Disco Biscuits and Beats

Backstage at Camp Bisco, the drug-fueled bacchanal that is also one of New York State's largest outdoor music festivals.

Illustrations by Sara Lautman

While stumbling through the Craigslist “volunteer” section, in-between posts about ailing Army veterans needing kidneys and universities recruiting medical research subjects, I came across an ad that read:

“We are looking for volunteers to trade some hard work for an experience they'll never forget.”

It sought volunteers to work the gate at Camp Bisco, Upstate New York’s largest outdoor music festival. In 2011, organizers sold all twenty-five thousand tickets, and some festival-goers waited in their cars for over nine hours to get in. For sixteen hours of volunteer labor, my ticket would be free. I’d never been to a music festival before and being a tightwad motherfucker, was enticed by the opportunity to see what Bisco was all about on the cheap. If nothing else, I figured I could use the opportunity to hone my camping skills, which sadly remain terrible.

Held on privately owned farmland in upstate New York for each of the past six years, Camp Bisco was lau…