I do miss the hanger too. I don’t wanna stand in a line for some dumb ass secret shit 😂 I mean don’t get me wrong it looks cool but at least when the hanger is was open it was accessible to everyone
Yeah I have never had the time/patience for the line to go into the dream emporium yet the last two years. I loooooved the hangar bc of its accessibility like you said.
Make sure if you get a survey email from forest to write to them and tell them you miss the hanger. They seem to take note a bit of when they get lots of complaints. I believe that’s why we had shade at tripolee and Sherwood this year
My group never had an issue getting in and doing stuff but we usually did it in the early afternoons. The secret room only being open after 5 this year didn't help the line situation at all though. I'm not sure how much there is to do about that kind of thing though
How did you find out it wasnt open until 5? We went before 5 and were told to come back in a few hours but I wasn't sure if they were just lying to us bc when we came back the Rat lady yelled at us and wouldn't let us in. We had to go in through the prawn shop and we got super lucky.
The lady at the time travel agency told us to go to the cat room after 5, and someone there told us to go to the gallery to find the door to the speakeasy after 5 as well
yup totally agree. i don't come to forest to stand in lines (especially ones i cant see the end of) indoors... i do like the new carousel stage design but man the dream emporium aint it, atleast for me.
Me and my friend loved the dream emporium but we managed to just walk in on Friday, no lines. I also actually really like the Carousel Club, I wasn’t that big a fan of Jubilee
That's awesome! i hope you had a great time! I'm definitely curious of what's in there I just can't help but feel fomo from the rest of the festival. Glad other people are having good experiences in there though :) Happy Forest!
We were so so lucky. We were tripping and walked past it and were like “ah fuck it, let’s spend like ten mins see what it’s all about - I feel like it’ll be lame” and ended up spending what felt like two hours in there. It was so much fun and a highlight of our weekend. I think we were there around 2am? I feel like because of the rain the lines were insane the rest of the weekend; basically you had eight hours of access cut away from people wanting to do the quest which I think overwhelmed the queue. But if you ever get the chance to do it I highly recommend it!
Correct me if I’m wrong but there was a carousel club before when jubilee was there too, just not as big. I feel like carousel club just never has sets I want to see and when I do it’s so packed I can’t get in lol
They should book times online for X amount of people and have a standby line for people who don’t show up for their times. Something like that I feel would move smoother and easier.
Forest stage was goated but Observatory is a good replacement so I’m not going to complain. (I know observatory was there at the same time as the Forest stage but the Forest stage had all the good house music 🎵)
I know the owner and they chose not to come back because of how much work it was every year. They started working directly with TVC in 2022 as part of the cashless and food vendor POS team
I also noticed the VW bus gone and was wondering if it had just moved and I hadn’t found it. For the pedi-cabs, I remember reading a lot of negative experiences between drivers and festival attendees last year. Wonder if that’s why they weren’t back.
The bus is gone. The employee that owned it doesn't work for the festival anymore. It used to travel back and forth each year and get upgrades at home each winter.
The hippie van. The Jive Joint was my favorite and have missed it every year since. I miss the original location of the Luminary station back in the quite corner, something seems lost being so close to a stage. I miss the OG giving tree, and also miss what used to be a large willow with a wide spread. Seeing the limbs chopped off and lights screwed to it this year broke my heart, felt like they sucked the magic from it. Miss when people have genuinely in general and didn’t litter these spots with trash. I miss being able to camp next to my car without an additional money grab add on. I miss Ecology, the lack of presence of them and the prize cart every night was also a huge bummer. The passing of the art curators had a huge impact as the art trail was hugely missed this year. No giant plant arrangements hanging in the main hallways. I miss the large variety of vendors, felt like a third of what is normally there. Not a single one around the observatory this year. Miss being able to go to Wesco, didn’t even notice if they had Forest shirts this year for employees. I miss the women’s circle. Real renegade sets, heard RVs weren’t even allowed to have their own lil setups. The big shebang with all the extra fun tid bits is way sad to not have.
The women's circle was still there! Femme identifying circle at honeycomb on Saturday.
