In Photos: The inaugural WayHome Music Festival

As you probably heard from us and many others, the first ever WayHome music festival was by far a top summer music festival as they had promised, which attracted over 35,000 people from every province and territory as well as U.S. and other countries to see well-known headliners over the 3 day festivities such as Neil Young + Promise of the Real, Kendrick Lamar, Hozier, Alt-J and Sam Smith.

For a first effort and personally seeing it first hand camping on the new Burl’s Creek event grounds, the concensus is that it was very well organized and a lot of WayHome memories were made.

Even though I don’t have much camping experience except when I was younger, it was a breeze with plenty of spots for parking in the VIP area as well as shower passes and plenty of bathrooms and water. Bonus was the fact that the weather all 3 summer days was perfect with sunny blue skies and no worries about rain or mud.

My humble little tent with the new 2016 Acura ILX A-Spec

I got there pretty late in the afternoon – later than I had hoped for but somehow was still able to pitch the tent and see the whole Hozier show with a great unobstructed view from the barn in the VIP area.

Hozier

Check out my little handheld video of Hozier performing “Take Me to Church” taken with my smartphone.

Then not too long after we were treated to a 3 hour jam by Neil Young + Promise of the Real. It didn’t even feel like 3 hours and he showed no sign of slowing down even as I went back to my tent and could still clearly hear it all from the VIP camping area.

Also great was seeing familiar faces all weekend long.

Rock-it ladies!

The fact that it was well-run is not a surprise since it is run by RepublicLive and AC Entertainment, the people behind Bonnaroo (source).

The vibes were great all around as all I saw were smiles and people relaxing on the grounds taking in the music, sun and beautiful open space.

Giant beer pong at the Smirnoff House Party

And great news, you can already save the date for next year’s WayHome 2016 happening on the weekend of July 22, 23 and 24th. I highly recommend you stay tuned for the WayHome 2016 lineup and decide quickly if you’re going to go. If you do, you may want to consider if VIP, as I was asked before, is worth it to you and I would say it depends on how much you like the lineup.

Visit WayHome Music Festival at wayhome.com

Special thanks to Reebok and Acura for making the weekend extra special.

Photos by Nick Lee