Review #2: Roo 2022

ROO REVIEW

Alright my friends the time has come for my Roo review!

To start off I want to say that it was HOT day one. This isn’t something the festival could control but they did have a lot of options to cool off even though the heat day one was unbearable. They had cooling fans at every plaza, that you could sit by and cool off. They had a water slide and a water fountain to cool off inside the venue. They also had a couple stages under tents and the tents had fans so you could chill under them during the day in the shade and with a fan on you. They had other shaded spots as well.

Another thing to be aware of is the bugs. Woah those bitches are huge and not playing around lol. We actually saw a snake in our camp sight 😂 it was very friendly tho and our friend grabbed it and escorted it to safety.

Okay so the one entrance was alittle bit of a pain but if you went in a little earlier then you were fine. Most we waited was 25-30 minutes which isn’t that bad. They also had an exit only closer to our camp. I was upset that they stuck groop camping and RVs the furthest from the entrance when we paid more for our spots, but man that arch was so worth the walk which was only 15-20 minutes. Again not bad at all.

The wristbands were amazing. Super comfortable and awesome material.

That arch is something DIFFERENT. never a long line to take pictures too or anything. Wow. I loved it so much. I loved that it was virtual and changed backgrounds. Wow. I was very impressed.

The decorations inside the festival were fantastic. So much to do and a lot of interact booths. Hulu had a little hut and it was like a hotel theme and you could watch the livestream. I don’t know why you would do that when you’re there but it was a cute little feature. They also had a spot for the different liquors and they all had a different vibe. For example, Bacardi had a whole ass beach that you could hang out in with places to sit and everything. Jack Daniel’s had a tent with cooling fans as well.

They also had a whole ass spots bar with TVs and beer. So fucking cool.

They also had the vendor spread out throughout instead of having them all as a cluster fuck on top of each other. It was so nice and they had some in one area and some in another. This was so nice for the vendors as you could shop freely instead of chaos occurring.

They also had SO much to do and get involved from classes to workshops to a parade and even a Roo Run 😂

They had a tram that went around the festival but you waited so long for it and it only went in one direction. Good idea but not the best with the reality of it.

The sound systems were good but on some stages definitely could have been better, especially for the later acts. I’m not sure if that’s a sound ordinance or whatever but Illenium and Flume were very low volume and we were pretty close.

The stages were beautiful though and placed great to break up the crowd! The half capacity was an absolute blessing I can’t imagine 40,000 more people at that festival. Woah.

I also want to point out that the names for the stages are absolutely genius. They were named “The Other stage” “What Stage” “This Tent” “That Tent” “Which Stage” LOL it was hilarious especially when you were trying to tell someone where you were.

They also crafted the production on each stage to fit the acts there which I thought was very smart and well thought out. For example, The Other stage was where all the EDM artists were and it had the best visuals and lights out of the stages. Really amazing, the visuals were also on blocks that were in the crowd so no matter where you were it was awesome.

The lineups for each day were absolutely perfect. They matched each other so well even with there being different genres. It was picked so perfectly.

Groop Gamping was organized so well. They had someone to greet you when you drove in and we also had a separate entrance to go into that was not in the GA lines. I also thoroughly enjoyed having a hang tags for my car instead of a sticker because the stickers are super hard to get off your car. Also when you drove in they made sure you knew what number your group was which was on a map that they had sent out to all of the group leaders beforehand.

Every plaza had showers and bathrooms and all the bathrooms were flushable. The only complaint I have about the showers is you have to pay for them and sometimes the water pressure was not working so it was like you just paid for dribbles of water. Our friends had a portable showerhead that we filled up with a bucket on the last day which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to rinse off or cool off without paying for a shower. It was amazing and super easy. Also The water at our campgrounds showers was hot which since it’s hot outside no one wanted to take a hot shower so we had to walk a little ways to the other plaza but again it still wasn’t that far of a walk and worth a cold shower. The showers were always clean and nice.

The bathrooms throughout the a festival inside the venue were very nice. They always had toilet paper in them. there was even a guy outside of the flushable Porta potty‘s wiping down the seats for people which, I’ve never seen before my life. They also had two big buildings that were not Porta potty‘s and actually had stalls. there were a shit ton of stalls in The bathrooms which made it really nice and the lines went very quickly even if they were long.

The water refill stations inside of the festival were amazing they were super convenient they were in a circle so the lines were all in different directions. The water was freezing cold every time and it didn’t taste that bad which is nice. It was always super convenient to get you when you needed water which I really appreciated and there was a lot of them.

Oh and if you did buy water THEY DIDNT OPEN THE CAN 🥹🥹🥹🥹

Food of course is always going to be expensive but everybody running the food stands and bars were super nice and had great hospitality skills. I only came across one food vendor that was super rude to us on day four. they had given all of us fries with our meal and did not give one of my friends fries and when we asked them about it they said that he didn’t order fries but the meal is supposed to come with fries. I approached them very nicely and said hey can we just get a side of fries we all tipped you guys 20% I don’t understand why he didn’t get fries and the lady was super rude to me and then the other lady said to me well we don’t run the booth. To me it’s just a fucking side of fries is it really that fucking serious are you gonna get fired on day four for a side of fries? it was weird because they were the only negative people we encountered during the weekend and they stuck out like a sore thumb.

They had a lot of options for food and it was spread out through the whole venue and outside of the venue. Lines were never crazy and went quick.

They also had stages in some of the campground Plazas which was really cool because there was always music going on around camp. They had a secret stage in the woods which was on the other side of the festival so it was a bit of a walk for us but it was so amazing. It had art and a stage and was super cute to walk around or hang out late night.

The venue was open pretty much all night into the morning every night which was super cool. Chris Lake played a set till 6 am. Super awesome.

Medic tents were in the venue and in the campgrounds which was awesome and I saw medics driving around making sure everyone was okay. Right at the beginning of Flume a group next to us started saying they need a medic. I had ran out of the crowd to see if I could get some help and when I had came back they were already being helped so that was pretty awesome.

All in all, the energy at this festival is absolutely incredible. The magic in the air is something different and I see why so many people go back to this festival. I had an absolute amazing time and the people I was with were incredible. Such family vibes, really really amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better group to experience this festival with.

My next festival is Bass Canyon, another one I’ve never been to and again NOT insomniac so I am very excited to see what’s up 😈

STAY TUNED