So, why do people rave? Music festivals, EDMs, and concerts are not what most people would consider fun. The crowd is exuberant, the whole place is beating with the music, and the entire event screams inconvenient. But for some reason, rave tickets sell like hotcakes every single time.
When you ask ravers, the answers are varied. They go because of their friends. They go out of curiosity. Or they just want the experience. If you actually come to think about it, there are reasons that may give better explanations. Here are some:
Music is a proven natural anti-stress.
When you have had a bad day, all you want sometimes is a quiet walk with your earphones on and your favorite songs playing right through your ears. It has been psychologically tested that music relieves stress and this is the most popular reason ravers go to festivals and concerts. This is also why it is not uncommon to find ravers who are actually practicing professionals by day. It’s a common misconception that raves are attended mainly by millennials and teenagers, which might have explained the angst and rage prevalent in these events. Except that, when you go to a rave, you are likely to meet doctors and lawyers and publicists.
Professionals, when asked, share that they rave because it is some sort of an alternate reality—here is a venue for expressions and where people do not care about social status or corporate jargon. Raves are all about music and no one ever dares question people’s choice of songs. Admit it or not, the very fact that people will not judge you or what you wear and listen to removers like half of the stress bucket for you.
Raves also infiltrate other aspects of a person’s life. In a way, it allows people to de-stress in smaller manners like buying cool fanny packs for the next event or gushing about it with friends.
Raves encourage socialization.
When someone say they rave because of their friends or because they want to broaden their network, it is essentially true. Being with people is a natural instinct for us humans. Socializing is the main purpose of human interactions. We are all born to be with people, whether close or remotely. We do not just meet people to exchange names. We intentionally cross people’s paths because it is a mutually beneficial activity. We try to learn from them and they do the same from us. In venues like raves, it may be a little hard to consider how socializing can be done.
Ravers have the tendency to be quite absorbed in their own beat and music that it might be somehow difficult to interact with them. But the truth is, everyone in raves have something to talk about. Whether it be the stylish fanny pack one has on or about the newest performer in the latest rave, finding a topic to hit on with fellow ravers is not a hefty feat.
Going to music festivals is a form of escapism.
In as much as raves are a form to alleviate stress from a person’s daily life, it is also a way to escape the harsher jaws of reality. Have you ever felt like entering a totally different world when you go to a rave? That is the way it’s described by ravers. They feel like that have a place where bills and adulting concerns are non-existent. In raves, no one expects their co-raver to be a college graduate or a licensed professional. It is easy to befriend a person without fear that they might have come from a family much nicer than yours.
When you enter a rave, it is important also to leave all your judgments behind. This enables the escapism for you and other ravers as well. As long as everyone can keep the differences at bay, raves will always be just that: a venue of sorts for all things personal and social, without the stronger bite of the real world.
Going to raves will, of course, never be something that is done out of a solitary reason. People will always look at raves from different perspectives. It will be either the least or the most crucial part of a person’s life. What is important is that wherever you are looking at it from, you respect all that it represents to people. So long as raves are not used as a venue for destructive habits or activities, it is not a bad thing.
