I don't buy VIP for the experience. I buy it because I have to.
The regular portos aren't usable for a lot of people with mobility issues, and there aren't enough accessible bathroom options anywhere else on the grounds. GA had it rough inside the festival, and even worse out in the camping areas where the porto situation was pretty bad throughout. So VIP becomes the workaround. Not a perk, just the only realistic option for some of us. And when that workaround also fails, there's nowhere left to go.
Which made this year sting a little more than usual.
I paid for 5 days. Two of the three main stage VIP areas weren't accessible Wednesday and into Thursday. Some weren't finished being built yet. So for the first chunk of the festival, what exactly were we paying for? A wristband? We had no access to the spaces we paid for. They just weren't there.
The bathrooms were already rough by 10pm. Later in the night, a lot of them were just done. That's the thing about VIP bathrooms being unusable. It's not just inconvenient, it's the whole reason some people paid extra in the first place. Disabled people, people with mobility issues, people who genuinely cannot use a standard porto safely. When those bathrooms go down, there's no backup plan.
One moment I won't forget: standing in the men's room, hearing someone in one stall say "damn, no water," and someone in the next stall go "no worries man, the turd will still drop… eventually." I laughed. But also, yeah. That was where we were at.
The cigarette smoke was everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Cannabis is banned at LiB, but I couldn't find anything clearly prohibiting cigarettes, so I want to be clear this isn't about blaming smokers. People were operating in a policy vacuum. That's what happens when there's no policy. Nobody stopping it in family camp either, people ripping bongs and smoking cigarettes all day and night with kids right there. The result was that there was no smoke-free option on the entire grounds. Not VIP, not the ADA seating at the back of stages, not family camp, nowhere. For people with asthma, respiratory conditions, sensory issues, migraines, smoke isn't just annoying. It shuts the space down entirely. If you needed cleaner air, you were just out of luck.
We got COVID after the festival. We masked, and we tried to be consistent about it. But when every space was filled with cigarette smoke, there were moments I had to pull it down just to breathe something that didn't burn. I'm not saying smoke gave us COVID. I'm saying that when the only spaces available for resting are also full of smoke, masking consistently becomes a lot harder for people who are actually trying to protect themselves and others.
FYI for anyone just getting home: if you're feeling off, keep testing even if you're coming up negative. I got home Monday and didn't test positive until Saturday. It took five days to show up. So don't assume you're in the clear after one or two negative tests.
And from what others in the community are reporting, VIP+ wasn't much better. Staff reportedly didn't know what it was, key areas weren't set up properly, and everyone shared the same bathrooms regardless of which tier they paid for. More money, same problems.
I've been coming to LiB long enough to know that some chaos is part of it, and I'm not expecting a luxury resort. I love this festival genuinely. The music, the art, the people, there's nothing else like it. But this isn't really about VIP perks. It's about whether disabled people have a viable option at all. And this year there was no good option at any price point.
Bathrooms that are actually maintained through the night, not just at the start of the evening. A cigarette policy that applies everywhere, including family camp. ADA and VIP spaces that are functional from day one for the people who genuinely depend on them.
Leave no trace should mean something here too.
