2000 people is the ideal for me, festivals of that size usually have more than one stage and good mid-level bands. The community vibe is fully present and developed, and there are a lot of people so you can wander and meet and hang out with all sorts of people. And it's not large enough for too many cops, or for the cops to be too worried.
At huge festivals, at least the ones I've been to and know, they all have a ton of cops and the cops are not friendly. And in order to go to the stages to see bands, you have to pass through security every singe time, and they search your pockets and bags. At Lock'n, I saw 3 or 4 people being taken away in handcuffs by cops because they found drugs while trying to go see the music. Fucking bullshit. Also many of them won't let you bring your own alcohol through the stage security checkpoint, either, and instead they sell massively overpriced drinks inside the stage area. Actually, Lock'n had a rule that you couldn't even bring your own alcohol at all, but everyone did it, we hid ours in the spare tire compartment in the trunk.
Contrast that to small and mid-sized festivals... I've been to a great many of those, either playing at them or just going, and I have never once seen that sort of bullshit. You're allowed to bring alcohol, there's no security checkpoint at the stages (or anywhere), no one is searching you, you can openly smoke weed. usually the festival organizers are cool people who know everyone will be doing that, and oftentimes are there themselves, hanging out.
At the really small festivals, local festivals with 100-500 people, there usually aren't any cops at all, and you could just openly take out a bag of anything and eat or snort it, the only people there are other people doing the same thing. Plus at really small festivals, you'll meet literally everyone by the end of it, you get to hang out with the bands, etc. But the downside is that you're not going to probably see any bands you've ever heard of, but that's also a good thing, because you get to see music you never knew existed.
At the mid-sized festivals, you get a mix, you'll probably see some bands you have heard of, but also some local bands you've never heard of.
My favorite festival is the Grassroots Music Festival at Shakori Hills (everyone just calls it Shakori, though), like 45 minutes outside of Greensboro, NC. It's been going on for I think 23 or 24 years now, and the attendance is around 2500-3000 people. The community and vibe is excellent, the grounds are beautiful, they have 3 stages (4 if you count the dance tent, actually), daytime activities and events, and they always bring in a world music element, bands from other countries and/or bands that play types of music that you don't typically see at festivals.
Some of the greatest sets I have ever seen were at Shakori, there was one, trying to remember her name, she was from Africa. She was the singer and frontwoman, with a
sick band, and it's hard to explain how incredible it was, she brought SO much emotion to the stage. She also had a whip and she would come to these peaks where the band was shredding and she was screaming with joy and tears streaming own her face, or screaming in rage and whipping things or slamming into things. It was SO powerful, literally everyone in the audience was uncontrollably laughing or crying. It was like a magic spell, tears would just start pouring out of me, sometimes I would start sobbing, sometimes I would laugh while my mind exploded with joy. Afterwards, everyone who was there was sort of stunned, we all stared at each other wide-eyed and sort of wandered around deep in thought. And for the rest of the festival (it was on the second day out of 4 that I was there), we would all say to anyone we ran into: "were you there?" And everyone who was knew that we could only mean one thing by that. It was something else.
Oh shit! I remembered. Her name is Fatoumata Diawara. Here is a link to a youtube search for her. I will say though, I tried to show her to my girlfriend when I got home, and watching videos doesn't eve come remotely close to actually being there
Anyway, I've been to Shakori 5 times, and 4 of those times I went as a VIP guest of one of the bands, because their bass player at the time is one of my best friends (the band is Dr Bacon). And one time I bought a ticket. But I haven't been since 2019.
I want to play Shakori so bad, so hopefully next year we'll get in.
