Adorned in purple. Water in hand. Eyes active. Mind alert.
No talking to the media. No taking your phone out. No saying no to anyone who asks for help.
Some say the festival couldn't go on without us. Others say we save lives.
For us, we're just spreading our love for dance music by making sure festival attendees are happy, healthy, and hydrated.
It's more than a simple job; it's a culture.
We are Ground Control (GC).
A group of 300 some young and middle-aged adults walking around the venue of Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in search for those in need.
A team of Insomniac employees on the other side of the water station making sure headliners are drinking as much water as possible.
A family of ravers coming together in unity to ensure health and safety to all 150,000 participants.
At the end of the weekend, Ground Control is exhausted yet satisfied. Who knew saving lives could be so addictive?
A year or two ago, I looked into working and volunteering for music festivals. An Insomniac blog post on Ground Control showed up on my Google search results and immediately my interest was piqued.
Fast forward to February, where I randomly decided to email Ground Control and ask about requirement. Luckily, it was just starting up for EDC New York and EDC Las Vegas.
I told my best friend, a fellow EDC lover like myself, and we applied. After interviewing and waiting patiently, we received an email saying we were a part of the few hundred that were chosen out of thousands of applications.
The moment that truly changed everything.
Like I mentioned earlier, Ground Control employees are technically not supposed to talk to media. However, it's difficult when someone in Ground Control (me) is the media. But because I love the organization so greatly, I won't reveal our secrets.
First and foremost, it's important to know that GC is not volunteering, but it's actual employment. Each member is getting paid for their time.
We're all stone-cold sober for 14-hour shifts, and we get trained on information that will help each and every one of us potentially save lives.
There are perks to every job, sure, but helping people certainly outweighs any of those perks.
How Ground Control functions is through teams of three, chosen randomly by supervisors. There is a team leader and essential gadgets given out to help make medical calls and helping lost headliners that much easier.
Teams memorize the map of EDC in order to cover each section thoroughly. Ranging from information booths to port-a-potties, to hidden, dark places, the grounds of EDC do not go untouched.
Throughout the shift, teams go from various areas, switching between scouting the grounds to working the free water stations.
At 6am, the shift is over with, and the guardian angels of EDC retreat to their hotel rooms to get a few hours of sleep before waking up and heading back to the speedway to do it all over again.
As for my personal takeaway from the weekend, I've never experienced something more rewarding in my life.
First, I'm thankful to have met unique, and amazing coworkers from all over. It's refreshing to unite with so many different souls who all have the same vision and goals on the weekend.
In regards to fight-or-flight situations, I've always found myself one to freeze, and then fly once my brain realized what was going on. So for me, Ground Control was going to be a welcomed challenge.
In those times when we needed to fight and take charge, I was fully capable of doing so, proving I am stronger than I've ever expected.
Being a Ground Controller completely changes your perspective, too. I'm not sure how I'm ever supposed to attend an event without working it in the future. Even on Sunday, my day off, I was still in GC mode, looking out for anyone who might be in need.
While working water stations, you meet beautiful souls from all over the world. Left and right, people are thanking you for saving their lives and throwing kandi around your wrists and necks.
The gratitude doesn't go unnoticed, and being showered with love like that is indescribable. For me, I'm grateful for this experience because of my chance to look into the eyes of all of these humans.
Massive, dilated pupils. Some were wide-eyed, frantically moving. Others were pinholed as if they were staring straight into the sun.
The eyes of headliners changed me the most.
The appeal of drugs is always there for headliners, but seeing so many eyes with various shapes and sizes, going through various chemical imbalances is enough to make you want to cut out any kind of drug or vice, even if it's beer or a prescription.
Looking after 150,000 souls each night alters your state of mind, alters your thinking, alters your opinion. It's hard for me to fathom not taking care of yourself through proper procedures, such as food, water, and rest.
So when I hear we lost a headliner last Wednesday from dehydration, exhaustion, and heatstroke, it simply breaks my heart. One death is too many, and now the question remains, "what could we have done?"
In reality, there's not too much else we could've done. It just means there is always room for improvement.
While wrapping this piece up, I wish for two things: that I won't get in trouble by Ground Control for writing and publishing this, and that I get selected for this job again and again.
As I sit here fighting off bronchitis and caffeine withdrawals from last weekend, I can't help but reflect on how much I needed EDC last weekend.
I may have only slept 13 hours for three days, but it's worth every penny, every drop of sweat, and every second of sleep lost.
