YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS! Coachella! COA. CHE. LLA. COACHELLA! It’s almost here! Are you getting pumped? Stocking up on tank tops and camera memory and syringes full of adrenaline for when someone in your group inevitably overdoses on cocaine FUN? Yeah, me too.

This year’s Coachella fest has already separated itself from what we normally expect: it sold out in like, nanoseconds, and the whole wristband/ticket/security situation for the event suggests that we’re all going to the White House Correspondents Dinner and not a dumpy music festival in the middle of a polo field. Still, there remain many timeless rules to ensure you don’t spend the weekend miserable and/or dead, so I’d like to share with you my own, based on my humble experiences, and by humble, I mean drunk.

1. DO BE VERY Careful Buying Tickets

Because the festival sold out so early, buying tickets is now a risky business. Last year, I (along with 5,000 other sad pandas) bought fake tickets from someone who apparently made a deal with Satan himself to make dirty money at the expense of a bunch of hippies’ happiness. I was lucky in that I managed a new ticket from a nice volunteer who saw me offering up blow jobs crying, but thousands of others weren’t so lucky. Do NOT buy off of Craigslist, and if you buy through eBay, be sure to use PayPal.

2. Car Camping? DO NOT Wait Until the Last Minute

I don’t even know why I’m saying this really because it lessens my chance of getting the Sacred Arc of Parking Spots that I got last year again, but hey – karma and all that crap, right? Car camping in Indio Valley begins Thursday at noon, and trust me when I say you do NOT want to procrastinate on getting there. We all have a friend who is The King of Slackland, so be sure to give them a 3 hour cushion – say you’ll pick them up at nine and then get there at noon so they HAVE to be ready. Show up late to car camping and you’ll end up in the furthest possible camp spot and will have to spend a good hour a day walking back and forth from the festival and other attractions. In hellscape heat. Be a grown up, wake up early, and get your ass to Indio.

3. DO Drink Water

Funny that I have to say this considering we’re all big girls and boys now, BUT DRINK WATER, IDIOTS. In the span of four days, you will see countless people strewn about like trash, passed out from heat exhaustion or alcohol poisoning or some toxic combination of the two. It should be a rule that you have a water bottle in your hand at all times. If you have a refillable water bottle, there are numerous fountains so you can fill up for free if you’re one of those creeps that “takes offense” to buying water. Either way, DRINK. WATER. And no, beer is not a suitable substitute.  You don’t want to end up like the guy below, though it will take a lot more than beer to get to the magical place where he’s hanging out.

4. Do NOT Wear Yourself Out Too Early

Last year I had a black eye before the first concert on Friday night. Why? Because I was so excited to be on vacation that I got wasted Thursday night and bashed my face on a wooden table. Not okay. I spent the rest of the weekend with a nasty migraine and looking like a domestic abuse victim. The nonstop party combined with the heat and your almost certain breakage of rule #3 will knock you out before you can say “why is that guy pooping in his own fanny pack.” As they say, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and also that guy is pooping in his fanny pack because the porta-potties “keep yelling at the clouds.”

5. DO Check Out Some of the Smaller Bands

The best and worst part of Coachella is always the heat – it’s nice to stay pretty warm at night, but there are points in the day when leaning on a car hood too long could potentially garner 3rd degree burns. However, if you can bear the heat, check out some of the smaller bands that play in the mid-to-late afternoon. They are often some of the biggest up-and-comers in the music industry and will have infinitely smaller crowds. Pro tip: go watch Delta Spirit on Saturday. They are the bees-knees, or whatever you youngins are saying these days.

6. Do NOT Get Lost

Cell coverage during Coachella is notoriously terrible, so revert back to the late 90s and make sure you and your group have a meet up time and place for after the show. A couple years ago a friend ended up wandering into the campground, taking a bunch of mescaline, and losing his phone. We couldn’t get a hold of him, he couldn’t find us, and he ended up having to take a hundred dollar cab ride home. No bueno.

Coachella is always a new bag of tricks, but it is also always guaranteed to be a great time. While there are few to no rules once you’re inside the festival walls, you should set a few regulations for yourself to make sure you have the best possible time while also protecting the plastic-bag-stuffed-with-sausage you call a body. Have a GREAT time, and look for me in the campground!

(I’ll be the one pooping in a fanny pack.)

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