals? Well look pasty no more! Instead you can look utterly ridiculous, wearing fluro on top of your patchy fake tan! I’d almost go as far as saying normal beach going tans aren’t supported by the festival groupies, but I just don’t know for sure. Best not to risk it and get a fake tan anyway just incase!

Requirement five is an obvious one – Alcohol. The festival groupie needs not sobriety. Several times a year you should be paying $8.50 a can for mid strength premix drinks, all day long. It is expected of you. You should then sweat out their contents in the sun without drinking water, and end up almost in need of a paramedic before sunset, affording you a small break. A break which you subsequently fill with more drinking to counter the effects of severe dehydration and sun stroke. Also important for this requirement are many many trips to packed and disgusting temporary toilet setups. Bonus points for FURTHER defecation and destruction.

Now given all of these other requirements, requirement six is probably the most critical – Drugs. Pills, joints, speed, coke – if you can name it, you should be on at least one or two of those things. Bonus points if you are on several. Maximum score if you’ve spent several multiples of the ticket price on drugs and have managed to get them past the police dogs waiting for you at the gate. PLATINUM points if you ‘smash some c***’ in a drug/alcohol/fluro-enduced rage because he/she was eyeing your trophy girlfriend/boyfriend.

“You must be THIS to enter”

These are the raw requirements that you need to attain the Festival Groupie Seal of Approval™. There are some additional points of contention revolving around what I’ve just talked about… Myer/City Beach/Esprit being out of fluro wristbands and slat sunglasses… assaults over tickets and drugs… etc etc, but you get the thrust of it. And if you’re in Sydney there’s actually an additional requirement that you must have an Australian flag draped on your back at all times of the day… but I digress.

All I can hope is that you’ve read this and have not been able to relate to most of it. If you’re a festival groupie… I feel sorry for you. True festival groupies really just use expensive festivals packed with foreign artists they’ve never heard of, and aren’t interested in, as yet another opportunity to get fucked up. Memories optional. Oh, and remember, never drive your stupid friends to a festival. Ever.

As a bonus, here’s a convenient checklist for you to print out and try at home!