Five Things #24 — ILLEGAL Rave Flyers, Festival Survival Gear, and the Rise of ThriftCon
From ’90s rave ephemera to Coachella essentials, and the vintage convention boom reshaping how we gather, shop, and experience music, fashion, and culture.
Every January, Coachella announces their highly anticipated line up in late Januray. That big lineup announcement is where we find out which acts will perform in April in the middle of the Indio desert over the course of two weekends, either to support a new tour, preview a new record, or simply return to the spotlight after some time away (ie: The xx). Coachella is undoubtedly the starting point of the annual summer festival bonanza globally.
Despite your friends’ repeated claims each year that Coachella is over and not worth attending, this belief is simply incorrect. Your friends may think their experiences are the only ones that matter, so they dismiss future ones. This topic is a conversation of the jaded, and don’t allow it to dissuade you from contemplating or taking the opportunity to go into Indio, CA or any other great large gathering of humanity.
I have personally attended twice, and each time I had a wonderful experience, enhanced of course by a premium ticket, access to premium bathrooms, and premium bars on raised lawns that allow free roaming and conversation outside the main general grass, where, frankly, the experience is just as enjoyable. I do recommend if you can splurg to go premium as viewing the main stage from the side lawn, which is more like a grassy knoll, provides a vision point of both stage and crowd.
But I promise you, even with a general admission ticket, an event like Coachella is often a place to experience music in a whole new way. And you should at least try it once.
Haters will always hate, and for those folks in your hater circles that just dislike festivals, fine: an event like Coachella, Glastonbury, Outside Lands, or whatever else is probably not for them. Maybe they reminisce about seeing a a now massive band playing in a small club like Lupos or 9:30 Club when smoking was still allowed inside, and beer was served in Dixie cups. It sounds extremely appealing to many people, quite frankly, but there is something entirely different about experiencing your favorite band in the middle of a California polo field with tens of thousands of other fans, who are there to vibe, take in the sun, consume, all while wearing sunglasses and throwing on an Hermes scarf to block the dust. It’s an experience like no other. And nobody should take that experience away from its true essence.
I did Lollapalooza and Warped Tour as a kid, but my first true mega-festival experience was Belgium’s at Rock Werchter Festival.
My dear, departed mentor and friend Paul and I drove from Amsterdam to the town of Werchter, Belgium, where we discovered that one of the beauties of Belgium is its obsession with mussels; not the muscles on your arms, but the seafaring edible mussels. We even went to a mussel bake, a booster event to help buy a new dirt bike kit for a local motocross champion who was about to compete on the world stage. Where else would you be able to experience mussels, motorcycles, and the fantastic festival lineup that including Radiohead, R.E.M., Sigur Ros, The Verve, The Chemical Brothers, Justice, and the Underworld gods in one spot? I believe this was also the festival where I saw MGMT for the first time, and they completely filled a side tent with thousands of kids eager for that new sounds.
Music is and always will be a personal choice. You have the choice of which musical tastes resonate with you, whether it energizes you, make you dance, causes you to shake your head, lower your shoulders, or raise your hands to the sky; that’s the whole point of it. It’s made to move you. Sometimes, it’s even better with 70,000 of your closest friends.
The promotion, flyers, and billings, such as the annual Coachella flyer release, are what draw us to music. And as many friends who messaged and DM’d me this week regarding the first item on this list, the artwork of flyers is especially important to me. Flyers are the visual language of music. Flyers are ephemeral and not necessarily meant to be kept, yet many of us have saved them, along with physical paper tickets that are now almost extinct.
A decade ago I was lucky enough to work on a short documentary on the world of American rave flyers. Years on, it is still a passion of mine, and I’m lucky enough to have friends, like Greg and Ami, that send me care packages full of flyers they find. Flyers are art.
In today’s Five Things, I’m looking at the world of flyers as well as items of importance when you go to a festival or rave that will help you survive the 14 or more hours that the music will demand of you.
We’ll end with a look at the Miami stop of Thriftcon, quickly becoming a multi-stop shopping experience for vintage, and modern resale.
Remember: Never leave a festival early, or you’re likely to miss something only to see it secondhand hours later on social media. And we all know second-hand experiences are simply not the same as the real thing.
— Jeff
ILLEGAL: Rave Flyers of the 90s Book
ILLEGAL: Rave Flyers of the 90s bills itself as “a 500-page, encyclopedic collection of rave flyers from the dawn of rave culture in America.” Published by DB Burkman’s Blurring Books imprint, DB remains a well-known name in both music and publishing circles, having helped spread the drum and bass sounds locally in the United States and later through his two volumes of Stickers: Stuck-Up Piece of Crap: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art published some 16 years ago now. DB is a collector, archivist, and hoarder of the best kind.
The motives for his new book, ILLEGAL, closely align with my ambitions to present a collective view of rave art that surpasses the couple of low fidelity zines that circulated about ten years ago. While they were lo-fi, I have to give the original zine publisher, Colpa Press, and author credit for doing what no one had done before: examine the art form through reference to be flipped and observed.
ILLEGAL: Rave Flyers of the 90s goes well beyond those 36-page zines and offers a very comprehensive look at 1990s rave flyer art along with sidebars from many of the people who were pushing the scene forward here in America. You’ll heard from guys like Frankie Bones and the Insomniac team, who more than most pushed the sound forward coast to coast. But they’re not alone by any stretch. Hundreds if not thousands more demanded more music, more parties from warehouses to far off wildernesses.
