How to Talk to Your Parents About Rave Families

Picture this: The ticket on-sale date for Beyond Wonderland has just been announced. You reach for your phone and open the group text. Who’s in it? Your rave family, of course.

Like, your parents? You might ask. Your siblings? Your kids?

“Your rave family is more than that awesome group of people you see your favorite DJs and producers with… and you actually get to choose this family.”

No, not quite. Your rave family isn’t your real family (though they totally could be—and if you do rave with your real family, then your family is probably really frickin’ cool). Your rave family is that collection of fellow music lovers that you roll deep with to every event. It’s the people with whom you bemoan set time conflicts, make carpool plans and totems and kandi, and agree on meetup spots. They’re the people next to you when you hear the one drop you’ve been waiting for all night long.

Once a rave family comes together, everyone tends to settle into a role. There’s the rave mom personality—you know, the friend that carries the backpack, a chilled bottle of water, and three different types of gum.

Then there’s the scheduler, who knows the set times backward and forward, reminding everyone when and where they need to be, because “we have only 20 minutes to get a good spot for Flume/Porter/Galantis/whomever.” There’s the friend that’s prone to wandering, the friend who needs to be babysat, and the friend who thrives on trading their (homemade, pretty legit) kandi.

But those are just the tropes. Rave families are a lot more than that. They can actually be quite amorphous, shrinking to a few people or ballooning to a few dozen, depending on whether or not extended family (friends of friends) get involved.

The cool thing is, you know your rave family will always accept A) you, B) your new-to-the-crew friends, and C) your new-to-raving friends. That’s just what rave families do. Your rave family is more than that awesome group of people you see your favorite DJs and producers with. It is truly a second family, there for you to vent to, cry to, laugh with, dance with, and survive multiple days of raving with. It isn’t just the rave that’s better with a rave family. All in all, life is better with a rave family. Bonus: You actually get to choose this family. And there are a lot of great choices—ravers are, after all, kind of the best people you can ever meet.

So, how do you find that family of like-minded music obsessives? It’s simple. Next time you’re in the crowd of one of your favorite artists, just look to your right. Look to your left. Turn around. Those people you see? Each is a potential rave fam member. Go ahead and say hello—you never know whom you could end up vibing with, and chances are they have a crew that will welcome you with open arms, free hugs, and an invitation to dance along through the next set and beyond.