In a few weeks’ time the Laneway Festival will reach our shores again. Well, not really our shores, more like Singapore’s. But it’ll feel like our shores if last year’s festival was any indication, what with Indonesians travelling in droves to attend and see all those cool bands. Felt like any other gig in Jakarta with many familiar faces, except there were a lot more people speaking in Singlish around us.

And it looks like I’m going back to Fort Canning Park for this year’s festival, like many others. And maybe there’ll be quite a lot of newbies, too. With that in mind, I guess now would be a good time - since last year’s festival was exactly one year ago today - to share some tips on how to get the best out of your Laneway experience. I won’t bother with basic stuff like telling you how to get to Fort Canning, whether or not you should use a local number for your mobile, or that you should conserve your phone battery’s energy. If you’re adult enough to fly to Singapore for a gig, you should be able to figure that stuff out on your own.

1. Know the schedule

There will be 14 acts at this year’s Laneway Festival Singapore, five more than last year’s. But the festival duration is more or less the same, so towards that end, this time around they’re using two stages instead of just one like last year, and those stages will be side by side with only 10 minutes of changeover time between each stage. So as soon as one act finishes their set on one stage, the following act will be ready to go on the other stage, and the audience goes back and forth.

With that in mind, have a look at the schedule below:

STAGE ONE

01:50 pm - 02:20 pm Cults

03:15 pm - 03:55 pm Chairlift

04:45 pm - 05:25 pm Girls

06:15 pm - 07:00 pm Anna Calvi

07:50 pm - 08:35 pm Laura Marling

09:30 pm - 10:15 pm Toro Y Moi

11:15 pm - 12:00 am The Horrors

STAGE TWO

02:30 pm - 03:10 pm Yuck

04:00 pm - 04:40 pm Austra

05:25 pm - 06:10 pm The Drums

07:05 pm - 07:45 pm Twin Shadow

08:40 pm - 09:25 pm The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

10:20 pm - 11:10 pm Feist

12:05 am - 12:55 am M83 

The festival will start with Cults on Stage One at 13:50, then it’s Yuck on Stage Two at 14:30, then back to Stage One for Chairlift at 15:15, and so on until M83 closes the event.

2. Know what you want to see

If you’re only interested in seeing one or two bands, take note of their stage and time so you don’t miss out, and then you can do whatever you want before and after they perform. Stick around to see the other bands, go and get wasted, or even leave the festival and go somewhere else. I recommend getting to Fort Canning an hour before your favourite band plays, so you’ll have time to get through the queue, check out the merchandise stand if you want, then find a good spot to watch the bands.

Personally, the band I wanted to see the most last year was Warpaint, and it turns out they were the first act onstage. To cut down on costs, I decided I would arrive on the morning of the festival and return to Jakarta the next morning. This meant that while I was in Singapore I did not have any time for any activities other than the festival. So I travelled light, arrived at Changi around 10 am, took the MRT to Bugis because I wanted to visit this comic book shop at Bugis Junction, then took the MRT to Somerset because I wanted to stop by and check out CDs at HMV, then walked over to Plaza Singapura because I was craving Subway (the sandwich chain not the MRT system, though that’s pretty nice too), then walked to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station to meet up with friends on the way to Fort Canning, and got there with plenty of time to spare.

Some other friends of mine took a later flight, spent too much time getting lunch, and - to their eternal regret - ended up missing out on seeing Jenny Lee Lindberg play bass while wearing short denim shorts.

3. Know the weather

Though the ladies of Warpaint looked like they’re dressed for summer and the sky seemed clear, I assure you that was literally the calm before the storm. In fact, it was already raining before the festival started. And if you think you can handle a little rain, here are two things to consider:

1. It’s an outdoor festival that lasts all day.

2. The festival takes place on a hill. With grass. And mud. Add rain, and that becomes a lot of mud.

(Photo from Deathrockstar.)

Needless to say, Laneway ended up like your typical muddy festival, which was a quite amusing sight, given Singapore’s reputation for cleanliness. While I was aware of how it might be - because Jakarta and Singapore’s weather is similar, and a friend who lived there confirmed it had been raining - and had packed accordingly (hat, rain jacket, boots), it ended up raining all day with varying intensity. So no one left there dry, not even with the free rain ponchos they handed out.

