moe.down for Beginners

I'm proud to say I'm a new fall intern at HeadCount. But before I even began the internship, the first thing HeadCount asked me to do was work the booth at this year’s moe.down Festival in Mo(e)hawk, NY. To be honest, I didn’t know much about moe. but I do like to get down so I accepted the task immediately. In the few days leading up to the moe.down I made it a point to let my roommate know that I’d be spending the weekend at an awesome festival while he sat around the apartment playing video games and watching Sportscenter. Fortunately for him, a spot opened up at the last minute and he was able to come too. Oh well, there goes my bragging rights.

We arrived at moe.down a day before the festival opened and camped out with the vendors and pre-festival volunteers. I liked this aspect of working with HeadCount a lot because it allowed me to see a side of a music festival that I never really get to experience. All of the vendors were really chill, nice people and some of the volunteers went out of their way to find a flashlight for us when we tried to set up our tent in the dark. However the best part of vendor camping (aside from the prime location in relation to the festival grounds) was the special vendor porta-potty, complete with flushing capabilities. Yes, you read that correctly. A porta-potty that flushes. Somewhere out there, pigs are flying.

One of the first things I noticed about moe.down was the lack of any electronic music on the lineup. I’m a big fan of the daytime jam/late night electric festival combo, but it was good to see that there are still festivals out there for people who don’t want to spend all night trying to sleep through an incessant barrage of womps. Once the festivalgoers showed up, the lack of any electronic music on the lineup made complete sense. The moe.down crowd was a bit older than any of the festivals I’ve been too, except for maybe the New Orleans Jazzfest. An older crowd isn’t a problem at all unless, of course, you’re trying explain the rules of a Facebook Photo Competition (“You know, Facebook. That thing on the internet from that movie written by the dude who used to do The West Wing.”) (I'm exaggerating a little. We got a ton of great pics!)

All in all the experience at moe.down was terrific. I met some really cool people and really got to see HeadCount in action. My favorite part of working with HeadCount was probably getting to hear how people responded to one question on our Fan DNA Poll about what their first concert was. Winners: 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Losers: the 15 or so people who said New Kids on the Block.

In any case, my time at moe.down gave me a better appreciation for what HeadCount does and got me really excited about the internship I'm starting. I'm pretty sure this is the only internship ever that started with a flushing porta-potty campout and three days of rock n' roll!