Rock For People is an annual music festival held in Hradec Králové. This year it was the 31st year which is quite impressive. The whole event was very well put together and I quite enjoyed it over all. I went with my girlfriend. This are the tails from the days past.
DAY 0 - The Day Before
The whole festival is 5 days long and you can already come a day earlier to setup your tent in the camping zone. However since it is just two of us, our tent was small and the weather forecast was not looking too good, we opted to arrive early in the morning on the first day.
My girlfriend drove to my place and we went to get lunch and to buy some essentials for tomorrow. I bought myself a raincoat and a tourist wagon as she told me that we could be going quite a distance from the car to the camping spot. I found a quite a nice looking one in Action, though we had to visit two branches to find one. Other then that we packed water bottles for cleaning, some ice tea to drink and some snacks and non-perishables for breakfast. We packed everything into my car and had a chill rest of the day, praying for a good weather.
DAY 1 - Let the Swamp Begin
We woke up early in the morning, grabbed something small to eat for breakfast and departed to Hradec Králové. It is about an hour on the highway, not too bad. Once there we struggled to find the correct parking entrance for a bit, but on the third try we got it. We received a sticker and were instructed to go further to the parking area.
Once there we took out the wagon, loaded it up and went on a few minute walk to the camp. I was told that this year the parking area was in a better spot and much closer. But still I was glad we had the wagon to take everything easily. There was basically no line at the ticketing station. We showed our paperwork and received a wristband with NFC chip for the event itself and a regular paper wristband for the camp entrance. Then a bit more walking, passing some of the out of event entertainment, food and other amenities we arrived at the campsite. We showed our wristbands and off we went looking for a spot to setup the tent.
There are two camps, one closer and one bit further. We tried our luck in the closer one and after a bit of looking we found a spot where we wouldn't be in anyone's way and we could fit in nicely. First we put down a thick plastic under layer, the ten is one of those "take it out, unlatch and you got yourself a tent" tent, few anchors and we were set up. Sleeping mats and sleeping bags and rest of our stuff went in and we were ready for the event.
This is also the point the weather has started to get bad.
We went to the actual event area, again showed our wrist bands and off we went to explore where all the stages and food stalls and other stuff is. The whole event area is quite big, with 8 stages to watch, quite a large selection of food, but very expensive. We went and bought noodles from a "Mongolian noodle" stall. 300CZK for the big portion that we split between the two of us.
On the first day we have seen these bands:
- Bloodywood
- Megadeath
- Electric Callboy
The curse of the whole week was the rain. Every. Single. Time. a concert started it started to rain. It was quite funny. Fortunately wint was not blowing and it was raining only lightly. We survived the first day all dry, but returning to our tent, you could tell that all the high traffic areas that used to be grass have turned into a mud. Just endless mud.
DAY 2 - The mud continues
We started the day off by eating some cookies for breakfast and off we went to the event area. Thank god we found place right between two sets of portable toilet spots. You could already smell them quite a bit, not to mention them being extra muddy around as it is a higher traffic area.
On this day we went and seen these bands:
- Set It Off
- BABYMETAL
- Papa Roach
- Limp Bizkit (well we only listened to them from the camp site as my girlfriend told me the crowds can get extra wild and shovy)
DAY 3 - We are no longer dry
On this day all of the concerts we wanted to see were in the evening, so we spend most of the day hiding in the tent or tearoom trying to not get too wet.
We listened to Tom Morello from the tent and in the evening we seen Bring Me The Horizon and Three Day Grace. Bring Me The Horizon was quite interesting with like a lore and animations going with that. They also had a short karaoke session where they brought a fan onto the stage.
The other concert was on the second stage, to best see you either have to be right in the front or climb up a rather steep artificial hill. With all the raining the hill is quite slippery and the best way to stay on it is to sit down. This was fine for the first 15 or so minutes, before it started raining again. For the most part, while standing the light rain wasn't an issue, but sitting down is a different story, I had just my pants and shoes. Since it was the last concert of the day for us, I just held out. The concert was good otherwise.
DAY 4 - The Sun... Maybe
We started the day off with going back to the car to change our shoes. We fortunately did think ahead and brought spare. The weather did finally get better with most of the morning and noon being somewhat sunny. We spend most of the day just going from stage to stage and visiting some of the stalls. We have seen AZ-Kvíz, which is a Czech TV quiz show and they bring it here so people can sign up and play a quick round of it.
Later in the day we have seen PRESIDENT. It is quite a weird band where all the members are masked. People are speculating who exactly these guys are since they have a single album from last year and are already touring. My working theory is that it is someone who just wanted to do a side project but doesn't want to be connected.
From what we wanted to see, this is probably the least exciting day. We were quite tired so we were listening to Halsey from the tend, but I don't remember much, I just fell asleep during that lol. It also started to rain a bit again.
DAY 5 - IT WIMDY
Although it did rain in the morning very lightly for all of 5 minutes, the last day it was mostly windy. Not a lot but id was quite annoying. When it was a windless rain it was actually quite warm otherwise.
Lot of people have already packed up either leaving completely or ready to leave in the evening. The last day was actually an paid add-on.
But fortunately we spent most of the time under a roofed stage 3 - Evropa 2 stage. We have seen Man With a Mission - a Japanese band with wolf masks. It was also the only concert where I said that we should go and at least be in the front row for one of them. And good thing we did, on the 3 biggest stages there are screens on the side of the stage and they are recording the band so you can see better. Well this was the only concert we have been to where this was not the case. The crowd on this was was quite chill too so I wasn't scare of anyone doing some stupid stuff. The staff was also offering water to the front row, which we didn't take but it was a nice gesture.
After the concert we have moved to get a ice cream and waited in the sun for the next concert - Sleep Theory, to start there. We though the crowd on this one would get quite rowdy too, so again we stood a bit further back. It did not, but we had good spots to see anyway.
In the evening we went to see Iron Maiden. This was like the cherry on top for most of the people at the event. It was the most people on any of the concerts at least that we went to, but I can't imagine any other band pulling that many people.
DAY 6 - The packing day
We have woken up early and since it was quite chilly and more importantly dry, we have decided to start packing. I went to my car and got all the bags from the sleeping bags and our wagon. We ate and drank/used a lot of what we brought so a lot more has fit into our wagon. The packing was smooth. our bags were already packed as we just took out stuff as we needed it and put the used back in to save space. The rest was quick to pack back up.
We waved bye bye to our spot, loaded everything back to our car and drove away. It was clear that lot of people left the day before, but still we managed to leave before the rush. We arrived at my place where we took out everything to let it dry a bit more. Had lunch dinner and just chilled out.
Summary
It was a good event. I am still tired but I will definitely be interested to go next year again. I had lot of fun with my girlfriend, although she is definitely more into this music then me.