We are officially one week away from leaving for Mansfield Oh. My 4th year of Inkcarceration Festival. There is so much to do before a trip to a big festival such as Ink, many things that you don’t realize. Personally, I have a routine. Here’s a few steps.
01. Soon as the Dates are announced, I go ahead and book the Hotel. It’s important to get this done early because the hotels close to the venue go very quickly. Typically, if you wait a week, you’re looking at being about 30 minutes away likely.
02. When tickets go on sale, I put either first payment or $1 down to secure them. They never sell out to early, but I do the lay away plan so I start early which keeps the monthly costs down. I get VIP for myself and my two boys and if I recall it’s about $200 a month for like 8 months. Very affordable.
03. Playlists - when the lineup comes out it’s a must to put together your own playlists. I make a ton of them. I’ll do a whole playlist for each day featuring all bands then I’ll look up on Setlist.fm closer to the fest and start making lists w/ the top 15-20 bands I want to see based on most recent set lists. The best way is to check a previous festival and use that set list.
So those are 3 major things I do before going to ink. As we sit here one week out from our travel day, I have the hotel booked and paid for, tickets paid for and sitting at my house and about 25 playlists loaded on my Spotify. Now let’s get into what to expect as well…

As I said there are two main steps in Festival announcements. First is the dates of the following years event. That’s when you can start making plans. Hotel, put it in Calendars, take off work if need be and make sure no vacations are already planned. Then the next one and biggest is the Lineup. This is the most fun time leading up to a festival next to the week of. This year for Ink we were extremely excited to learn the lineup as our favorites Limp Bizkit are headlining the whole thing. Though we do generally leave a big early on Sunday and drive the 6 hours home over night, this changes that as we will be in it for the long-haul w/ the Bizkit playing last of the weekend. Bad Omens were a band we expected to be bumped up to headliner, so those two acts were pretty expected. Disturbed came out of nowhere for this year’s event. I’m not sure anyone really anticipated them being on the lineup. It being one of only two shows the band is playing this year it should be pretty fun. Honestly, I’m not huge on headliners anymore as I’m fine with an early night, for me its all about that undercard. Ink is 100% delivering this year. Friday we get Papa Roach who I have not seen in 10+ years. Cypress Hill who is one of the most fun Live bands, Tech N9ne who I’ve never seen. Hollywood Undead is always a good time. Probably the best news was that our good friends If Not For Me are opening the Main Yard Stage. So excited for them. Jeffrey Nothing, Ded, Entheos and more on Friday will be a great day.

Harrisburg’s If Not For Me will kick off the Festival on The Yard Stage on Friday July 17th.

Limp Bizkit headlines Sunday Night of Ink this year.

Getting into some other acts who we’ve booked before. King 810 is playing a Danny Wimmer fest for the first time on Saturday on the Infirmary stage. Our buddies in Archers play on Sunday on the Yard stage. Filth hits the infirmary stage on Saturday. Saturday has some heavy hitters like The Used, Gojira, Hatebreed and Poppy. Meanwhile on Sunday the weekend closes with Motionless in White, Ice Nine Kills, A Day to Remember and of course Limp Bizkit.
So, what needs done now? Making a list of things to bring is a good idea and something I tend to do each festival. Number one on that list is always Tickets. Now it depends on if you're camping or staying in a hotel because camping is a whole different animal when it comes to packing. We are doing Hotel for the second year in a row, so our packing is a bit minimal compared to a camper. Clothes of course make sure to pack warm, but bring a pair of pants in case it gets cold and always have a slicker of some sort in case of rain. You can put it in your locker at the festival or simply tie it around your waist.