Hi there. Bumbershoot takes over Seattle starting (sort of) tomorrow. It’s big and kind of scary, right? To help you better enjoy the show, your pals at Metroblogging Seattle engaged in the annual ritual of sharing our favorite advice for making the best of it. Sure, some of this advice is recycled from last year, but who can remember 2005 anyway? Later this week, we’ll let you know which items to circle on your schedule. Please share your own guidance in the comments.

Your Agenda, Should You Choose to Accept It

There are at least two schools of thought on having an agenda for your time at Bumbershoot:

• plan ahead: Look at the schedule before you go (more help on this section coming soon). Are there acts that you definitely want to see? If missing them will leave you heartbroken or just down in the dumps, expect lines at most venues and plan to show up early. When you get there, find your inner line Zen and don’t get freaked out by the size of the group waiting to see your beloved performer. Except in rare circumstances, you will probably get inside the venue. The volunteers and crowd coordinators will tell you otherwise, but they’re usually wrong. The good part about these warnings is that they chase away all but the true believers, improving your chances.
• don’t plan ahead: With that in mind, a highly enjoyable part about Bumbershoot is discovering wonderful new things almost by accident. For the most part you can just show up and wander around until you find something enjoyable. Bumbershoot is a smorgasbord and it’s most fun when you try a little bit of everything — even something you might think you don’t like.

Here are some more things to consider:

• your printer: unless you have a photographic memory, bring a schedule for your back pocket. It will make your wandering, planning, or hybrid-wandering/planning much more productive. When you reach the point where watching people dancing gaily in the spray of the International Fountain grows tiresome and you need something to do. As we mentioned above, there are several choices: the Stranger, the Seattle Weekly, the Seattle Times, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer all have their version of a schedule and program. The Bumbershoot website has a nifty personal schedule generator, downloadable mobile phone schedules, as well as PDF versions to print out [#], or you can buy cute laminated schedules on site, too.
• a related note about wristbands: You need a free *something* to get into the evening mainstage shows — last year it was a shiny token. If you’re absolutely sure that you aren’t going, don’t bother hunting one down and leave the whatever object for someone who actually wants it. If you arrive on the festival grounds too late to score one, don’t panic. There are hundreds of people who pick up a token out of sheer herd mentality. Hang out by the exits and ask (beg?) early departers for their certain-to-be-unused token.
• Gold/Platinum passes: Don’t mock them, especially if there’s a band you really want to see. The $145 and $245 for Gold and Platinum passes are a lot compared to the $80 you’ll pay at the gate for a 3-day pass, but consider this: A pass into the Reading Festival this year is about $250 with the current exchange rates. And in Reading, you’ll camp in the mud, deal with the drunk, stoned, and sometimes violent yobs, and sit waaaaaaay far back from any of the festival stages while enduring the slimy-warm August English weather. With a Gold/Platinum pass, you’ll get to bypass the lines (stadium only for the Gold, all lines for Platinum), get an air-conditioned area with light snacks and drinks to chill out in between shows, and sleep in your own bed at night (unless you hook up in the chill-out room… we won’t tell). And by bypass the lines, we mean bypass the lines. The Gold/Platinum people enter the stadium from behind the stage, while everyone else has to walk around the stadium and enter at the back. Sadly, the Platinum passes are sold out, but if you want to see Kayne West with something besides a telescope… go for the Gold.

practical details regarding the physical environment

• the elements: Remember that you’re probably going to be outside in Seattle for most of the day, except when you drop into the occasional air condidioned venue. This means that you get to put your local layering expertise to good use. Pack a raincoat and sunscreen, but not an umbrella (the irony of forbidden umbrellas at a festival called Bumbershoot has not been lost on us). But, pack lightly — you’re stuck carrying your gear throughout the day in crowded quarters. This is where your microweight layers from R.E.I. come in handy. In the event of hot sunny days, the Seattle Weekly has a tradition of passing out goofy straw hats. Get them while they’re available and modify to suit your own personal style.
• crowd control: Some people are kept away from Bumbershoot by all the talk of how crowded it gets. This is all a matter of perspective — with the right attitude, even the crowd-phobic will find the mobs quite manageable. Considering how uncomfortable your average club or concert venue is, Bumbershoot is a picnic. Try to familiarize yourself with the layout of Seattle Center and don’t let the hordes of people traveling the main thoroughfares freak you out. Cutting across lawns is much more fun, anyway. As long as you’re able to steer clear of menacing drum circlers (most mercifully quarantined to an out of the way corner) or impromptu hacky sack competitions.
• escapes: When the sun, heat, and people get to be too much, find a cool (dry) place to hang out. A consistent favorite is the EMP Sky Church, where you’re likely to find some really interesting smaller acts. Be aware that the “let’s take a quick look inside the $20 EMP” crowd may increase the line sizes, but once you’re inside, it’s climate-controlled and there’s a beer garden to soothe away the crowd anxieties.
• hungry? Don’t eat inside Bumbershoot (every day). This isn’t a popular choice, because people do seem to love those greasy elephant ears and giant strawberry shortcake booths. But the prices are horribly jacked up, and the food just isn’t that good. Get some fried food or corn on a stick if you must, but get your hand stamped and duck out to the QFC for real food. Or to any of the lovely restaurants on lower Queen Anne. There’s always a chocolate milkshake at Dick’s.
• go early: If you truly want to take advantage of Bumbershoot, you’re not going to do it while being bumped by everyone’s elbow. About 3 pm, the crowds will converge. Or earlier. Rain makes the crowds go away. Run out to Bumbershoot while it’s raining. And pick up a bracelet/token if you think you want to go to a mainstage show.
• getting inside: Entry lines are typically shorter on the North side of the Center.
• the call of nature: Upon arrival at Seattle Center, first time Bumbershoot goers should first and foremost scope out the bathroom locations. As silly as that sounds, many of the bathrooms at the Center aren’t very obvious and in the big crowds the festival tends to attract, there can be some long, long lines unless you’ve been smart enough to seek out the less obvious facilities.
• cash money: There are few ATMs (and they often run out of bills); so take money with you. Take cash — lots of vendors don’t take credit cards and it’s a hassle, anyway.

good citizenship

• share the love: Take some small bills for the buskers. Especially the ones who don’t clog major arterial routes. If you’re willing to pay $30 a day to be herded like cattle, you should be able to part with a buck for any street performer you stop to watch. And some of the street performers are both charming and amazing. Some are simply annoying. Don’t give them a dime.
• that guy/girl: This is a piece of advice to a small audience: please don’t do that hippie chick dance to every kind of music. Or at all. You know what I mean: blond girls in dreadlocks with Indian skirts, too much patchouli, and that glazed look in their eyes. I swear, once I saw a hapless hippie girl doing that damned dance to a bagpiper. Please, desist.
• queuing manners: If you want to use the buddy system to deal with long lines, that’s cool when it’s one person leaving and the other(s) staying and switching off with them but if there are five of you and four of you want to leave the line for more than a couple seconds, it’s really going to piss people off for the four of you to rejoin the one in line just minutes before the doors open.
• just be cool: At times, you will feel cramped, hot, thirsty, and totally not into Bumbershoot. That’s OK. As Will Rogers would say, if you don’t like the scene at Bumbershoot, wait a minute, it will change. Remember that kindness, the benefit of the doubt, and letting things slide a bit will make the cute boys and girls love you and not want beat the crap out of you.