It's March, and in Texas that means one thing: festival season is here. North Texas has already dipped its toes in the festival waters with Thin Line Fest up in Denton, but in the next couple weeks everything will go haywire with 35 Denton, Spillover Fest and, of course, SXSW (which will still draw plenty of Dallas music fans down to Austin).
So let's fill our heads with warm thoughts and get excited for the next, oh, eight months of the year, which we can officially call festival season. Here in Dallas, these 40 occurrences are telltale signs that the season is upon us.
See also: The Best North Texas Music Festivals 30 Reasons to Be Excited for Dallas Music in 2015
1. Urban Outfitters is sold out of flower crowns
2. The supply of Red Bull, 5 Hour Energy and coconut water is also dangerously low at the 7-11
3. People from outside Dallas-Fort Worth, and even outside Texas, are here for concerts
4. So are Spoon and the Flaming Lips
5. All your friends who left for Portland and Boulder are asking to crash on your couch "just for a few days"
6. And you start buttering up all your friends in Austin for couch space and weed connects
7. The constant updates from the BandsInTown app is killing your phone battery
8. Budgeting the FreedomFlask into you festival funds is sounding less and less ridiculous
9. You recently ordered an Aztec fanny pack, unironically
10. And your Google search history includes "ways to hide your pipe at a show"
11. People are driving golf carts at alarmingly high speeds
12. You long for the time of year when going to Deep Ellum only means parking six blocks away
13. You seriously try to figure out the train schedule, and then just decide to drive
14. You start to wonder what exactly constitutes a "panel discussion"
15. And you haven't read anything other than a festival think piece in a week
16. Well, that and lists of "12 bands to watch at ______"
17. The phrase "over-saturation" has crept into your lexicon
18. You've seen friends come to blows on Twitter over whether we should be more like Austin
19. Even the craft beer advertisements begin to feel commercial
20. You start to wonder if you, too, have sold out
21. Your life has become one endless contest for a free wristband
22. Then you wake up with 15 wristbands on because no one has thought to make a single, all-venue "Over 21" wristband yet
23. The clubs are all completely packed at night, because that's how festivals work here
24. But walking down Elm St. for a free show also sounds like too much work
25. All your thirtysomething friends explain that they're skipping SXSW this year, but only because it's not as cool as it used to be
26. Meanwhile, your twentysomething friends think it's the best thing since spring break (or else it actually is, because they still get a spring break)
27. So. Many. Cover. Song. Videos.
28. You get tired of drinking Dos Equis, even when it's free
29. You have trouble maneuvering around all the food trucks, which are literally everywhere
30. You start formulating plans for alternatives to an actual bathroom, because oh god, lines
31. Your sentences tend to start with the phrase, "Well, in Denton..."
32. You order a drink at Paschal's
33. Every barista in town keeps requesting Mondays off
34. There's a crappy old GMC conversion van on every single block of the city
35. Against all odds, I-35 is even more miserable than usual
36. Your concert schedule has morphed into a color-coded, laminated spreadsheet
37. You've weighed the pros and cons of buying a pass just to see that one band you actually recognize
38. But you pretend to know half the lineup anyway
39. You keep praying that the Texas weather gods will cooperate for just one whole weekend
40. You're not sure if you're too cool for Austin, but after evaluating your bank account decide that, yes, indeed you are
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