Lighting up Delaware

Newly graduated from high school, one of my best friends and I decided to pack our bags and go on a much needed road trip to Delaware for the Firefly Music Festival.

I remember waking up around seven am, after having barely slept due to the amount of excitement I was filled with. The ten hour road trip was spent snacking on junk food, singing along to some of the artists we'd be seeing perform, and coming to the sad realization that we had no future in the singing industry.

We arrived at our hotel in Bear, Delaware around five pm. Although it was around half an hour away from the festival, it offered free breakfast every morning. The waffles covered in syrup compensated for the hotel's location immensely.

Exhausted, yet eager we decided to head straight to the festival, in Dover. Almost immediately, I felt the excruciating humidity that made everyone's hair (including mine) frizzy, but I had never been surrounded by such amazing, positive energy. As we waited in line for our wristbands, people chanted the names of their favorite artists with nothing but their little high-waisted shorts and smiles on their sun-kissed faces.

Soon after having entered, we decided to roam around to get a sense of the festival grounds, and snacked on pretzels bigger than our heads from one of the many food trucks parked around the main entrance. There was something exciting going on everywhere we turned. A hammock lounge to cool off and relax, a market, a brewery, an arcade... The only thing missing was boredom.

The second and third day was spent amongst lively crowds. We stumbled across some of the most genuine people in the midst of everything going on, and ended up making friends with a few Delaware natives. We were fascinated by their southern accents while they were just as fascinated by the amount of times we said "eh". They went on to tell us about how everyone in Dover knew each other and how big the festival was in comparison to their small town.

Our feet were sore and we were all sun burnt by the last day. Nonetheless, it was front row at one of the most memorable performances, surrounded by friends we had met a couple of days prior, that it all began to make sense. Delaware's Firefly Music Festival is all about the atmosphere, generated by all of the vibrant people who come together every year to light up Delaware.