MUSIC

Raving Sober: Remembering Last Night in the Morning

By JOE COSCARELLI
Grace McClellan at her home in Cookeville, Tenn. She assists in organizing sober tents, spaces and camping areas at music festivals including the Governors Ball in New York and Bonnaroo in Tennessee. Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times 
When Grace McClellan attends two music festivals — Governors Ball in New York and Bonnaroo in Tennessee — this month, she will be among friends who feel more like family. Their shared bond, along with a love of live music: They’re all sober.
Ms. McClellan, 31, first stopped using drugs and alcohol three years ago, and she knew then that it was a risk to attend Bonnaroo, which, like many festivals, is known for its hedonism. But the festival had been her tradition for nearly a decade, and after only 30 days in recovery, she went with her old crew of drinking buddies. “I didn’t want to feel like I couldn’t still have fun,” she said.
Yet as night fell that first evening of Bonnaroo at the festival’s sprawling farm in Manchester, Tenn., she was overcome with memories of previous visits. After only a few hours, she said, “I was going to have a drink.”
But Ms. McClellan found a lifeline: She had heard from friends about a group of festival-goers, known as Soberoo, who were in recovery and part of an onsite sobriety support system. She made a few calls in hopes of finding them.
Patrick Whelan, the organizer and founder of Soberoo, in Louisville, Ky.Luke Sharrett for The New York Times 
“Out of 100,000 people, they just happened to be 50 feet from where I was,” she recalled. “I’m not a real religious person, but at that moment, it felt like God.”
She spent the rest of the weekend at Soberoo and has returned to its tent each year. Last summer, Ms. McClellan even drove 13 hours to New York from her home in Tennessee to volunteer for the inaugural Sober Ball, the clean outpost at Governors Ball. On Friday, she’ll return to that New York festival on Randalls Island; then it’s back to Bonnaroo for performances by the likes of Billy Joel and Deadmau5. “Now I actually remember what I’m seeing,” she said.
As summer festivals continue to expand — and as promoters fight the perception that their gatherings are drug-fueled free-for-alls, punctuated by overdoses and even deaths — the presence of volunteer sober groups is spreading. Transcending genre and geography, similar support communities are expected this year at more than a dozen festivals, including Lollapalooza (July 31- Aug. 2 in Chicago), Outside Lands (Aug. 7-9 in San Francisco) and even the more youthful electronic music parties like Electric Daisy Carnival (June 19-21 in Las Vegas) and Nocturnal Wonderland (Labor Day weekend in San Bernardino, Calif.).
“You can see the growth,” said Patrick Whelan, 49, a point person for the volunteers at events across the country. He uses a handful of Facebook groups to organize. “We couldn’t have imagined it 10 years ago,” he said. “We’ve gone from one or two festivals to 10 or 12 — and social media has driven that.”
Festival promoters provide space, equipment and marketing for the groups, which, along with beefed up security and medical personnel, help the festivals demonstrate accountability. Such concerns became more of a promoter’s imperative after a handful of festival tragedies led to waves of bad press, especially for electronic dance music, or E.D.M. In 2010, a 15-year-old girl died of a drug overdose after attending Electric Daisy Carnival in Los Angeles; there were two drug-related deaths at New York’s Electric Zoo in 2013; and two more stemming from Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas the next year.
Tom Russell, a former Bonnaroo promoter who went on to start Founders Entertainment, which produces Governors Ball, acknowledged the need to find a space for tamer music fans. “A lot of promoters know that folks like to have a good time at festivals and they want to balance that with areas that promote a sober experience,” he said. “People are going to do what they want to do, but I want to create a safe environment.”
The sober music scene, which is not affiliated with any particular 12-step program, stems in large part from a group of Grateful Dead fans who banded together in the 1980s to avoid their old vices while still enjoying the music. Known as the Wharf Rats, after a Dead song about a down and out wino, they came to use yellow balloons as a beacon at concerts, a symbol that persists among sober groups today.
Soberoo volunteer Chris Owens, right, lifts A.J. Hirsch, 3, into the air during an organizational meeting at Highland Coffee Company in Louisville, Ky. Luke Sharrett for The New York Times 
So-called yellow balloon communities proliferated among other jam bands — Phish has the Phellowship, Widespread Panic has the Gateway — and culminated unofficially at Bonnaroo, which started in 2002. By 2008, Bonnaroo’s promoters noticed the grassroots movement and gave Soberoo dedicated real estate, where volunteers staff an information table and now host three or four daily meetings throughout the weekend. Attendance at the scheduled gatherings can range from a handful of regulars to more than 150 people.
“The festivals certainly take advantage of the benefits we provide,” Mr. Whelan said. “We’re doing a good thing, bringing positive energy that all these festivals embrace. They sell tickets as a result of the goodwill.” He is now working to incorporate a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, called Harmonium, as an umbrella organization for the festival groups.
Patt Ochoa, a sober veteran of both jam band shows and raves, said “momentum is starting to pick up” within E.D.M., as well. In 2013, Mr. Ochoa, inspired by what he saw at Bonnaroo, approached Pasquale Rotella of Insomniac Events, the company behind Electric Daisy Carnival, with the idea of bringing clean tents to the world of dance music. Called Consciousness Group, they made their Electric Daisy debut in Las Vegas last year.
The reliance on an all-volunteer system, however, can be imperfect: A lack of staff, despite the fact that volunteering to work the table often means free festival admission, left Electric Daisy’s New York show last month without an official sober presence.
Mr. Ochoa recalled a visit to the Las Vegas tent last year by a man whose support group at home had told him not to attend the weekend rave “because he was going to end up getting high.” When the man found Consciousness Group, “he started crying,” Mr. Ochoa said. “His words were, ‘I’ve found my people.’ ”
At Governors Ball last year, Chelsea, 20, who asked that her last name not be used because she is seeking employment, said she felt a similar kinship. Starting at age 12, she had been partying at concerts, eventually using cocaine, Ecstasy, marijuana and alcohol to enhance the experience. “Especially with electronic music — I would use more,” she said. “I would run out of drugs an hour in and then spend the rest of the show looking for a dealer instead of enjoying the music.”
“When I first got into recovery, I thought my life was over,” she continued. “How could I ever go to a rave or a festival? I would watch the livestreams of Ultra” — another E.D.M. event — “in my room, and I thought that was the closest I was going to get.”
Sober Ball was a revelation. “I thought I was going to be the youngest person there, around a bunch of Deadhead-type people, but there were so many kids my age,” she said. “I was blown away.”
She even showed her skeptical younger brother the joys of dancing while clean. “People were looking at us like, ‘What are they on?’” she said. “But we were completely sober.”