The History
Camp Bisco was known as America’s no rules festival. It a three-day festival that is put on by the Disco Biscuits. “Old Bisco” was held in Pensvalanyia on a reservation that was untouched by American law. The security was Hell Angels and no law enforcement could be seen. Bisco quickly gained the reputation of no rules festival and to be on the grimy side.
“New Bisco” came a year after they stopped doing Camp Bisco. The location was moved to NY and was put on public property known as Montage Mountain & Montage Mountain Waterpark in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was time to see if Camp Bisco would be anything like it was in the past. Personally, Bisco has always had lineups that I enjoyed the most as far as festivals go.
The Vibe
The first year of the new Camp Bisco was completely different than the old one. It seemed a lot tamer and people were falling out on drugs everywhere. For the most part, I usually didn’t care for Camp Bisco’s crowd, but the new one wasn’t nearly as bad.
The new venue was a lot better in my opinion. They now had a water park, although I wouldn’t go in there after day one as it got every dirty. Also, I felt the new venue was nicely set up and didn’t have any stages competing for sound. They also had free outdoor showers which really makes a difference for festival goers. As far as the artist performances, they definitely still had the old bisco vibe. Which means, every stage is pretty much a party. Often artists have their friends up there dancing and taking over the stage, which is something you don’t see too often as music festivals.
My Festival
I went up to Bisco with a girl I was dating at the time and one of my best friends. We combined her group of friends with Kyles and had a decent size camp. Bisco was my ex-girlfriends, Stephanie, favorite festival. She and her friends have been going for several years now, so they had a solid squad. Overall, combining the two groups of friends worked fairly well and we had an awesome camp!
The one really bad part of this festival is the fact they put it on top of a ski resort, this means all camping was on a serious incline. Everyone’s tents were almost vertical and often you would see tents rolling down the hill. This cause a lot of people’s stuff to get damaged and seriously was a huge downer for the festival.
The last day it started to rain, which was a bit of a bummer and they had to do some re-scheduling around.
Favorite sets Favorite artists I saw in no particular order (even though this was really hard to do).
- Rufus du Sol – was a group from Aussie that I fell in love with two years ago. Honestly, this was a huge factor in me going, as they haven’t really started touring the US at this time.
- Pretty Lights – will always be one of my favorite artists to watch. This set was hands down one of my favorite ones.
- Flatbush Zombies – is a rap group I’ve followed for quite awhile now and awesome to see in a festival atmosphere.
- Ghastly – was an artist that was just starting to make a name for himself and played on a smaller stage. He absolutely killed it at Bisco.
- Snails – is a heavier artist, which is perfect for bisco. He had one of my favorite sets and the crowd was the crowd you want for an artist like him.
- Tipper – will always put on a great show and whenever he comes from the UK, I will make an effort to see him. He closed out the festival.
Afterthoughts
While I am glad I went to the new Bisco, I do not think I would return. The camping on the side of the mountain made it really difficult to sleep at night and ruined a lot of people’s property. Also, since this was now on public land, the security was really bad. People noted them coming into camps to watch people and even browsing through personal belongings. While it may have one of my favorite lineups, I would prefer to save my dollars.