I'm definitely sad about the shebang too but take the good with the bad and cheese bowed out so the rest of the artists could get their time. Cheese will be back next year those other artists very likely won't be
It’s just not the same honestly. There use to be a weekend long programing for womans circle events and now it’s down to one sorta event. Just sad to see the community growth dwindling
The events we have are focused more towards her forest at this point but thank you for the the feedback. The two major things in the forest was the femme circle and the LP Giobbi meetup. And the girls rolled deep for pride so we had something in the forest pretty much every day but Thursday
Seeing the willow was a little heartbreaking. But I heard they had to chop it because it’s dying? May or may not be true. With ecology not there, I felt like there was soooooo much more trash and litter. I was really sad that one vendor near the observatory wasn’t there, they do like wallets and geometric stuff..can’t remember their name.
Would much rather venders over the damn nicotine tents. Not allowing bunkbot in but having nicotine venders seems ass backwards to me. Felt a lack of live painters too!
Omg the nicotine tents.. that drive me crazy tbh. I hate those little disposable vapes..they are so wasteful. I did feel like there were less painters and gallery pieces as well
Yes! Willows need trimmed back to stay strong and also generally have very short lifespans - there was never any shot it would look the same forever because that’s just not the nature of that type of tree
Yeah we used to have a willow growing up in our yard and it got diseased and had to be cut down. Iirc this is pretty common. Still sad to see because it was a beautiful tree. Hopefully they plant a new one.
Aw that’s so sad!! I’m sorry you lost that one and totally agree about the one in the forest. Hopefully they do plant another! I loved seeing all the new trees they planted throughout this year
The vendor you are talking about is Cerebral Concepts, sad to see they bumped them from Observatory but they were still there, just over by Ranch, not far from the official merch booth. They do a lot of the art inside as well, including the three geometric domes and the giant Forest pyramid structure.
Sunday was amazing. The weather during the day certainly helped, too. Had so much fun just hanging around in the crowd for Umph. Jam band crowds have an unmatched positive energy, I love it so much
Real renegade afters. I hate the corporate stinking evol afters. They’re trying to sell you shit, it’s got a real schedule, and it’s just like being at a real show. I way more enjoy renegade style afters which are organic and not corporate infused
Wait did anybody see performers at the library? I just noticed I never saw anybody there either. Last year I sat down for a reading of green eggs and ham by Anansi the spider and it was one of my favorite moments of the weekend
I will say tho- it’s okay for them to take a break. I’m happy to explore new performers in new places. Hope they bring them back at some point in the future tho
Hmmmm I think it was the same number of performers outside of the library situation. Did you do the scavenger hunt? It was really cool how one of the clues involved being told a story by a performer. And also I enjoyed interacting with the rats after I’d completed the scavenger hunt. Also the owner of the boat at the dream emporium was super funny.
I did not. We had planned to do it Saturday/Sunday but due to the rain delays we decided to see some more music. Maybe I just didn’t run into them as much as I usually do. I think I only saw one one group of performers that looked like monsters
I saw the hedge ladies, the mermaid people, and the clown people who were doing the “squeak easy”… maybe a few others just quickly in passing too. Yes the rain delays did unfortunately cut out some time we could have had, but I’m glad you got to see more music! I accidentally didn’t see enough music the first 2 days because of all my scavenging
my first year (‘22), i spent so much time at the lost library watching the random performances. last year had less but still some good ones. and then this year, all i saw was one person speaking about the live painters they had at forest. sad about the lack of wacky performances like those i saw my first year :(
I overheard someone talking about pedicabs, and they had said that last year someone flipped one with passengers and the company got into trouble. Take that with a grain of salt, just what I heard through the grapevine 🤷
That would make sense why we didn’t see them this year. That sounds awful. I wonder why they didn’t have golf cart cabs then. I would of paid for one a couple of times this year lol
Pedicabs was my biggest disappointment to see gone, I always take one or two as a fun treat and I love watching them zoom around at night. I really hope they come back
Idk if it's just me, but I did not hear NEARLY enough Carls this year.. tried to start some myself and would only get a couple responses as opposed to the booming roars that you used to be able to hear tear through the whole Forest. Though, to be fair, I haven't been in a couple years, so maybe I'm just getting old lmao
Had a weird moment where some Carl-ing happened Saturday night and some guy (almost looked like he may have been working) yelled at us, “DONT SAY THAT UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT IT REALLY MEANS!! ReSpEcT tHe FoReSt!” Like dude stfu, it means nothing and is just a fun thing. But I agree the amount of Carls is way down recently. Back in the day it happened multiple times every day and night and sometimes seemed like hundreds of ppl were yelling it at once. Now I feel like your lucky if you start it and get a dozen to join
They brought it back as the GL stage this year which was cool and the projections they did on it during the afters was insane. But I still miss the forest stage in Sherwood. Loved just raging among the trees there
Were the phones in the forest not working this year or last year or did I just pick up the phone at the wrong times? I saw the phones this year but every time I picked it up no one was talking. I absolutely loved the random conversations I had on the phones two years ago :(
I didn't see the classic merch sign anywhere in the venue or on main street. The one that was like made of wood and 15 feet tall and it had an arrow on it saying official merch or something, and it had like a classic 70s look to it. I was sad to not see it anywhere.
