The super liberal festival a world away from the rest of Indiana

Someone proposed

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Indiana is a heavily religious state. Billboards proclaiming “Call 855-FOR-TRUTH!” litter the highway, while nearly every single restaurant was the same: heavily family oriented. Books and signs on Christianity cover the Cracker Barrel store, and “The Family Table” has a picture of the Last Supper as soon as you walked in. This means it’s a pretty strange state for one of the most liberal music festivals in the country.

Plan-It-X-Fest is a glorious celebration of life and the ability to survive through music, a multicultural, sexually liberal, freed nipple mess of music, politics, and vegan mayonnaise. The festival takes place in Indiana and hosts folk punk rock bands like The Wild and Ramshackle Glory.

Here’s everything that happened when I went with my boyfriend:

Not fitting in with my surroundings

We could go for miles in Indiana and see no one. The only time I saw a person of color was at Plan-It-X-Fest, and the majority of the audience was still white.

The weekend of Plan-It-X Fest was firmly in the 90’s. So like every music festival going attendee overwhelmed by the heat I didn’t wear that much. I either found myself in a crop top and short shorts or a cut out dress. When the heat got unbearable I found myself stripped down to yoga shorts and a bandeau bra. Outside of the music fest I was very different from everyone else. Uncomfortable looks from locals lingered just a little too long, and I didn’t fit in racially at all.

Nobody in the festival gave a fuck about anything

#moshpit #moshpits #planitxfest #planitxfest2016

A photo posted by Aaron Taslitz (@ataslitz) on Jul 27, 2016 at 3:51pm PDT

Plan-It-X Fest was like a different world from the rest of Indiana. I found myself surrounded by people with wild hair, tattoos, piercings, and everything in between. Both men and women were topless without a gawking crowd of men following them everywhere.

Gender was truly in the blender, and people dressed however they felt like it. It was one of the most accepting crowds I’ve ever encountered.

Politics was on the cards

Plan-It-X-Fest wasn’t just a music fest. It was a gathering of people focused on issues that impact the world today, interested in discussing feminism, queer liberation, racial justice, and so on. There was especially a large focus on the flaws with the American prison system about privatization, unlawful arrests, and marginalized communities.

There was discussion focused on trans people who were wrongly imprisoned. Groups like Ramshackle Glory would do announcements of solidarity at the beginning of their performances. People in the audience would all cheer collectively. It was a really caring audience.

There was a vegannaise (vegan mayonnaise) eating competition

One of the highlights of the last night was the vegannaise eating contest. Was it weird? Yes it was one of the strangest occurrences I’d ever witnessed. Watching a handful of people go at jars of vegannaise from a distance was unreal.

“Michael, Michael, Michael,” the small gaggle of friends next to me chanted. I spent the whole time wondering how do people train for this? How did Michael train for this? Why did Michael train for this? How do you not throw up? Is it any worse than a hot dog eating contest? It’s certainly more socially responsible.

Someone got proposed to

The happy couple

The major highlight of the night was one “anarcho-queer-punk-rock band,” Ramshackle Glory. This was their last performance before they’d break up. It was a massive gathering of love and music. During their performance a man and a woman climbed on stage. At first I assumed they were just two annoying crowd surfers. But the situation was much more different.

The man thanked the woman for going to every Plan-It-X-Fest with him and spending so many years with him. Before you knew it he got on his knee and proposed. The room filled with screams, cheers, laughter, and tears. It was extraordinarily special to witness such a beautiful moment at Ramshackle Glory’s last performance.

As Ramshackle Glory said, “We do not endorse or reject the institution of marriage but we wish you the best.”

 Everyone left one big Plan-It-X-Fest family

The last night just made people want more. As cliched as it sounds, strangers became family. Although it’s over for now, hopefully Plan-It-X-Fest will be around for many more years.