Wonderroad Music Festival – June 11-12th…

the moon on the first night of Wonderroad music festival

& so it starts, the summer of music festivals. Looking back on the first time I hit the road for a good amount of time it was a bit of a scary experience. The first night I slept terribly as trying to get used to a new place to sleep in can be fairly hard. But I took my time driving these first few days to get out to Indianapolis which I had never been to before. 

This festival I was signed up to volunteer at so I needed to get there a night early to attend a volunteer orientation to get my passes, t-shirts for my shifts, and a parking pass. They gave us a run down on the grounds of the music festival and also what to expect with each of our roles. We were also told that we would be able to have a meal during our shift (if they are still available). After that I went to the local Walmart to get some rest before I was back early the next morning to get a good spot in the volunteer parking lot and luckily this was super close to the festival so I walked right over. Also the volunteers were able to go in the back entrance which was nice when you are rushing to get to your shift on time. For this festival I needed to work two 4 hour shifts in exchange for a weekend pass to the festival. The reason for volunteering at this music festival was because the tickets, in my opinion, were outrageously expensive. 

When I signed up for my shifts I wanted to do both of them on Sunday because the artists I wanted to see were on Saturday. Honestly the reason I went to this music festival was to see Vampire Weekend because they only had a handful of United States dates for the summer and they were at the top of my list not to miss. I wanted to see them before their next album came out because I love their 2019 album Father of the Bride. So on this day I went to the music festival mid day to be here to see all of the people I wanted to see. The other artists on this day that I wanted to see included Hippo Campus and Chvrches. I walked around to find a spot to put my chair down at the stage I was mainly going to be at. Then I went to the smaller stages to see some of the local artists, they all sounded great. Once Hippo Campus was on I went back towards that stage. Once that was over I decided to go back to my camper to make some food because all of the food options at the festival were crazy expensive. On the way back to the festival I could hear Chvrches performing so  I tried to get back for some of their set but sadly only ended up seeing the last couple songs which were great! Once they had finished I walked around to look at all of the fun vendors, but a lot of them were closing up for the night. With a storm coming in they put on Vampire Weekend about 15 minutes earlier then they were planning so they could make sure they had a full set. (foreshadowing to this happening all the time this summer) They started playing and honestly I was not very impressed with their set. I thought it was alright, I was so sad about this because they were the reason that I was at this festival. Looking back on it I think that it also had to do with the fact that I was exhausted by the end of this day from the super hot 100+ degree F day and my anxiety all of a sudden skyrocketed and everything was super overwhelming to me. Their set ended and I was able to go through the back way towards my camper for the night. 

Vampire Weekend

That night I slept alright but the heat did not break at all so I was sweating the whole night and forcing myself to fall asleep. Today I had two different volunteer shifts that I was signed up for or I was going to be charged the whole ticket price. My two shifts of the day were 10-2p & later in the day from 4-8pm. That morning I got an email saying our shift was moved back until 11am. For my first shift I was an artist transport, we used the golf carts to transport artists for their sound check or for their set. At around 1pm a big storm came in where everyone had to shelter in place and the gates to the festival were closed. No one in and no one out. People were pissed off about this because many people got dropped off by someone and then had to sit out in the rain until they opened the gates. The storm brought in heavy down pouring rain and all of the volunteers reported under this pavilion while we waited out the rain and ate catering for lunch. At this point our shift was almost over so I left a little before the shift ended because there was a lull in the rain and I was able to get back to my camper. During my small break between shifts I hung in my camper and put on some dry clothes. The time passed way too fast and I went back to my shift without eating much which was not a good idea. So I started my shift at the merch ten and then about 30 minutes in I was moved to the front gate to help wrist banding. I am so glad that I was shifted, yes maybe the merch tent shift would go by faster but I was able to chit chat with other people at the front gate. I met some super fun volunteers that I hung out with off and on the rest of the night. Once our shift was coming to an end and we saw that our next shift was coming in we got up out of there pretty quick. I went to get some bomb vegan food from the Black Leaf Vegan, their vegan nachos were so so good. (They recently opened a brick and mortar in Indianapolis, so if you are in the area definitely check them out!) Anyway the last artist that was on that night was Lord Huron who was super fun to see live. The lead singer came out with a skull mask at one point (shown below), just for one song and it was super random. There was probably a reason for it but I am not super involved in the Lord Huron world. But they sounded great and if you have a chance to see them live definitely do it! And that was Wonderroad Music Festival. 

Lord Huron

All in all the weekend was alright, honestly for the price tag I would never pay to go to this music festival. It ended up being a super hot weekend from a heat wave which was not helpful when you are sleeping in your car. The few performers that I was able to see were very good aside from Vampire Weekend (sadly, as I was so excited to see them). –  At the end of my summer recap I will enclose a post ranking my most favorite to least favorite festival/event from this summer. But just to give you an idea of where I will rank it, I will not return to this festival next year unless the lineup is absolutely killer. 

As always thanks for reading & my next post will be out next week. Comment below an artist you think I should see live! I need to add to who I want to see live.

Sophie…

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A big thank you to my brother, Grant, for setting up this blog for me! If you need any blog or website help email him at 

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