Since Electric Forest draws more than 30,000 attendees — and everyone here is already hugging each other already — the organizers roped off a giant field at the Sherwood Court stage and employed a large staff to shepherd people through, not to mention videotape this potentially historic moment. To make it extra super official, two auditors from a Grand Rapids CPA firm called Baker Holtz oversaw things. (Fancy!)
Folks first started streaming in at 2:30 on Friday afternoon, and the cause seemed to have momentum. The line went on and on. Once inside, people sat down and were entertained by Lafa Taylor, a rapper and producer who has collaborated with Bassnectar. He brought his A-game. He played Phish, performed his own stuff and told jokes ("Hug life!" "I don't Hate U, 'G, I just want to H-U-G" ) with only a few misfires. ("No
An hour later, at 3:30, Taylor had another announcement: Attendance had reached 3,000. Great news, right? No, wait, this was terrible. They were less of one-third of the way there. "What?" said one of the videographers.
At this point, many of the more mathematically-inclined festival-goers in attendance began streaming out. Others who had grown tired of sitting in a shadeless field soon followed. Before long there were more going out than coming in. It quickly became obvious that no world record would be broken.
But, in the spirit of the festival, Taylor did not harsh anyone's mellow by announcing this. He went ahead and told everyone to have the big hug anyway. And so, the large-but-not-historically-large-crowd stood in lines, interlocked arms, and hugged so tightly that they bent over. It was a pretty sweet little moment.
And then everyone was dismissed. Most were none the wiser that, when it comes to group hugs, Canadians totally kick our ass.
