This past weekend, I attended my fourth consecutive year of the world-renowned music festival Lollapalooza.

Located in Chicago's Grant Park, Lollapalooza is always a very fun weekend full of fun and great music. However, unlike the previous three years I attended Lollapalooza, I had decided to go for all four days of the festival instead of one or two days, which I had done in previous years because I finally had enough money to attend every day of the festival. And yes, I had a blast at Lollapalooza again.

The biggest highlights for me this past weekend included catching up with some of my old friends and football teammates from high school, as well as camping out on Friday and Saturday to see the biggest headliners of that evening from as close as possible, Bruno Mars and The Weeknd. Despite having fun with my friends and my near front row views of two headliners, it was not worth buying a pass for all four days.

Next year, I am planning on going for at a maximum one day of the festival, and some of my experiences from this past weekend may make you understand my reason why I will only go for one day of the festival next August.

It is expensive to buy a 4-day pass.

My Lollapalooza ticket confirmation page printed out from last March on the day four tickets went on sale.

This is one of the most obvious reasons why I will not be in attendance for all four days of Lollapalooza next year. The pricing of a 4-day wristband can be quite a burden on your bank account. Yes, it only costs around $335 to get a wristband valid for all four days on the festival's website. But, keep in mind you do have to pay a sales tax on top of the price tag of the wristband. And if you are someone who enjoys going to concerts and music festivals like me, you will also want to buy yourself a poster along with your wristband order so you can have memories of the unforgettable weekend there with you in dorm rooms, apartments, and even future houses for many years to come. Then, you will need to spend an extra $20-$30 on train tickets, or put up a lot more of your money to get a hotel room near Grant Park. On top of all of that, you need extra money to buy food from the food stands inside of the festival each day to keep yourself out of hunger. So while the price tag says $335 or something near that, the whole four days can cost you around $500 total, or if you get a hotel room that is at any one of the hotels within a reasonable walking distance from Grant Park, that will cost you maybe a couple hundred more dollars because all of those hotels near Grant Park will jack up their nightly room prices that weekend. So in the long run, it really isn't worth spending $500 or more to go all four days to the festival, which you may understand more when you read the additional reasons below.

The events that happen at the festival get repetitive

A picture of me and the huge crowd behind me at the performance of Tyler, The Creator, at Lollapalooza on Friday, August 3rd, 2018

As for me, I go to Lollapalooza and meet up with people from my hometown in the North Suburbs of Chicago each day. What happens with me and the people who are from my hometown is that we will all meet up at Perry's Stage, and usually stay there until about 6-7:00, which is just before when the big headliners of the evening start playing. But the fact is that Perry's Stage is just a place where a bunch of DJs play, and no real musicians. While Perry's Stage is a fun atmosphere with all of the people around you having fun and getting crazy with mosh pits and everything, it gets old after two or three days and you start to think to yourself that why are you paying so much money to see a bunch of DJs that you may never have heard of before instead of real musicians? I'm not saying that these DJs do a bad job with entertaining the audience or anything, but the atmosphere that the DJs at Perry's Stage create can be recreated easily at any popular bar in a college town, or at a tailgate for a football game, where you only have to pay $5, $10, maybe even $20, or if there's no cover at the bar or tailgate that day, nothing and still experience the same atmosphere over at a college bar as you would at Perry's Stage. And yes, the entertainment part of Perry's Stage did slip away on the fourth day because for me, it felt so repetitive knowing that I would be going to Perry's Stage, and the exact same thing would happen with the crowd in that area no matter what song the DJ was playing.

Not a lot of people that I know went to Lollapalooza this year

Me and my friend Alex, pictured at Day Four of Lollapalooza, Sunday, August 5th, 2018

One of Lollapalooza's biggest target audiences and festival goers are high school and college students from nearly every Chicago suburb. I graduated high school in 2016, and I found out that once you get to be 2 or 3 years removed from high school, Lollapalooza attendance amongst kids in your high school class does generally start to decline. Yes, I still met up with people from my high school class, and even a few from the class of 2015. But the bottom line is that the further you are removed from high school, the fewer people you know that go to Lollapalooza. This fact hurts festival goers like me who do not have a truly set group of friends to go with, and just meet up with a bunch of high school friends because many of the older college students just stop going to Lollapalooza.

I was tempted to try and sell my wristband the Monday before the festival started

A view while walking into Chicago's Grant Park for Lollapalooza Day One, Thursday, August 2nd, 2018

