Please don't do this without her permission, I will take your arm off and many other women will as well. Nothing wrong with the actual action but please get permission first. But respect for my space is going to gain you a lot more points.

I don't mean to be rude but part of courting someone is taking the risk to fail, I tried to make this as respectful as possible without offending someone. However the very art of talking to a stranger is intrusive. Putting your arm around someone is about the friendliest way to escalate, it's super non-invasive, especially after you've met someone at a rave. I do this to guys all the time, if someone takes my arm off I'll just back off and apologize.

Seriously all guys have to do is be our friends, get in on the atmosphere and have fun in the vibe of the party but touching us without our permission or obvious body language that it's ok is a bad idea and I will walk away from you.

"All guys have to do is be our friends", this is so off base, men have the burden of approaching, that puts an entire other level to our interactions with the opposite sex. Making friends is an awful way to court a woman, it's super deceptive and eventually plots to take advantage and most likely compromise the friendship.

Also most of the time I am dancing likely on my own and have no intentions of hooking up, I there for fun and not to hook up.

Hooking up is my last goal, having fun and spreading good vibes first and foremost is my goal. However, if I see a gorgeous woman, I feel obligated to talk to her as I don't see very many women that I find attractive

I don't want to rustle feathers but a lot this advice will not be successful and no I am not just talking for myself I am talking about a lot of women will not find these approaches ok. And finally, not all women at festivals are single and won't appreciate the close approach regardless of well you know them.

I believe your advice would be to not talk to women at all at festivals/raves, and that's an understandable standpoint. People will still talk to women though, so I'd rather they go about it as respectfully as possible.

It's so weird even responding to something like this because as a woman you don't have the burden of approach. You have no idea what it's like to be 'expected' to penetrate somebody's personal space to get to know them better.