Life is Beautiful Festival Day 1

So the last weekend of October, some of my friends and I drove to Las Vegas for one of the best weekends of my life. We drove down that Friday and it took about four hours to get there. Overall, not to bad. Luckily, my friend's boyfriend's family have a house in Las Vegas, so we had a place to stay. We were so lucky they let us stay there. It was a brand new, beautiful house. They saved us hundreds of dollars we would have spent on a hotel room.

We made it!

On Saturday, full of excitement and anticipation, we headed to the festival. The festival was taking place in downtown, so we drove to the parking structure and got on the shuttle bus that drove us to the main entrance. Once we got in, right away they were giving things out. They were passing out cute little music note pins, and giving away t-shirts by way of raffle. The three of us were starving, so we decided the first thing we wanted to do was get food. As you're walking down the street there was a huge sign and volunteers passing out sharpies so you could write your name.

My note on the Life is Beautiful sign.

After signing the banner, we went into the food area. There were so many different options from all kinds of different restaurants in Las Vegas. My friend, Brittany, ended up getting fried pickles and fries, while Jordan and I got fried mac and cheese balls with tater tots. Those mac and cheese balls were absolutely incredible. They were from this place called Park on Fremont (I think).

Once we finished eating we headed to the downtown stage to go watch ZZ Ward. She was so good. I had never heard of her before the festival, but after watching her perform, I'm a fan. When her set was done, we walked around and checked out the booths around the festival. We all ended up signing up to be bone marrow donors in the charity lane area of the festival. We took silly pictures at the Movember booth and photobooth pictures at another stand. Very fun!

We found this bar/restaurant at the far end of the festival. That had an intriguing sign. My friends and I decided to go inside and ended up ordering grapefruit beer. I'm not much of a drinker, but that beer was delicious. This place, which coincidentally is the same place that had the booth where we got the mac and cheese balls, had a beer and a shot for $10. My friends got the beer and patron shots, while I just stuck with a beer. We hung out there for a while taking silly photos and relaxing until the next band we wanted to see started.

Grapefruit beer and our wristbands!

Jordan, weird shading, and I.

So once it hit four o' clock we decided to head back to the downtown stage because the Alabama Shakes were playing. We ended up getting side tracked by some art and the Toyota booth. They were giving out free tote bags that they were making right there and giving away other goodies. The line was pretty long for the bags, and the Alabama Shakes had already started. I waited in line for a while, but I didn't want to miss the band, since I heard they were very good. So I told my friends I'd meet them later and headed over to the stage. I stood there for two songs, but wasn't really into the band, so I decided to go back to my friends who were still in line waiting for the bags. We ended up getting the tote bags as well as some light up sticks. 

Heartagram for Life is Beautiful!

Waiting for Imagine Dragons

We hung around for a while, looking at the art murals, before we went to go see Imagine Dragons. We made it to the stage and actually got a pretty good spot. I met up with my coworker friend, Kim and she  ended up watching Imagine Dragons with me. Let me just say, from all the bands at the festival, Imagine Dragons were definitely in my top two. They were amazing. I had a great time singing and dancing to their music with Kim. We listen to them at work all the time, so it was very fun. They gave an amazing show. Here are some videos I took from their set.

A video my friend Kim took.

After Imagine Dragons, we went to see Childish Gambino. We had a little mishap, where phones were dying and we lost Brittany. Eventually we ended up finding her in the crowd at the Ambassador stage where Childish was performing.

Last but not least, we saw the Kings of Leon. I am a huge fan and have everyone of their albums, so it was incredible to see one of my favorite bands live. Great way to end the night! Day one of the Life is Beautiful Festival was wonderful. Day two was also amazeballs! This post is so crazy long already, I'm just going to make another post for the second day.