^ yeah, some of the best trips i've ever had (or most memorable at least - good music played really loud on enormous sound systems is so good on acid, but it's a matter of having to put up and deal with a whole lot of awkward crap just to experience that sensory-overdriven bliss - things like dealing with drunks, and public toilets can be disorienting and unpleasant.
i remember tripping really hard at this festival with lots of great bands, but lining up to pee and finding myself with liike a dozen other dudes, all peeing into this big trough.
it was creepy and awkward and i didn't quite know how to conduct myself in a nnormal way - and i was a really experienced tripper by this point.
if someone's never tripped before,i think a festival is just too much to deal with.
i find things like paying for food (just the concept of exchanging money for goods or services) really confusing on acid.
i lose a lot of my basic day-to-day functioning skills, which are temporarily replaced by a totally different outlook on the world.
it's best to explore those sorts of states in a controlled environment, without interacting with strangers, avoiding danger, and remembering to look after yourself.
just things like staying hydrated or remembering to take steps not to get suburn/heat stroke become too much at times (especiallt for first timers!) so being at a festival runs a risk that something bad could happen to you.
which would suck anyway (falling down into a ditch, losing your wallet or getting super sunburned) but would be extra hellish on the tail end of an acid trip. it's too easy to 'lose your shit' literally and figuratively. then you run the risk of panic - and there you have a bad trip.
if you've never tripped before, i think you need to test your reaction to the drug before you take it into a public place.
i'm pretty good at holding it together no matter how affected i am by psychedelics - but i have had experiences like running into a woman i worked with who was about twice my age, and i got really paranoid i'd have to talk to her, so my friend and i bailed out of that gig as soon as it was over so we wouldn't run into her (my friend worked with her too).
we left the venue and found somewhere quiet to sit and talk (not that either of us could really string a sentence together!) - not realising that we'd sat in a spot where a group of homeless people were congregating and drinking or sleeping or doing whatever they were doing - and we suddenly felt really confused and out of our depth, out of place.
we went back into the place where the gig had been, which was open til the wee hours for people to hang out and dance and drink and whatnot - it was a really cool outdoor 'pop-up' venue down by the river on a warm summer evening. it later transpired that the work colleague we saw was really cool (of course she was, it was a yo la tengo show) and i ended up telling her years later about the night we were tripping and saw her, but freaked out and bailed.
it was all fine in the end - but i'd been taking acid in all sorts of different environments for like 10 years by this point.
if i was a first-timer i may have panicked about not having a safe refuge to go hide in (we ended up walking back to my apartment that night, but even doing that would have been super challenging on a saturday night in the city with the streets full of drunk people having a night out (i find drunk people really hard to handle - or just super irritating - on psychedelics).
when i was way younger, i dropped acid with a bunch of friends in a club, and some of the group hadn't tripped before.
even in that environment - a small nightclub we all were familiar with, because we went there most weekends) one of the people got totally overwhelmed and had to leave.
i know lots of trippers who refuse to leave the house on psychs, whereas i love going to festivals with a head full of acid!
it's still challenging though, even though i've done that a lot. it's not recommended for a first trip.
i'd recommend sitting with a close friend or two in a comfortable room with minimal distractions (like random people showing up that you have to 'act straight' around) with some music, and maybe some fruit to nibble on (to enjoy the heightened sensory perception).
that's all you need. much more stimulation than that can sometimes be hard to deal with.
hell, even crossing the street can be difficult. i was walking back from another gig in the same outdoor concert venue i mention above ^ -and i managed to get lost on my own street, in a part of it i'd literally walked down hundreds of times.
i had no idea where i was - on a street i'd lived on for something like 5 years.
i love tripping, but i learned that you really have to respect psychedelics. they can really do a number on you if you're too blasé about where, when and how much you take. and who you do it with, of course.