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Audience at Firefly (Photo by Theo Wargo, Getty Images)
The second annual Firefly Music Festival grew impressively this year, spreading its wings in The Woodlands, located behind the Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. Located roughly 100 miles from Washington, DC, Firefly is poised to become the biggest east coast festival of all next year.
I attended the Coachella Valley Music Festival for the first time this year as well in April, and I can attest the grounds for the three-day Firefly are even larger and more diverse than the grounds for Coachella. Via The Woodlands, Firefly offers four large stages; several wooded entertainment areas for hammocks, films and dancing; and huge tracts of land where businesses like the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery literally can build a barn and run half a dozen beer bars inside.
The festival itself was orderly and well run but at the same time the atmosphere seemed a lot more rock and roll than the manicured polo lawns of Coachella. About 30,000 people attended Firefly in its first year and festival organizers were calling for twice as many this year.