Fine-Tune Your Music Festival Budget and Save
Attendees of this yr’s Coachella music competition have posted viral movies including up their bills from the weekend — with prices reaching the hundreds for flights, lodges, meals, drinks, outfits and rideshares. Plus the ticket, which may begin round $400 for a three-day cross to a preferred competition like Lollapalooza or Coachella.
Summer time music festivals is usually a once-in-a-lifetime expertise, however prices can simply blow a gap in any price range. Should you’ve determined to make the leap this summer time, listed below are a couple of methods to maintain your competition spending in test.
Try bank card rewards
The most effective methods to benefit from your cash at a music competition is to make the most of bank card rewards for leisure purchases. The precise card can get you money again on tickets, entry to lower-cost presale tickets or free add-ons like meals and lounge entry. Some may even get you entry to unique artist performances and actions like a Ferris wheel journey.
Journey-specific bank cards may also help you save on flights and lodges in the event you’re attending an out-of-town competition, and plenty of provide rewards for automotive leases and Uber rides as nicely.
Plan forward for hidden prices
Should you’re unprepared for full days of strolling and dancing — and strict guidelines on what’s allowed contained in the competition gates — it’s possible you’ll end up paying for surprising requirements together with meals, water and transportation.
Kaitlin Gomez is a nursing scholar and avid festivalgoer based mostly in Irvine, California, attending a multi-day music occasion nearly each month. Together with her devotion to those experiences, she’s discovered to arrange prematurely so she’s not overspending contained in the competition. She recommends consuming beforehand (and consuming, if that’s your cup of tea), and carpooling if doable. Professional tip: Many festivals have restricted free parking out there in the event you arrive early sufficient to attain a spot.
Her greatest value saver, although, has been buying “funding items that final years and work with competition guidelines,” like a backpack with a built-in hydration pack, sturdy sneakers and a transportable charger. Occasions can overcharge for on-site meals ($17 for an order of hen tenders at Coachella), water bottles and even cellphone charging entry, so coming ready retains prices in test.
And a notice on lodging: Whereas some festivals, like Coachella, provide a tenting choice for a worth, some don’t. So in the event you want a resort, store round and e-book early. Airbnbs typically tack an additional $100 or extra in charges on prime of the reserving worth, so a shared resort room stands out as the most cost-effective choice.
Select fee plan or presale
Most festivals provide a couple of choices to pay to your ticket. The primary is paying for the whole ticket worth outright, which may differ relying on whenever you make your buy.
Festivals often have a number of “tiers,” beginning on the lowest worth for patrons with presale entry, and as much as a whole lot of {dollars} extra for tickets bought inside weeks of the occasion. Signing up for presale, particularly with unique entry from a collaborating bank card firm, can assure you the bottom doable worth.
However in the event you don’t have the funds to cowl a complete ticket at one time, a zero-interest fee plan from the occasion firm could make the fee extra manageable. Although it will possibly value a small comfort price to pay in installments, “it doesn’t really feel like as a lot of a monetary impression whenever you’re solely paying a fraction each month,” says Gomez.
A Coachella ticket, for instance, will be bought for $99 down, with the remaining paid at round $44 a month for the following eight months.
Be part of the social media group
Going to a half-dozen festivals yearly could seem unfeasible, however on this period of social media, that sort of devotion can repay. Gomez and hundreds of others have grown and monetized their on-line followings to fund their music competition habits, incomes themselves free tickets and commissions within the course of.
“Create helpful content material and the partnerships will come,” says Adriana Ramos, an Austin, Texas-based life coach, digital advertising and marketing guide and creator of competition weblog VibeWithAde.com. Ramos has spent years sharing her competition experiences and recommendation, which has helped her construct a robust platform with a loyal viewers on her web site, YouTube and Instagram.
Due to her affect, occasion organizers and affiliated manufacturers have supplied Ramos free tickets and the chance to make a fee from her followers’ ticket purchases in trade for making promotional social media content material. With some occasions and types, you possibly can apply on to develop into an affiliate associate.
Particular person content material creators are a helpful supply of promoting for big competition manufacturers, so in the event you’re keen to take a position the time, interacting with the competition group on-line may also help you attend extra occasions at a decreased value.
Weigh your priorities
Even with bank card rewards, planning forward and partnering with occasion manufacturers, a music competition ticket can nonetheless be a severe funding.
“It’s OK to not go to a competition if it’s going to set you again financially — or in the event you can’t afford to get pleasure from it absolutely,” says Ramos. “There’ll at all times be one other one.”
This text was written by BaghdadTime and was initially revealed by The Related Press.