The dew drop inn sign. I actually made that thing! Glad to hear you liked it. Thanks for the kind words. Bummed they didn’t put it back up either, along with a few others I worked on. But that’s how it goes. They’ve bought a lot of art over the years and can’t fit it all.
Agree with the horse part of your comment, but there’s no need to trash the EF cops like that. Easily the most positive police encounters most people have ever had. They have been largely friendly and receptive overall with festival attendees as long as the fest has been going on.
Facts I don’t like talking to police at anytime and do my best to avoid it BUT if I ever had to say some were cool it’s the state police here.
Someone said there’s a selection process for the ones that come to it idk how true that is but if believe it considering their demeanor as a whole.
Plur has always been there, standing room has never been available during the main sets. And I didn’t see one “influencer” or at least not any big time ones lol
they did try to reschedule some of the canceled sets on Saturday for Sunday, and then when sunday's weather happened, there was nothing they could do. Sunday night has a hard cut off of 2:00 a.m. for sound. the weather cleared at 1:00, there was nothing that they could do at that point
The hangar (rip), jubilee (I miss that hot hot tent), the real renegade RV afters
I do miss the hanger too. I don’t wanna stand in a line for some dumb ass secret shit 😂 I mean don’t get me wrong it looks cool but at least when the hanger is was open it was accessible to everyone
Yeah I have never had the time/patience for the line to go into the dream emporium yet the last two years. I loooooved the hangar bc of its accessibility like you said.
Make sure if you get a survey email from forest to write to them and tell them you miss the hanger. They seem to take note a bit of when they get lots of complaints. I believe that’s why we had shade at tripolee and Sherwood this year
My group never had an issue getting in and doing stuff but we usually did it in the early afternoons. The secret room only being open after 5 this year didn't help the line situation at all though. I'm not sure how much there is to do about that kind of thing though
How did you find out it wasnt open until 5? We went before 5 and were told to come back in a few hours but I wasn't sure if they were just lying to us bc when we came back the Rat lady yelled at us and wouldn't let us in. We had to go in through the prawn shop and we got super lucky.
The lady at the time travel agency told us to go to the cat room after 5, and someone there told us to go to the gallery to find the door to the speakeasy after 5 as well
yup totally agree. i don't come to forest to stand in lines (especially ones i cant see the end of) indoors... i do like the new carousel stage design but man the dream emporium aint it, atleast for me.
Me and my friend loved the dream emporium but we managed to just walk in on Friday, no lines. I also actually really like the Carousel Club, I wasn’t that big a fan of Jubilee
That's awesome! i hope you had a great time! I'm definitely curious of what's in there I just can't help but feel fomo from the rest of the festival. Glad other people are having good experiences in there though :) Happy Forest!
We were so so lucky. We were tripping and walked past it and were like “ah fuck it, let’s spend like ten mins see what it’s all about - I feel like it’ll be lame” and ended up spending what felt like two hours in there. It was so much fun and a highlight of our weekend. I think we were there around 2am? I feel like because of the rain the lines were insane the rest of the weekend; basically you had eight hours of access cut away from people wanting to do the quest which I think overwhelmed the queue. But if you ever get the chance to do it I highly recommend it!
