The 2017 River Revival Music festival took place on September 29 – October 1. In only its third year, this music festival is a must add to your bucket list. If you love camping, live music, food, and meeting new people, you’ll love River Revival. Here’s a breakdown of our experience being first-timers at the festival.
Getting to the campsite and setting up our home for the weekend
River Revival is located at the K&L Campground ~ On the River in New Braunfels, Texas. We were driving from Austin during rush hour traffic so it took us about two hours to get there around 7 p.m. When you’re close to the campground you’ll be surrounded by tall trees and glimpses of the Guadalupe River that will make you feel like you’re really going on an adventure!
We got to the campground and checked in smoothly and headed to our designated camp site. We ended up being on top of the hill overlooking the Guadalupe River. We got our tent set up and headed down to hear some music and grab dinner, drinks and listen to some great music! We stayed until the last act and headed back to our tent to get some rest. While we were hanging out outside our tent we ended up meeting our neighbors who ended up being our festival buddies throughout the weekend. That’s the kind of experience you’re going to have at this festival, a very communal vibe.
Saturday
Coffee and Morning Yoga
First, I needed to grab some coffee ASAP so I headed down to the lawn (main area). There was 9 a.m. yoga going on for those who were so inclined to stretch it out before getting started. I chose to opt out and take photos, but look at the view! Coffee was kindly provided by Fix Coffee bar.
There was a bit of a line(not a super long wait, but we were impatient and still waking up) for breakfast tacos, so we opted to make some sausage and eggs at our camp site along with our neighbors! That’s the beauty of this festival, you can have your own camp cookout along with your new friends!
The rest of our Saturday consisted of enjoying the outdoors, floating the river, listening to River Revival Radio and waiting for the bands to come on during the evening. This festival takes you off your phone and back to basics. From waking up with the sound of the river, to walking through camp filled with decorated RVs and tents filled friendly people, it was serene and refreshing. I didn’t have signal for most of the weekend, but that was a welcome escape. I found myself being able to be fully present and enjoy the views, great music and people. If you’re looking for a festival to unwind and recharge your batteries you’ll find it at River Revival.
Throughout the day I kept thinking to myself that I was going to have a nap, but that never happened because I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun! We went tubing down the river with the neighbors we met the night before, sat by the river afterwards and enjoyed the tunes until the evening music began. The Splice Records team cooked dinner that night which included brisket and all the fixings and perfect after a long day of activities! It was delicious and there were a lot of leftovers! I may have gone back for seconds and maybe thirds!
Also big shout out to the sponsors for keeping us hydrated with Kickin’ Kombucha, Topo Chico, St. Arnold’s beer and Deep Eddy’s vodka all weekend. The great thing about this festival is everything is included with your ticket so you don’t need to carry cash or cards around to buy more refreshments, just walk up and pour yourself a drink or two!
The rest of the night we enjoyed the amazing lineup of musicians that included Say Girl Say, Ancient Cat Society, Henry and The Invisibles and Pimps of Joytime. When we spoke to River Revival founder, Shaun Brennan he said the biggest accomplishment of this year’s fest was getting the Pimps of Joytime to play. He said once you listened to them live you would fall in love and we have to say that was true. We listened to their music all the way back to Austin!
River Revival is an experience you won’t forget. Even as time has passed that experience is something you keep thinking about because that’s the type of impact the festival has. Even though the festival is only a weekend, being able to live on-site, wake up to music and meet new people is something that other festivals don’t offer and why it’s hard to forget it. And after you’ve experienced your first festival all you’ll be thinking about is how to make next year’s experience better, like should we rent out an RV? Like seriously, my husband and I have already thought about that.
If you missed our interview with the founder of Splice Records and River Revival, Shaun Brennan you can find it here. If you want to see more photos check out the photo gallery.
Splice Records also hosts BowiElvis fest that honors two of the greats of rock n’ roll who happen to have shared the same birthday, January 8! You can learn more about BowiElvis Fest and Splice Records here.
Catherine grew up watching action flicks at a very young age which led to her love of film. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelors in Radio-TV-Film in 2012. Always the adventurer, Catherine traveled and lived in Sydney, Australia for a year where she took a selfie with Brad Pitt. She runs Shuffle with passion, lots of caffeine and tacos. When she’s not editing or writing you can find her crafting and planning her next adventure.
thanks for sharing once you go to splice record events you will want to go back every year shaun thinks of everything to make it perfect