With the summer approaching, this means there are many music festivals such as Burning Man, Lollapalooza, are coming up in which a variety of bands of different genres come together to perform as well as Coachella which has already happened. As a result, there is the debate over if music festivals are a good thing or if they are not a good thing. Even though I haven’t attended a music festival in my life, it is an experience I would like to take part in at some point.

The whole idea of music festivals is that there is a variety of artists performing. Sometimes you have instances where it’s many artists from the same genre performing, but then you have festivals such as Lollapalooza which has a large variety of artists performing from different genres. So not only are festivals designed for fans to see their favorite bands and artists perform, they are also designed to see similar artists that they may not have been familiar with before. And because many of the festivals have multiple artists with a similar genre, fans may discover new bands of the same genre and may find new bands to enjoy.

Even today most music festivals do have different artists of different genres. For example, Lollapalooza started out as a concert for alternative rock artists and indie bands featuring artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins, and Radiohead but in this year’s lineup has artists such as J. Cole, Mac Miller, Major Lazer, and Bloc Party who are considered hip hop and rap artists. While I personally am a fan of rock music as opposed to rap music, festivals such as this allow fans of many different genres to hear a couple artists they are fans of. And as a fan of several of the artists that are listed at Lollapalooza this year, I think it would be great to see several of them perform in one concert.

And while there are big name festivals such as Lollapalooza that have a variety of artists, there are still music festivals that focus on one genre. There are still festivals that focus on solely country music or jazz music for fans of those genres who want to hear multiple of their favorite artists of a certain genre. While the more famous festivals such as Coachella and Lollapalooza have a variety of artists and genres, there are some that they don’t have and so these smaller festivals provide a chance for fans of other genres to still see their favorite artists perform as well as to discover new artists from a certain genre. And with the smaller festivals, it gives a chance for people not familiar with certain genres to get a start listening to them.

Now while there are some positives to attending music festivals there are downsides to them. For example, music festivals are historically known for having many illegal activities take place and occasionally fans may engage in violent and reckless behavior during festivals and so some may consider festivals to be unsafe. While these instances do happen, it isn’t all the time, there are many times in which festivals are pretty safe. And while there are instances that they still happen in, there is usually security to deal with the situation.

So back to the original question of yay or nay on music festivals, I would say yay because despite never attending one myself, I feel that it would be a unique experience to attend one and to see what it would be like to attend a music festival.