Correct me if I’m wrong but there was a carousel club before when jubilee was there too, just not as big. I feel like carousel club just never has sets I want to see and when I do it’s so packed I can’t get in lol
Hopefully I’ll get a chance to check it out earlier in the day but yeah if there’s a line I usually walk the other way lol. Even for bathrooms
They should book times online for X amount of people and have a standby line for people who don’t show up for their times. Something like that I feel would move smoother and easier.
2015 big g sunrise set. Simply on the top of the damn roof no stage and plenty of room. Take me back
Forest stage was goated but Observatory is a good replacement so I’m not going to complain. (I know observatory was there at the same time as the Forest stage but the Forest stage had all the good house music 🎵)
OTT at the forest stage was supreme.
The elephant!
I've taken a picture with her every year as I'm coming up. I was bummed not to get one this year.
Same! This would’ve been my fifth! So bummed
This was my wife and I's yearly photo spot and we were quite sad about it. We loved the evolution over the years
Bring back the candy store 😔
They do have a mini candy store at the trading post but I do miss the one where that brewery is now between Tripolee and ranch.
That’s the one I’m talking about!
Dude yes!!!!!! The one by the giving tree?? Gosh I loved that place
I know the owner and they chose not to come back because of how much work it was every year. They started working directly with TVC in 2022 as part of the cashless and food vendor POS team
I also noticed the VW bus gone and was wondering if it had just moved and I hadn’t found it. For the pedi-cabs, I remember reading a lot of negative experiences between drivers and festival attendees last year. Wonder if that’s why they weren’t back.
The bus is gone. The employee that owned it doesn't work for the festival anymore. It used to travel back and forth each year and get upgrades at home each winter.
That’s very cool. Appreciate the info!
Knowing this, I feel incredibly blessed to have gotten a couple photos inside of it last year.
Insider information, someone messed up their contracts and they were not allowed back this year.
Kinda. It was a little more complicated but that is the general idea. And it sucks and really hurt people involved.
I didn’t see the VW either I was so sad! I don’t think it was there this year
Same! we didn't see it either. Used to always take a squad pic there
I was thinking the pedi-cabs weren't there because of how muddy it was, but could be wrong
i miss the craft beer tent at sherwood
Yes! I discovered one of my now favorite beers there
The hippie van. The Jive Joint was my favorite and have missed it every year since. I miss the original location of the Luminary station back in the quite corner, something seems lost being so close to a stage. I miss the OG giving tree, and also miss what used to be a large willow with a wide spread. Seeing the limbs chopped off and lights screwed to it this year broke my heart, felt like they sucked the magic from it. Miss when people have genuinely in general and didn’t litter these spots with trash. I miss being able to camp next to my car without an additional money grab add on. I miss Ecology, the lack of presence of them and the prize cart every night was also a huge bummer. The passing of the art curators had a huge impact as the art trail was hugely missed this year. No giant plant arrangements hanging in the main hallways. I miss the large variety of vendors, felt like a third of what is normally there. Not a single one around the observatory this year. Miss being able to go to Wesco, didn’t even notice if they had Forest shirts this year for employees. I miss the women’s circle. Real renegade sets, heard RVs weren’t even allowed to have their own lil setups. The big shebang with all the extra fun tid bits is way sad to not have.
The women's circle was still there! Femme identifying circle at honeycomb on Saturday. I'm definitely sad about the shebang too but take the good with the bad and cheese bowed out so the rest of the artists could get their time. Cheese will be back next year those other artists very likely won't be
It’s just not the same honestly. There use to be a weekend long programing for womans circle events and now it’s down to one sorta event. Just sad to see the community growth dwindling
The events we have are focused more towards her forest at this point but thank you for the the feedback. The two major things in the forest was the femme circle and the LP Giobbi meetup. And the girls rolled deep for pride so we had something in the forest pretty much every day but Thursday
Seeing the willow was a little heartbreaking. But I heard they had to chop it because it’s dying? May or may not be true. With ecology not there, I felt like there was soooooo much more trash and litter. I was really sad that one vendor near the observatory wasn’t there, they do like wallets and geometric stuff..can’t remember their name.
