Last year was our first festival and we stayed at Ilium with our 6 year old (left the 3 year old and 1 year old at home with grandma...they'll join us eventually). We really enjoyed the campground. I can't speak on what it's like at the high school, but I can tell you what we liked about Mary. It was more like camping in the woods. There are great views and it's right along the river. We arrived on Wednesday so it was fun to go down to the river that day and hang out. Once the festival started on Thursday, we barely spent anytime at the campground. It was too far (for us, at least, because we didn't want to miss anything) to go back and forth between the festival and the campground so we would pack up a hiking backpack with everything we needed for the entire day and night with the plan of spending the whole day in town. We ended up eating more meals in town than we had originally planned, but that just added to the fun (my son loved the corndogs and my wife and I enjoyed the eggrolls). By the time we got back to the campground we were so exhausted and crashed hard! I can remember thinking at the time that those were some of the best night's sleep I had had in a while. It was quiet, but there was also a fire ban last summer so no fires at night. I wouldn't worry too much about noise, though. The folks that attend this festival are the best kind of people in the world and generally extremely respectful. The only real advantages I see to staying at the high school is the proximity to town (walking/biking distance), showers (right there at the high school), and accessibility to electricity for charging cell phones. You might want to weigh those things when making your decision.
Unfortunately we can't make it to the festival this year, but we would be staying at Mary if we were. Really, you can't go wrong with camping because you're going to the best music festival on the planet and you will have so much fun and make some incredible memories!
Hope that helps.
Exactly what he said. I guess I was only addressing the biking part. Mary E is MUCH better camping but the distance and reliance on the shuttle mean 2 really important things:
1. It is time-prohibitive to go back to camp during the day...
2. You will never be in line before 7:30 so you will always be towards the back of the festival.
Those are deal breakers for me, but I'm sure it's the perfect situation for some. See ya at the festivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll!!
PS-I am going to get NO work done this week!
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