Extremely hot and way too many people crammed into one place. I kept hearing from vets that "it never was this packed" and it made me sad because this would have been the most amazing festival if it had half the people like back in 2005.
The music and food were top notch though. The lines to get into things like the comedy club or cinema tent were about 5x as long as I expected them to be, but I had great experiences catching Jeff Ross and birdman with the live drumming.
The randomness of the volunteers checking bags at the centeroo entrance was really confusing and a bit insulting. The first day a girl looked into my bag, smiled, and told me to have a good time. The second day, this large guy with a thick southern accent tells me to stretch out my waistband all around, take off my shoes and kick them against the ground, take off my hat and shake it, turn my pockets out, shake my shirt, AND he starts frisking me after all of that bullshit. I guess homeboy was looking for free shit but damn that left a bad taste in my mouth; profiling at its very finest.
Overall, the vibes were decent, the shows were fantastic, (Kendrick, flylo, and d'angelo were killer) but the experience lacked basic amenities that I think a $300+ ticket should cover. I realize it's a shit ton of people crammed into one place, but they need to find more space because this festival seems to have outgrown its location. Moving around at night past 7 pm was insane, I honestly can't understand how people did acid/shrooms and stayed with their groups with the masses pushing through.
Also, the rampant line cutting with very little security supervision was infuriating, to be honest. Waited a few hours to get to the front of the Kendrick pit only to see a few stragglers from the Alabama Shakes pit stick around, pretending to just rest their backs on the gate but hopping it quickly when no one was looking. Same thing with the cinema tent/comedy club lines...lines backed up to the mushroom fountain in the scorching sun yet people would just sit in the shade next to the entrance right before it opened and stand up in line like they'd been waiting for hours.
I'd do it again, but it seems like this festival has outgrown its location and there are a ton of small improvements it can make. I realize I could alleviate a lot of my issues by going VIP, but I can't say I'm very tempted for the price. Sorry if my review came off as overly negative; I really did have a good time, there were just some things I didn't expect, for better or worse.