Music fans tell us their absolute worst festival stories

(Ethan Miller/Getty)

We’re in the thick of summer 2016 and the biggest music festivals are heading toward a town near you. As music fans strap their camel backs, pepper spray and camping gear to face scores of inclement weather and drunk folks, they'll have the unique opportunity to experience some of the best damn entertainment in the world. From Glasto to Bonnaroo to EDC — we caught up with music fans and asked them about the strangest things they’ve been through over the years.

Warning: Some of the following stories are suggestive, containing violence and incidents of sexual assault.

Drunk Drivers
Sasquatch 2015. A guy was totally spun out of his mind, and jumped in some girls car, tore her out of the driver's seat, and proceeding to gun it, running over like 10 tents with people sleeping inside (it was about 8am). Looked like a tornado blew through. Terrifying.

— Prime Intellect

Tricked Into Sex Labor
Bonnaroo, 2014. I went for Kanye West, Lauryn Hill, Little Dragon, Frank Ocean, Chaka Khan and Cake. I was supposed to go with two girls who I knew, and just before, one had to miss the festival for a funeral, so they gave me her ticket.

We drove 10 hours from Ohio, packed into a car with four 19-year-old boys my friend knew from work. I thought we would set up camp with the guys but instead, we met up with some other dude, and the three of us cliqued up. I finally understood that this guy wasn't sh*t when he started commenting about my clothing and breasts saying I should wear a smaller top because he wanted to see god’s creations… this dude was a f*cking creep.

One night after seeing Wiz Khalifa, we were chilling in the tent, on mushrooms and probably coke. Someone started to rub my leg. I said I needed air and walked out. My friend followed me and suggested that I go back into the tent and take more drugs, and “maybe you can take that cover up off and we'll see what happens.”

That’s when I realized I was a sex fill-in and my two friends had an arrangement with this dude: he would buy their Bonnaroo tickets, drugs, and alcohol, in exchange for sex whenever he wants it. I told my friend to f*ck off for tricking me and she still tried to guilt trip me for not having sex with this nasty dude. Needless to say, our friendship fell apart after she tried to sell me into sex labor without my consent.

To make things worse, there were so many white people wearing "f*ck Kanye" shirts and booing him during his set. The creepy threesome guy also hated Kanye and wouldn’t stay for his show. And he eventually made me pay for my ticket—because I didn't have sex with him.

— Haneen, 25

Kanye performs at Bonnaroo in 2014. Jason Merritt/Getty (Jason Merritt/Getty)

This Is Not Okay
Electric Forest 2015. I went the year before and it was a life-changing experience, but this year’s forest was totally different. Security was terrible and it took something like eight hours to park the car and set up camp. Shpongle was playing pretty early that Thursday and sleep deprived me decides it's a good idea to drop two tabs before entering. I don’t know if it was the acid or just the festival but I tried three times to get into the place, but it was just this giant mob of people losing their sh*t instead of an organized line like it was the year before.

Girls were crying and leaving, friends were separated, people were screaming and a guy behind me just kept repeating "this is not okay, this is not okay" the whole time. I watched security tackle a guy to the ground and hand cuff him. It was a giant swirling mass of people freaking out and took about 3 hours to finally get in. After that night they fired the whole security team and brought in a more professional one for the remainder of the fest, but man was it f*cked up.

— Beta Testing Music

Hallucinating Attackers
Schwagstock, 2004. I saw a huge 250lb naked man completely disoriented screaming and swinging his fists in the air. Pretty sure he was hallucinating attackers around him. He was pissed and yelling as if he were arguing with invisible people. A dog ran up to him inquisitively and a hippie chick at its heels, trying to stop the dog from approaching the enraged redneck. He swung and missed the dog. Then he saw the hippie chick (maybe 150lbs) swung and hit her full force . As she was falling, multiple people nearby immediately charged and tackled him.

— Bright Star Black

Climbing A Ferris Wheel
Hulaween 2015. During Chance The Rapper's set, a girl was going crazy by the Ferris wheel. She was growling and her eyes were rolling and she kept trying to bite her friends. Her friends had to restrain her when she tried to jump the fence and climb the Ferris wheel. I was there with a doctor who tried to tell them that most likely her brain was overheating and that she needed to be cooled with water. But they told us to f*ck off.

— Making Mistakes Sucks

The extra large Ferris wheel at Coachella in 2015. Karl Walter/Getty (Karl Walter/Getty)

Horror Film
Bonnaroo 2007. We camped on the corner of the specific campground we were at, which was closest to the port o potties (with a ditch and some space in between so it wasn't right beside them.)

While I was going to the port o potty I noticed a semi-professional looking camera/sound crew on the other side of the Johns and heard them while I was using one talking about how they found the guy propped in one of the port o potties with stab wounds all over him. Between the lack of sleep and the drugs , I wandered back to my tent and went back to sleep. I know it wasn't a dream, but to this day I wonder if it was part or a legit news interview or some indie movie being made.

— Goiter Flop

Automobile Mosh Pit
At Glastonbury in 1999, I was watching the Super Furry Animals play on the Other Stage in the evening. During their final song, I became aware that there was a van trying to take a shortcut and drive through the huge crowd from right to left pretty much through the middle of the mosh pit. The van managed to make it a decent way through but eventually got completely stuck due to the sheer mass of people.

I was amazed at this but with it only being my second festival I thought this was fairly normal behavior. At that point, people started to climb on the bonnet and then onto the roof and were dancing on top of the van. One of the blokes in the van who was clearly a bit worse for wear got out of the van and started pushing people off the bonnet and off the roof. Unbelievably I don't think anyone was actually injured during everything that was going on. The surreal nature of all this was added to by the fact that the band had been joined on stage by members of the band Mogwai dressed as aliens and they'd turned the Man Don't Give A F*ck into a 20-minute techno banger. Not a performance or festival I've forgotten in a hurry.

In terms of the other bits, I didn't speak to the driver as there were quite a few rows of people in front of me, I'm 35 now and we were there to see loads of bands — the Manics, Super Furries, Ash, Fun Lovin Criminals, Feeder and many, many others that I'm struggling to recall.

— Simon, 35

MJ Kim/Getty (MJ Kim/Getty)

Gumby Creeps
I almost got [raped] by Gumby at Hard Haunted Mansion 2011. It was terrifying to realize that someone just grabbed you from behind and manhandled you into a grip you can't escape from in the middle of thousands of people and no amount of jumping and screaming is gonna do anything cause everyone else is doing the same thing. Thankfully, my friend caught the situation and pulled me out.

Had to do the same for her the next year when we caught Skrillex at Exchange. She was on the dance floor rolling balls and the dude came up and latched on so fast she didn't even realize what was going on. I grabbed her and yelled at him to let go and he kept trying to elbow me off until some guys took notice and he let go and bounced. Aside from that, again at Hard Haunted Mansion a boy walking around with a mouth covered in blood. He didn't realize he had chewed up the inside of his mouth and had been licking his lips for a quite a while.

—Panda Pootie

Spread Eagle
Wakarusa 2015. Some dude K-holed, completely naked, spread eagle with a stark erection in front of the port-o sh*tters, in the muddy concoction of sh*t and piss. That was both absurd and terrifying.

— Really Effing Rad