With that in mind, my advice is get prepared for a soaking. No need to dress too fancily, as you’ll be covered in rain and mud anyway. And grab those free rain ponchos, because they will be very useful even if they make you look like a giant walking plastic bag. If it doesn’t rain, consider that a bonus. If it does, I’d rather be dressed up as a cumbersome twat that stays dry instead of some wet fancy pants.

4. Let’s do lunch elsewhere

I recommend eating a decent meal before you get to Fort Canning Park, no matter what time you go there. Yes, there will be food and beverage stalls at the festival, and the chicken wings I had last year were pretty good, but obviously your choices will be limited and not necessarily as affordable as eating elsewhere. Besides that, it’ll be a 5-10 minute walk to the nearest restaurant, and it’s not as if they’ll have nasi goreng hawkers hanging out by the entrance. This isn’t Tennis Indoor Senayan. So my advice is get a good meal before you get to the festival so you’ll have enough energy while you’re there, and if you feel hungry later on you can get something from the F&B stalls to keep you going.

5. The early bird and full wallet gets the merchandise

It’s highly unlikely that there won’t be a merchandise stall at Laneway, so you’ll have plenty of options to spend your excess money on, at around SGD 35-40 per t-shirt. Again, I recommend getting there early so you don’t miss out on stuff you might want to buy. The merchandise stall was crowded when I first arrived last year, so I decided to go see Warpaint first, then come back later. When I got there, all the Warpaint t-shirts had sold out except for two, and those weren’t even in my size.

Having said that, if you get there early and don’t find what you want, come back later. Going back to my aborted attempt at buying a Warpaint t-shirt, while I was considering buying something for the sake of having it despite how ill-fitting it might have turned out, a young man arrived at the merchandise stall with a box. Turns out the Beach House t-shirts had just arrived, and since they were the other band I was really looking forward to, I ended up buying that instead. So keep checking back, and if you can’t find your favourite artist’s merch at all, then they probably didn’t bring any.

6. Meet the bands

I don’t how much the new set-up will affect things , but last year it was pretty easy to meet the bands even if you didn’t win a meet-and-greet contest. (If you want to try and win a meet-and-greet spot, join the Laneway Festival Singapore Facebook page. Make sure you’ve already bought a ticket.) If you walked to the rear left side of the stage, you could see the backstage area, with bands going back and forth to their dressing rooms and catering. And if you were lucky, they would come over if you called. That’s how I got to meet Jenny Lee Lindberg, the aforementioned Warpaint bassist and wearer of short denim shorts. She was walking backstage, me and some fellow fans called her over, she walked towards us, and she gave me a hug even though she had every right to be creeped out. Especially with my face being as fat as that.

The best time to try this would be just before or after they perform, because obviously that’s when they’ll be there. Which isn’t to say they won’t wander around the festival ground, but unless you want to stick by the beer tent hoping that your favourite band will drop by - even though they have their own beer backstage - the previous option is probably better.

So give it a go, if you want. If they’re not busy or in a hurry, or the rain’s not pissing down, there’s a good chance they’ll come over and say hello, and you’ll have something to tweet about on your Instagram or whatever you crazy kids are into these days.

7. Don’t be an asshole

Unless you’re a weirdo with no friends who just really loves watching bands, chances are you’ll be going to Laneway with your mates. And there really isn’t much better fun than being with your best friends and watching some great bands. Having said that, always remember that you’re not the only ones there to enjoy yourselves. People paid good money to see the bands play, not to see you acting like a douchbag. Actually this is a universal rule for concerts everywhere, and even life in general.

8. How the hell do I get home?

Depending on the destination, the last train home will be between 22:48 and 0:11, according to the Dhoby Ghaut train schedule. So if everything runs on time, you won’t be able to take the MRT if you stay until the end of the festival. If you find taxis waiting near the Fort Canning entrance, they’re there because they’ve already been booked by phone. Booking is quite easy, as long as you have a working phone. Comfort and SMRT taxis even have their own smartphone apps for it. If you don’t book your own, you’ll have to walk down the hill and find a taxi stand, or hope a passing one will stop for you. Good luck with that, soggy pants.

And that’s all I can think of right now. Note that these tips are entirely subjective based on my own experience at the festival last year, so if you want to dress up, get drenched and act like an asshole, go right ahead. I’ll be keeping dry by looking like a giant plastic bag, while taking photos. See you at Laneway!