The book gathers over 2,500 flyer images, reproduced in their full glory, for future study and viewing. It is indeed a reference book to the American scene, one that I personally never believed would happen.
Thanks to the efforts of countless rave promoters, DJs, and attendees, along with the fortunate circumstance of not having one’s old paper stash discarded by moms who saw them as nothing more than paper, we now have a living document that is likely to serve as a reference book studied for generations to come, alongside other great art books.
You can pre-order ILLEGAL: Rave Flyers of the 90s on Kickstarter today or by visiting Blurring Books online.
Hearprotek Concert Earplugs
Earplugs have evolved significantly from the full dampening orange an yellow foam plugs that machinery workers use while cutting iron, which are effective at completely blocking out sound.
In the world of music and concert venues, sound attenuation is essential; it allows frequencies and sonic fidelity to be preserved while reducing the overall volume and pressure from speaker stacks that produce sound levels well above the normal range. And while no earplug is perfect, it does not cost much to save your ears from ringing and tinnitus, while still enjoying the music.
My current favorites are the Hearprotek Concert Earplugs that sell in packs of two for around $15. You could go up into the popular Loop Experience earplugs for $35, but I hate the dongle ring that sticks out of your ear. The Hearproteck plugs has that handy dongle pull so you can retrieve them from deep in your ear canal, but they’re transparent, clear, and less obvious when worn.
If there is one of two things you need at a festival, it is hearing protection. The second is below.
Hearproteck Concert Earplugs are $15 for a pack of two on Amazon. Highly recommended.
Stanley Classic Easy Fill Wide Mouth Flask
If they stop you at the Coachella gates and call it a flask, tell them you need it for water. Yes, the ultra-reliable Stanley Classic Easy Fill Wide Mouth Flask is a must have accessory inside and outside of the Indio Polo Grounds. At 8 oz, it holds way less than a traditional water bottle, but does a water bottle fit easily into the pocket? I suppose it does fit, especially since all the kids are wearing baggy clothes again, however, the Stanley flask is a lifeline for overpriced drinks in more ways than one.
The flask is made of insulated stainless steel, is BPA-free, and is available in one excellent color of “Hammertone Green.”
Available at most excellent outdoors stores and Amazon for $26. Well worth buying for any out of home event.
Gathre Midi 53inch Round Leather Mat
I’ve owned a Gathre Midi Mat for over ten years now, and it’s served me for Soul Summit picnics in Fort Greene Park, the beaches of Miami, and as festival flooring years. The brand is a women-run business founded in Utah with a pretty simple idea of offering a durable, washable mats for kids and adults alike to play, sit, and lay out on. It’s made from bonded leather backed with flocked suede “containing 28% genuine leather” (making it semi-vegan, I guess) and measures in at 53 inches in round or square versions. I personally use the round one.
At $99, it is a no-brainer festival ready mat that will outlive every Coachella you attend. Just don’t let anyone borrow it.
Thriftcon Miami Recap
The popularity of conventions, which dates back to sci-fi with 1939’s World Science Fiction Convention, followed by baseball cards comic cons in the 70s, has expanded into modern streetwear culture events like ComplexCon, providing a space for people with similar interests to gather while seeking individualism through fashion, accessories, and personal style. They are a true gathering of the vibes, as they say, for fans and nerds alike.
Thrifting and second-hand retail, has become a significant trend in the fashion industry, aligning perfectly with the current mindset towards reuse and upcycling of garments for second lives.
In the most recent 2026 edition of the McKinsey and Business of Fashion’s “The State of Fashion” report, they projected that resale will grow 2–3x faster than traditional (first-hand) fashion retail through 2027. In fact, it is one of the fastest growing sectors in the space today.
It is with no surprise then that an event like ThriftCon would make its way into the sub circles of the American vintage scene. When I say “vintage,” I’m not just talking about clothing; I’m talking about everything from video games to magazines to movies and toys, but most especially clothing.
If you’re a vintage enthusiast, Thrift Con has something for you, especially if you appreciate workwear brands like Carhartt and old Dickies or classic streetwear like Stussy, Fresh Jive, FUCT, SSUR, ALIFE, Alphanumeric countless other brands, though black attitude-era wrestling and rap tees continue to dominate the high-end vintage market.
The Miami edition, held at the Miami Beach Convention Center, featured more than 100 curated vendors and thousands of vintage pieces spanning decades of pop culture.
The Thriftcon Miami show also leaned heavily into culture and storytelling with the ThriftConversations panel, “Secret Tapes: Skateboarding’s Path From Parking Lots to Pop Culture,” featuring Bam Margera, Geoff Rowley, Kareem Campbell, and Don Brown. The conversation underscored the long-standing relationship between vintage clothing and skateboarding culture, influencing everything from graphic tees to silhouettes and, most importantly, attitudes (so did wrestling).
Beyond the panels, the Thriftcon marketplace itself reflects this influence, with racks of vintage rap tees, sportswear, and bold graphics filling the space.
Catch Thriftcon in the following locations this year:
New Orleans: May 9, 2026 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Denver (Flagship Event): July 11–12, 2026 at the National Western Complex.
New York City: August 1, 2026 in Brooklyn (TBA venue).
Seattle: September 12, 2026 at the Seattle Convention Center.