Australia’s festival season is well and truly upon us, which means one thing: the return of some of the most annoying trends in existence.

Over the next few months, music fans will be subjected to everything from gym bros wearing tiny shorts, to obscene amounts of facial glitter, to beers cans being thrown at their face, to people falling on them because they’re sitting on the shoulders of two other people. If it wasn’t for the music, festivals would truly be the worst places on earth.

So as festival veterans, we decided to pull together a shortlist of the absolute worst festival trends, so you know what not to do.

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Drunk Bros Singing DJ Otzi’s ‘Hey Baby’

If you’ve ever been stuck in a slow-moving crowd at a festival, you would be aware of this terrible trend. We’re not quite sure when it took hold, but we began to see it proliferate around Splendour in the Grass 2014. For the first few years, we thought it was just contained to Splendour, but then it made an appearance at Falls Festival.

And now, it’s everywhere. It is the worst festival trend of all time.

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The Borat Mankini

It wasn’t funny in 2006, and it definitely isn’t funny now. No one – we repeat, NO ONE — wants to see your junk tightly wrapped in fluorescent Lycra.

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These Fucking Shorts

Just, no.

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Cultural Appropriation

This one isn’t so much ‘annoying’ as it is just really bad. It beggars belief that there are still some people who think it’s okay to wear a Native American head-dress to a festival. But amazingly, those idiots are still out there.

So, if you’re out and about at a festival and you see someone wearing something culturally offensive, please kick them squarely in the ankle and tell them they’re a dickhead.*

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Throwing Drinks Into A Crowd

Since when did people decide it was fun to shout ‘YEET’ and hurl drinks into the crowd? Is this fun for you?

I tell you who it’s not fun for — the person who’s just been slugged in the head with a half-full drink can. They’re now concussed, and covered in beer. Or worse, Smirnoff Ice.

There’s only one circumstance in which throwing a drink is okay, and that’s if this happens:

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Gourmet Food

Whoever decided it was a good idea to bring “gourmet food” into the festival space should be dunked in a peat bog. No one wants to pay $22 for a burger at a festival. And if you do, you’re an absolute nong.

The only food required at festivals is hot chips and kebabs. Anything more is overkill.

Besides, no matter how wonderfully it sounds on the menu, every gourmet food festival experience inevitably ends up looking like this:

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Gigantic Hats

Okay so this isn’t really a festival trend as such, but more of a permanent festival annoyance. For the love of fuck, please leave those gigantic floppy hats/Bunnings wide-brims at home.

Sure, you may be protecting your neck and face from sun damage, but you’re going to piss off every punter within a 2-metre radius of you.

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Bucket Hats

We’re not entirely sure when bucket hats became acceptable to wear over the age of 10, but somehow they’re everywhere at festivals. Please stop, you just look like Mac DeMarco.

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Group Costumes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a crew of drongos attend a music festival, they will all dress as Where’s Wally. It is also true that this crew will believe they are being fantastically original, when in reality about 10,000 other people are also dressed as Wally, completely ruining their plan of being able to spot each other easily in the crowd.

Same goes for Ninja Turtles. And Stormtroopers.

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Shoulder Stacks With 3 People Or More

Are you trying to concuss everyone around you? Yes? Okay well then go ahead, because that is the only possible outcome when you begin to stack person after person onto a drunk guy’s shoulders.

There is no good way for it to end. You’ve been warned.

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*Okay so we’ve just been informed by our Managing Editor that we can’t tell readers to kick people in the ankle. So if you do kick a racist in the ankle, and get in trouble for it, don’t say you got the idea from us. 

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Lead image: Bodybuilders Forum