HOW MUCH SHOULD I PLAN?
Your very first day at COPENHELL can easily start to feel a little metaphysical. Even though we have a good map in our app – also available in paper form – and even though we think thatthe festival is actually pretty manageable, after just a couple of concerts and accompanying beer intake it can all start to feel like navigating a fantasy role-playing game using a treasure map drawn by a drunk wizard.
On paper it looks very simple: there are some stages, some bars, some food and a load of areas with names that sound like places where you can either hear some horrible music or be sacrificed to a demon. Most people arrive at the festival site with a reasonably clear plan – and most people also end up forgetting all about it shortly after they have walked through the gate.
You might be heading off to meet your friends for the day’s first band at the Pandæmonium stage, but before you know it, you’re at a stall sampling a chilli that could melt metal, getting into a turbonerd debate with a complete stranger about which Peruvian grindcore band is the best in the world. And you end up arriving far too late for the concert, where you can’t find your friends at all because they moved on ages ago – but at least you have got your fun new companion in tow.
An hour and a half later you have seen three halves of concerts, bought four beers, visited the same merchandise stall multiple times and still haven’t found your friends. By early evening it increasingly seems as though the festival site’s layout keeps shifting in unnatural ways, and eventually you give up all attempts at getting your bearings and just drift blissfully around enjoying everything.
The point is: don’t plan your festival experience down to every last detail if you are new to COPENHELL. The first-time experience can overwhelm just about anyone, because the sheer volume of concerts and other entertainment is genuinely staggering – as is the abundance of friendliness and warmth that you will be met with on the festival grounds.
A good piece of advice is simply to plan the things that you absolutely don’t want to miss and then leave a whole lot of time to just wander around and explore all the festival’s exciting nooks and crannies and meet interesting people, without constantly having deadlines hanging over you.
Maybe you are in just the right mood for the eardrum-shredding power hour in the Biergarten, or maybe you are more in the mood to get your brain tickled by a smart talk at COPENHELL Con? Perhaps you just need to sit down under a tree on a little hill inside Udgård and completely unwind while tucking into some good food – or maybe you need a quick nap on the hill before the next concert?
Live in the moment, go with the flow, and follow your mood!