It’s not often that a festival veteran can go to a festival and completely have their mind blown. What The Festival, located 100 miles outside of Portland, seemed like your normal festival. They had a great lineup, the weather looked like it was going to cooperate, and they even had funny stage names like WTF, OMG, EFFin, and LOL. It all seemed pretty normal until the pool stage started. That’s right, What The Festival built their own pool in the middle of the Oregon countryside so everyone could keep cool during the day. The pool was constantly packed with people dancing, having squirt gun fights, and getting into all sorts of silly shenanigans.
Once 6pm rolled around and the pool closed, everyone would head to the other stages that were just getting started. The music experience at WTF was exceptional. Each stage offered a unique viewing experience and their production was really impressive for a smaller festival. That audio was as good as you will ever experience. Each stage featured Funktion One speakers, which are the absolute best on the market.
Along with a great music experience the entire festival was gorgeous. WTF was located on a grassy hilltop, but the LOL stage was down the hill and through the trees, so you had an entirely new environment to explore. There were also multiple art installations spread throughout the festival, creating the magical wonderland that all festivals should strive for.
My favorite part of the festival was the people. Everyone acted as if they were all friends with each other and friends with the people throwing it. Everyone picked up after themselves, which made WTF one of the cleanest festivals you will ever go to.
Beautiful scenery, perfect sound, a great crowd, art, and the pool stage, all combined into one of the best festival weekends of the year. As you start to plan out next year’s festival season, What The Festival should be near the top of your list. You will splash, you will dance, you will make lifelong friends, you will thank me later.