As far as camping goes, I'll give Festival 8 an 8. I think the way the phish people wrote up the camping policies encouraged people not to take it too seriously, but probably the property owners insisted on a strict no glass policy for benefit of the horses. That's lame from a wanting to drink good beer/wine point of view, but understandable I guess. My friends lost $100 of beer and I brought them cans (of Coors ) and smuggled in a half case of wine without too much trouble once I knew the scope of the search. So that wasn't ideal and makes hotel-living very attractive if there is another festival in Indio, which I hope there is.

Hunky Dory was plagued by very bright lighting, especially overnight Thursday, but the portapotties were cleaned constantly, and a shower, general store, and food vendors were close by, as was the venue. The flat, lush grass was as comfortable as tent living can be. We had friendly neighbors with excellent shade, which helped a lot. I don't get criticizing the festival for a lack of shade in the campground... what did you expect?

It was pretty clear that the workers needed a day to get their stuff together, but once they did, it felt overstaffed, especially compared to previous festivals. Lines for everything except showers and water inside the venue were downright short and I had tons of dancing room not far from the secondary speakers.

Compared to previous festivals, this was totally civilized, and with a 3rd day, it needed to be. But think about it: Clifford Ball was $25/night. Festival 8 was $200, and with the higher tariff comes higher expectations. The most loyal fans are now largely busy professionals with young families, so camping or not, getting held up for a day in traffic is just not acceptable. And yea, we still party, but I found the scene to be like 1993 all grown up, infinitely better than 99-04. Everything was very mellow, without a centralized shakedown or even much of a local one, where we were, anyway, and it just felt safer although not truly family friendly like High Sierra. Despite confiscations, I don't believe anyone was busted. The staff enforced the stated policies but otherwise kept their distance, and were plenty friendly if perplexed and occasionally clueless.

In general, it seems that Phish has designed their tour schedule for people who go on phish vacation for a weekend here and there or maybe a week, but _not_ for people who want to go "on tour". I think the gentrification of the neighborhood is purposeful and beneficial. Most of the good with far less of the bad.

On balance, Hunky Dory was pretty easy livin'. As it should be. If the lights had been fully off at night, without the annoying beer confiscation, it would have been pretty darn close to perfect.