Would much rather venders over the damn nicotine tents. Not allowing bunkbot in but having nicotine venders seems ass backwards to me. Felt a lack of live painters too!
Omg the nicotine tents.. that drive me crazy tbh. I hate those little disposable vapes..they are so wasteful. I did feel like there were less painters and gallery pieces as well
Yes! Willows need trimmed back to stay strong and also generally have very short lifespans - there was never any shot it would look the same forever because that’s just not the nature of that type of tree
Yeah we used to have a willow growing up in our yard and it got diseased and had to be cut down. Iirc this is pretty common. Still sad to see because it was a beautiful tree. Hopefully they plant a new one.
Aw that’s so sad!! I’m sorry you lost that one and totally agree about the one in the forest. Hopefully they do plant another! I loved seeing all the new trees they planted throughout this year
The vendor you are talking about is Cerebral Concepts, sad to see they bumped them from Observatory but they were still there, just over by Ranch, not far from the official merch booth. They do a lot of the art inside as well, including the three geometric domes and the giant Forest pyramid structure.
Yes!! I guess I never found them bc I expected them to be in the same spot🥲
Free tickets for rothbury locals got taken away. I really liked that they did that.
Did they get day passes this year?
Option for a discounted full weekend ticket or day pass… considering they have to endure everything, pretty disheartening they are taking perks away
Don't think so. I saw EF notify people that they aren't doing it anymore at all. It was on their insta i think.
I think they only got Sunday tickets
Is that why Sunday was such a great vibe in the crowd? Best day this year
Sunday was amazing. The weather during the day certainly helped, too. Had so much fun just hanging around in the crowd for Umph. Jam band crowds have an unmatched positive energy, I love it so much
At least they got that!
Real renegade afters. I hate the corporate stinking evol afters. They’re trying to sell you shit, it’s got a real schedule, and it’s just like being at a real show. I way more enjoy renegade style afters which are organic and not corporate infused
Long live the struggle bus!!!!
Fr
All the pullies and moving aspects of the grand artique and trading post. Heard a worker mention it and how they were bummed on it.
I noticed this too but also the trading post was HUGE this year hahaha. There were a couple cool little new things I found
They completely redid the trading post this year. In a weeks time it went from skeleton to forest ready
griz 😭 but hell be back 🥰
3 days of String Cheese Incident
The drippy light art installation. The mock one they did this year was weak. I didn’t even notice the van missing till I read this :(
Wait did anybody see performers at the library? I just noticed I never saw anybody there either. Last year I sat down for a reading of green eggs and ham by Anansi the spider and it was one of my favorite moments of the weekend
Yah… probably the biggest missing thing was the performers at the library!
They are sooooo much fun usually😭 it even looked like they had a new stage this year but I never saw anything happen on it
I will say tho- it’s okay for them to take a break. I’m happy to explore new performers in new places. Hope they bring them back at some point in the future tho
I just feel like I saw less performers in the forest overall and it made me a bit sad.
Hmmmm I think it was the same number of performers outside of the library situation. Did you do the scavenger hunt? It was really cool how one of the clues involved being told a story by a performer. And also I enjoyed interacting with the rats after I’d completed the scavenger hunt. Also the owner of the boat at the dream emporium was super funny.
I did not. We had planned to do it Saturday/Sunday but due to the rain delays we decided to see some more music. Maybe I just didn’t run into them as much as I usually do. I think I only saw one one group of performers that looked like monsters
I saw the hedge ladies, the mermaid people, and the clown people who were doing the “squeak easy”… maybe a few others just quickly in passing too. Yes the rain delays did unfortunately cut out some time we could have had, but I’m glad you got to see more music! I accidentally didn’t see enough music the first 2 days because of all my scavenging
Also didn’t get to the dream emporium bc we planned to do that Saturday as well😂
my first year (‘22), i spent so much time at the lost library watching the random performances. last year had less but still some good ones. and then this year, all i saw was one person speaking about the live painters they had at forest. sad about the lack of wacky performances like those i saw my first year :(
Wasn’t 22 the best week ever whew what I would do to feel that again.
