I am finally getting around to sharing a few pics from our recent Memorial Day weekend music festival – Happyland Music Fest, otherwise known as HMFX since this was our 10th year to host it. Ten. Years. Because apparently we are crazy people.
For the past several years, one of our attendees – Cas – has created a poster. Here is this year’s:
And Ethan usually does an event teaser using film from the previous year’s event:
The event began with karaoke on Friday night. And now that we own a screen and projector we’ll be able to watch movies on our patio!
Every year we (that’s the Imperial “we” – I don’t have anything to do with it) build a sound booth on scaffolding with a roof and tarps which can be dropped down in case of rain. This is where the equipment to run the lights and sound is. See that guy in the picture? That’s Nick. He does all the lighting for Happyland each year. This is what he does for a living and he graciously gives up about two weeks of his time every year to produce our amazing lights and special effects show.
This video will give you a better sense of how tall the sound booth is:
A new feature this year was the Zen Zone. It’s hard to see from the photo but there are crystals and wind chimes hanging from the trees. There was also a bluetooth speaker in one of the trees playing ambient music. The red ice bucket held chilled cans of LaCroix flavored waters.
We had a professional yoga instructor who led yoga classes Saturday and Sunday mornings. We also had a group meditation time.
The theme for this year was Space Wedding, or something like that. I have to admit I didn’t initially get the vision for those “space crystals” on the patio roof when I saw them being created out of chicken wire and white plastic tablecloths. But when they were lit up they looked really cool.
In the early years of HMF I would take a group photo on the final morning. As the event grew we stopped doing that for a variety of reasons. This year I decided to take a group photo Sunday night. Some people came and went over the course of the weekend and others were already in their tents by the time I took this. But even thought this isn’t the whole group I think you can still tell how much fun everyone was having.
A family picture:
And finally, a picture of two very tired but happy “hippies”:
I missed this year due to illness. But for anyone curious, based on last year, I’d say that group photo is maybe 60% of the people that were there, say Saturday afternoon? I’m still upset that I missed this year, but glad I made the decision to stay home. Because even being careful and taking care of myself, I still ended up in the ER the next week, needing fluid, I couldn’t drink enough to keep up with the high fever from my kidney infection, and again this week for the same issue. Here is the amazing thing about Happyland. Where or when else can you put 200 folks together, and in 10 years, never have a major problem? The love is palpable. They take care of each other. The kindness abounds. It even infects people that aren’t always like that. It seems to bring out the best in everyone. I’ve seen it over and over and over again. When people say it’s magical, they are telling the truth.
I just hate that you missed it this year, especially because of illness. I love what you said about HMF – it’s so true. I’m going to do my best to get your HMFX shirts in the mail this week!