If you came from a large high school in the Chicago Suburbs like me, chances are you will have a big social network connected to a lot of people from high school. What happens throughout the month of July is that there will always be people in your network from high school that post to their Snapchat and/or Instagram stories that they are looking to either buy or sell their Lollapalooza wristbands. While I have seen people I know place their four day wristbands on sale or call out for somebody selling a wristband through their social media posts all four years I have been going, there was just something different about this year. First off, I believe I saw a lot more people trying to sell their four day wristbands this year than the previous three years. And on top of that, many of the people who I know that were looking to buy wristbands were only looking to purchase themselves a single-day wristband, instead of the one that is valid for all four days. In the three weeks leading up to the festival, I had seen several of those Snapchat and Instagram stories of people I know selling their four-days or looking to buy single days, and that had concerned me a little bit. I had a sense that maybe not a lot of people I had seen come to the festival in previous years would show up this year. So last Monday, with the start of Lollapalooza just three days away, I looked at my four day wristband sitting in one of my room drawers for a good minute and seriously started contemplating if I myself should post a picture of the wristband onto my Instagram and Snapchat stories marking it for sale. My thoughts were that I was not going to commit to selling it even if somebody did make me a good offer to buy my wristband, but I would try to put it out there on the market and see if somebody would give me at least $500 for the wristband, and then I would consider selling it. I ultimately decided not to attempt to sell my wristband due to my pride for the festival. While I had a blast hanging out with people I knew in attendance, and really enjoyed a close-up view of Bruno Mars and The Weeknd, I wish I would have at least given other people a chance to buy it from me so I didn't lose so much money on an underwhelming but at the same time exciting weekend.

The Lineup Was Lackluster Compared To The Previous 3 Years

A view from behind me in the near front row while waiting for a headliner at Lollapalooza

The first year I went to Lollapalooza in 2015, I remember everybody I was talking to in the high school lunchroom was so hyped about the lineup on the day it was announced. That year, the Lollapalooza lineup included a lot of big name performers such as Florence & The Machine, A$AP Rocky, Of Monsters And Men, Kid Cudi, Twenty-One Pilots, and on top of that, music legends Paul McCartney and Metallica. Just by hearing how excited my peers felt about the lineup on the day of its release that day, I had to tell my parents at school that morning that I wanted them to get me one of the single-day passes remaining. Luckily, my parents were able to get me a pass for Sunday of that year, and while it sadly was not the day when Paul McCartney or Metallica was playing, my love for Lollapalooza started that day. A good deal of that was partially because the lineup for Sunday that year was beyond solid. And while I only went for two days of the festival in 2016 and 2017, both of those years featured another exceptional lineup. I expected this trend to continue in 2018. One thing that Lollapalooza does, which is genius on their part is that they do not release the lineup until the day after four day passes go on sale, and usually, sell out within hours. However, I could feel something fishy was up when I bought my four day pass, and there were still plenty of four day passes available for sale on Lollapalooza's website that evening. A new "addition" to the festival this year was a Lollapalooza fan page on Twitter, where an avid Lolla fan would scout out, and give out the chances that a big name band or performer would headline the festival about a month before the lineup was released. I figured people must've seen that page, and ultimately didn't like what they heard from this Lolla Speculation page because a few days had gone by, and four-day passes still were not sold out. The inability to sell out four day passes caused Loillapalooza to delay their lineup announcement for a little bit, and when it was finally revealed, my worst fear came true. The lineup just was not that great as any of the previous three years. Now don't get me wrong, I still think they picked a good lineup for this year, but it was nothing like I was hoping for. My hopes were set that either the Foo Fighters and/or Kendrick Lamar would be one of the headliners for this years festival. Unfortunately, neither of those were scheduled to headline, and I was a little disappointed with what I was getting. While speculation for the lineup for Lollapalooza 2019 could begin any day, I am not going to get my hopes up based off of personal favorites or whatever this Twitter page says in the months leading up to the festival, they will probably never match the same power they had in the lineups in previous years.

Getting Out Of Grant Park Is A Literal Nightmare

Thousands of people ahead of me try to exit Lollapalooza at Chicago's Grant Park on Saturday, August 4th, 2018

Yes, this is all a part of the Lollapalooza experience. If you stay for the whole night at Lollapalooza, you will inevitably get stuck in a huge crowd of people trying to exit Grant Park. And this is purely a nightmare because it can take over half an hour just to get from Grant Park to Union Station or to wherever else you are going after the festival. As for me, I had to wait until after midnight for my train just to leave Union Station as a result of me camping out at the stage. To walk out of Grant Park like a herd of cows like that for four straight days can definitely be burdensome because it gets so tiring to walk out of Grant Park with thousands of people in front of you every night of the festival.

One Day of Lollapalooza Is Good Enough

I take my picture with my custom made Iowa football jersey at Chicago's Grant Park, Saturday, August 4th, 2018

Yes, going to Lollapalooza for all four days can be really fun. But in the end of it all, just going to Lollapalooza for one day is all you really need. If you enjoy yourself for that one day you go to Lollapalooza, you will not look back at yourself feeling disappointed that you went to Lollapalooza for just one day instead of all four. Plus, I fought a bad cough and cold in the days following Lollapalooza. I knew exactly why I felt sick. And it was all due to me being closely surrounded by hundreds of people for many hours, and no way to get away from all of those people. When you camp out at one of the big stages at Lollapalooza, there are hundreds of other people camping out with you in tightly closed spaces. And because you will be leaning on all of these people, and getting pushed around by them for more than one day, there's a good chance you'll be fighting a cough and/or cold from all of the close physical contact you will make with random strangers. So in the end, it's fine to go just for one day of Lollapalooza.