THE UNIFY CHRONICLES 3/3 - A HEAVY MUSIC GATHERING @ Tarwin Lower, January 2018

DAY 3 - SUNDAY JANUARY 14TH, 2018

As much as I can’t wait to go home today, I will miss the positive experiences I had here. Seeing some awesome bands play, hanging out with friends, getting out of my comfort zone. Overall, UNIFY 2018 was very much a mixed bag for me and the jury is still out on whether I’ll end up going again next year. It would have to depend on a number of different factors. The band lineup. The many issues that I’ve written about and how things will run for UNIFY 2019. Camping “alone” is not really a fun experience for me either.

I spent the morning packing up my tent and campsite which was what a lot of other people were doing as well. Thankfully, getting all of my gear out of the campsite was much easier than on Friday as I didn’t have to worry about getting my ID out and my bags checked by security. I could take my time in packing everything up and carrying it all back to my car. I saw all the wreckage walking through the campsite. Piles of garbage bags, tents and broken down marques from the huge storm we copped last night. Luckily my tent was able to endure it all and was still standing.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

• Seeing some of my favourite bands play at an outdoor music festival

• The experience of camping by myself in nature

• Bumping into lots of friends and meeting new people

• Getting out of my comfort zone and sticking out my first UNIFY despite all of the challenges I had to face

• The funny costumes people were wearing (animal heads, onesies, Hawaiian shirts)

• Random gang sing-a-longs walking from the campsite to The Arena

• The pretty carnival-esque lighting the lit up the camping grounds

THE LOWLIGHTS

• The weather (rain, wind, sun, repeat)

• The struggle of setting up my campsite in the rain and carrying gear

• Putting up with some loud, annoying, immature, vulgar neighbours

• The unicoin (uniFAIL) system

• The constant queues (toilets, unicoin top up, The Arena)

• How disgusting the port-o-loos were (That pungent smell of urine, manure and mud. Eww!)

• Dealing with the mud, cow manure, dirt and insects

• Feeling lonely, anxious, depressed and socially isolated at times

POST-UNIFY 2018 RANT

The Unicoin system was a major flop due to the hassle of queuing up to get your wristband and then queuing up again to top it up. Wristbands and tickets should have been posted out as per previous years. Please do not do this again! (Since writing this article, Unify have posted about next year. Click here to read about it.

There should be clearer signage especially for people like me who have never been to UNIFY before. I really struggled to get my bearings when I first got there and had to keep wandering to figure out where I was going. I also didn’t know where to get any spare ponchos, garbage bags, paper towels, toilet paper etc.

UNIFY should provide a more extensive list of what things we should bring. Whilst I did rely on a lot of friends about this matter, there was always something that I was going to forget. Things like gumboots, umbrellas, raincoats etc. Also I feel like they should have provided more sheltered areas in the Arena as it turned me off from seeing many bands this weekend.