At the beginning of 2020, I had three music festivals lined up for the year: Hangout in Gulf Shores, Alabama; Electric Forest in Rothbury, Michigan; and Shambhala in British Columbia, Canada. As we all know, coronavirus stopped all of them in their tracks (and I was gutted). Luckily, life is just about normal again here in New Zealand and I got to attend Bay Dreams music festival in Nelson. Here’s a recap of how it went!
About Bay Dreams
Bay Dreams is a single day festival that happens annually in New Zealand. It started in 2016 and originally was only held in the town of Tauranga (on the North Island). In 2019, it expanded to another location in Nelson (on the South Island). With over 50,000 people attending both events, Bay Dreams is New Zealand’s largest festival.
This year, we bought tickets especially because we wanted to see Flume. We were supposed to see him at one of our festivals over the summer that ended up being canceled, so we were especially excited to make up for it. Unfortunately, he had to cancel because of New Zealand’s quarantine measures. Don’t you just love when the universe has its own plans?
Journey to Nelson
The drive from Twizel to Nelson takes about 9 hours total. We decided to split the driving up into two days so we wouldn’t be too tired. The first leg of the trip from Twizel to Christchurch took us four hours. We stopped at the Fairlie Bakehouse along the way for some delicious pies (highly recommend!).
Ben’s aunt and uncle live in Christchurch, so we spent the night playing board games and drinking champagne with them. We parked up the van in their driveway and headed off the next morning. It takes about 5 hours to drive from Christchurch to Nelson. Our first stop along the way was in Kaikoura, where we saw a pod of dolphins! Later on, we stopped at the Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve to have some dinner. We made it to Nelson in the evening and we parked the van up in a New World parking lot.
If you’re a member of the NZMCA, I highly recommend downloading their app to find free places to park! Through their app, we found out that the Nelson city New World lets self-contained vehicles park overnight for up to three nights for free. It was flat, quiet, and obviously very easy to stop into the store to pick up any snacks we might have forgotten. Park over properties are the way to go if you’re traveling New Zealand on a budget.
Festival recap
Organization
The festival was held at Trafalgar Park in Nelson. It’s not a huge area, which made the space really easy to navigate. There were four stages total, 2 indoors and 2 outdoors. The indoor stages were held in what seemed like a huge amphitheater. Because I’m used to massive US festivals like EDC, the production value seemed a bit low for a festival of this size. That might just be me missing being able to dance under the electric sky, however.
Volunteers in yellow and white striped jumpsuits walked around handing out hand sanitizer. They also had QR codes printed on their clothes that you could scan on New Zealand’s COVID contact tracing app. Besides these volunteers, there was nothing that made it seem like there was a pandemic — things were running just how a festival normally would.
Music
Kiwis are very into their drum and bass. Most of the acts fell into this category, which is quite different from the US festivals I’ve been to. To my chagrin, Bay Dreams didn’t seem to have any acts that wanted to play house or techno. I was also surprised to hear that for most of the day, the main stage hosted chill, reggae-type acts. There was a bit of dubstep thrown into the mix as well.
Food
I needed to include a section for food because of the noodles pictured below. I got some kind of spicy, Indonesian chicken and noodle dish and it was absolutely amazing. It was honestly better than any festival food I’ve had before. For only NZ$12, this plate of noodles was extremely filling as well.
Style
The range of styles at Bay Dreams really ran the gamut. Guys’ fashion was about the same as what I see in the States: shorts, printed button-ups, basketball jerseys, etc. One difference is that I saw a lot of mullets — apparently they’re trendy here?
Girls’ outfits were varied. Some girls wore really flowy, bohemian things. Some were dressed really ravey. And some were dressed like they were about to go clubbing. It was amazing! I love seeing such a variety of styles and knowing that you can wear whatever you feel most comfortable in.
Vibe
With the variety of music genres, Bay Dreams felt a lot like Lollapalooza in Chicago. Unlike Lolla, however, the people that I interacted with were extremely considerate. There was very minimal pushing in the security lines and people generally left you ample space to dance. People were friendly and were not afraid to give out compliments or chat up a stranger.
This is definitely a drinking festival. The lines for the bars were massive and everyone seemed to be holding two drinks at all times. Although there were a few sloppy drunks here and there, it didn’t seem too crazy overall. It certainly seemed more tame than I would have expected with New Zealand’s drinking culture.
Final thoughts on Bay Dreams 2021
Three months into living here and I’m still shocked at how normal life is. I read the news every so often and see how various different cities in the US (and around the world) are enforcing new lockdowns or restrictions. It makes me feel extremely lucky that I get to experience all of these events while other people aren’t allowed to leave their houses at all.
Even though Bay Dreams wasn’t the same as the festivals I attend in the US, it was a good time! It was a much-needed return to one of my favorite activities. No matter the genre or production value, I love dancing to live music.
By the time you’re reading this post, Ben and I will have set off for a two-week road trip down New Zealand’s West Coast. Be on the lookout for some more van life content and some West Coast itineraries soon. Until next time!
xoxo Niki
