Festival Report: Overheard at the Great GoogaMooga

By Jacqueline Wasilczyk

We already gave you the rundown of how it went this weekend, but below you'll find what we heard straight from visitors of the festival. Everything from the excited "OMG, I saw April Bloomfield at my hotel earlier today!" to the annoyed "I flew out from California for this?" - we'd like to think we got a good sampling of what people had to say when they thought no one was listening.

The event was quite a trek into the park, and many Manhattanites seemed confused once they got off the train. We heard more than one lost LES hipster ask, "Is this Prospect Park?" to nearby pedestrians. Really...the huge field of grass and crowds didn't give it away?

Meanwhile, volunteers were perplexed about the hype surrounding the bike valet. "It's like they've never seen a bike before," one person said while a festival-goer was snapping a shot. Sorry, everywhere else besides BK, people are behind the times. Car valets - so 2010.

And while revelers who came early were in high spirits, drunk off the sun, the biggest topic of discussion on Saturday seemed to be the waits.

"There's nothing but lines here, it makes me anxious. Get me in line for a klonopin" pleaded one journalist who's not used to waiting 40-plus minutes for a morsel of food.

Expectedly, more than one Hunger Games reference was made, and regular taunts haunted people in the Umami Burger line. "Could it be true that there are 'No more burgers,' or was that dude just kidding?" someone desperately wanted to know. Sure enough, an announcement was made 10 minutes later that they'd be out until two hours later at 5:30 PM. Heartbreak.

The saddest exchange we witnessed though was outside the ExtraMooga Spiegeltent, when someone was denied entrance to the bacon and beer tasting. "I paid $250 for this and all I got was a beer," complained one patron, greeted by nothing but laughter from the security guard.

It was harsh, but the second day went much smoother. "I think there's some really cool band playing at 6 PM" one trendy twentysomething said. Great GoogaMooga - establishing Hall & Oates as a fixture for Generation Y. Not a bad thing in our opinion. Who's up next for 2013, Foreigner?!