Profiting from Festivals

Next time you attend a festival with a campsite, stick around after everyone's left and wonder at the excess heedlessly left behind. We attended Coachella in April and did just that.

Wealthy festival goers with vehicles chock full of potential money for us!

The bulk of the attendees aren't serious campers and picked up equipment solely for the purpose of attending the festival. When Monday morning rolled around, many were too hungover, tired, or lazy to clean up their camps and opted to drive right out, leaving behind an irresistible haul for scroungers like us. We picked up chairs, coolers, a tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, a gazebo, food, and more cases of abysmal Natty Ice than we're willing to admit. We could've kept going all day, but with three of us and a carload of our own camping accoutrements, we simply lacked the space.

We kept the perishables for ourselves, but listed the bulk of our findings on eBay, netting enough to cover our utilities and internet--linked to our Paypal account--until the end of our lease. We had enough money left over that we upgraded some of our own camping equipment.

The Refused's Dennis Lyxzén: how Vadim justified the cost of attending.

Attending festivals in order to glean from the campsites isn't exactly cost effective. The higher the initial ticket cost, the more likely attendees will be people with disposable incomes and, subsequently, disposable belongings. We justified the expense of attending because my ticket was free (thanks Sara!) and Vadim couldn't pass up the opportunity to see bands he'd been mooning over since adolescence. We've yet to have another opportunity to exploit this level of wastefulness again but will certainly consider volunteering for  campsite cleanup in the future.