Creating Magical Experiences by Setting Festival Intentions
February 02, 2024
Written by Ade Ramos (@vibewithade)
Your festival planning needs this one component to increase your chances of a magical and fulfilling weekend. My festival experiences seriously improved and changed when I started doing intention setting before the festival weekend. I have been a festival goer since 2015 and I started coaching women in the rave community in 2021 to create fulfilling lives.
A lot of my coaching is centered around having my clients set intentions toward the things they want to cultivate in their lives. As festivals started to return after the pandemic, I had a light bulb moment to add this practice to my festival planning. To add more intention to the festival experiences I was about to embark on. Since then I’ve set intentions for every festival I attend and even held a workshop at Electric Forest helping others to set intentions for their festival weekend.
What is intention setting?
Intention setting is simply that. You set intentions towards something whether it be towards something in your life or how you want to go about your day. Intention setting differs from goal setting because it is you becoming clear about the why behind something and emotionally aligning to what you want.
Having an intention-setting practice truly allows you to align what you want to get out of life or an experience. The goal is what you want to do and the intention is your why and how behind it. So with festival intention setting you have the goal to attend this festival and then your intention could be what you hope to experience in the festival weekend.
Why set intentions for festivals?
It truly can be a powerful practice because it allows you to detach from the outcome and release expectations. You feel clear with your intentions set and can feel at ease and empowered as you move through what you’re experiencing. When I started setting intentions for a festival weekend, I began to see what I truly wanted to get out of the festival weekend.
Rather than just going to have fun and dance, I aligned that I wanted to release or I wanted to heal or I wanted to connect. It made the festival experience much more meaningful and deepened the experience as I could always come back to the intentions I set at the beginning of the weekend. It also allows you to accept whatever festival experience you have and release expectations of your festival weekend. Festival goers tend to set high expectations for a festival and then leave the festival disappointed. Intention setting alleviates those feelings.
How to Set Intentions for Festivals
To begin setting intentions for festivals, it’s important to carve out some time to sit and be with yourself. Even if you’ve never meditated or journaled before, you can totally give this practice a try. Carve out some quiet time for you to be with yourself ahead of the festival weekend. You can take some deep breaths just to quiet your mind and limit any distractions. Then I want you to think through the following questions, you can either answer in your head, write them in a journal, or type in your phone.
- What am I looking forward to at <insert festival>?
- How do I want to feel while at <insert festival>?
- What do I want to experience at <insert festival>?
- Who do I want to be or embody at <insert festival>?
- How do I want to take care of myself this weekend?
- What am I calling in for this weekend?
- What am I releasing for this weekend?
- What mantra or affirmation do I want to tie these intentions to for this weekend?
It might feel uncomfortable at first to do this, but don’t get discouraged. It’s only uncomfortable because it’s a new experience. Find ways to come back to the intentions you set so you can be reminded of them as the festival weekend unfolds. Especially with a multi-day festival, each day is a new day to embrace your festival intentions regardless of what happened the day before.
I hope this practice serves you well this festival season and creates magical moments at the festivals you attend this year. Feel free to share your intention setting stories with the lunchbox fam by tagging lunchbox on social media. Give us a follow on social media to stay plugged into lunchbox fam meetups this year, we can’t wait to meet you out there!