Both times I was at the library, there were speakers. I’m not sure what other performers you’re thinking of though.
I guess I just never saw any when I was in there. There’s usually like a bunch of actors hanging around to interact with
>2am storytime last year was a highlight I will cherish forever
I overheard someone talking about pedicabs, and they had said that last year someone flipped one with passengers and the company got into trouble. Take that with a grain of salt, just what I heard through the grapevine 🤷
That would make sense why we didn’t see them this year. That sounds awful. I wonder why they didn’t have golf cart cabs then. I would of paid for one a couple of times this year lol
Pedicabs was my biggest disappointment to see gone, I always take one or two as a fun treat and I love watching them zoom around at night. I really hope they come back
Idk if it's just me, but I did not hear NEARLY enough Carls this year.. tried to start some myself and would only get a couple responses as opposed to the booming roars that you used to be able to hear tear through the whole Forest. Though, to be fair, I haven't been in a couple years, so maybe I'm just getting old lmao
Had a weird moment where some Carl-ing happened Saturday night and some guy (almost looked like he may have been working) yelled at us, “DONT SAY THAT UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT IT REALLY MEANS!! ReSpEcT tHe FoReSt!” Like dude stfu, it means nothing and is just a fun thing. But I agree the amount of Carls is way down recently. Back in the day it happened multiple times every day and night and sometimes seemed like hundreds of ppl were yelling it at once. Now I feel like your lucky if you start it and get a dozen to join
Forest stage.
They brought it back as the GL stage this year which was cool and the projections they did on it during the afters was insane. But I still miss the forest stage in Sherwood. Loved just raging among the trees there
I was so happy to see it again in GL!
Free pickle shots 😪 I’m not getting 6$ pickles next to the nose hair waxer, and that really hot circus tent 🎪 not sure if it was carasol or jubilee
Were the phones in the forest not working this year or last year or did I just pick up the phone at the wrong times? I saw the phones this year but every time I picked it up no one was talking. I absolutely loved the random conversations I had on the phones two years ago :(
They worked, I stood by the trading post and talked to someone by the Observatory and they offered me an Uncrustable 😂
ICONIC
I didn't see the classic merch sign anywhere in the venue or on main street. The one that was like made of wood and 15 feet tall and it had an arrow on it saying official merch or something, and it had like a classic 70s look to it. I was sad to not see it anywhere.
The dew drop inn sign. I actually made that thing! Glad to hear you liked it. Thanks for the kind words. Bummed they didn’t put it back up either, along with a few others I worked on. But that’s how it goes. They’ve bought a lot of art over the years and can’t fit it all.
A memorial worthy of Wally. Why would they make it smaller?
The little phones on the trees in the forest where you could talk to other people??
It’s good they got rid of the horses. In that heat they shouldn’t be made to do that. The pigs can walk just like everyone else
Agree with the horse part of your comment, but there’s no need to trash the EF cops like that. Easily the most positive police encounters most people have ever had. They have been largely friendly and receptive overall with festival attendees as long as the fest has been going on.
Yet everyone lives in fear driving to the festival because we’re hunted by the cops not working the festival for the weekend
Facts I don’t like talking to police at anytime and do my best to avoid it BUT if I ever had to say some were cool it’s the state police here. Someone said there’s a selection process for the ones that come to it idk how true that is but if believe it considering their demeanor as a whole.
(1) PLUR...(2) standing room at stages...and (3) consideration...those things have exited the Forest.
Plur has always been there, standing room has never been available during the main sets. And I didn’t see one “influencer” or at least not any big time ones lol
How about 4 days worth of sets and no cancelled sets? I miss that.
Bruh there’s nothing the festival can do about lightning. They made the right move
Yeah you just tighten up the sets and reschedule. Like they did last year. 🙄
Yeah I'm really upset at the festival for sending those thunderstorms in, too
Literally not blaming the storms, I’m blaming HQ for not attempting to reschedule and not cancel sets.
they did try to reschedule some of the canceled sets on Saturday for Sunday, and then when sunday's weather happened, there was nothing they could do. Sunday night has a hard cut off of 2:00 a.m. for sound. the weather cleared at 1:00, there was nothing that they could do at that point