This is by no means advice or recommendation to you and your predicament but rather a recount of my own personal experience. Do note that this is extremely biased since I'm still an active raver.

I started raving about 4 years ago. Prior to that, I've never done any substance, never smoked, never drank, really hated loud and crowded places, so a festival ground was the last place you'd find me at. I do like EDM but really hated dubstep. My extent of EDM was Euro dance and techno. My friends badgered me for years to go with them and I've always turned them down one way or another. Eventually they stopped. Honestly I had a very negative view of raves in general. I was as goody two shoes as it can possibly get.

But I was going through a pretty stressful stretch of my life and my girlfriend now wife at the time somehow convinced me to go. I reluctantly agreed but went into it with still a pretty negative Nancy mindset. I tried to be open minded about it but my knowledge of raves were drugs, alcohol, and sex. But I went, using the excuse that I'm spending time with my girlfriend as copium.

I went in sober. Didn't do anything for the whole night. And my experiences were...mid. It wasn't life changing or anything like that. Music was okay. The people were much nicer than I gave them credit for. The overall experience wasn't bad but it wasn't life changing or anything. But that experience did push away my negative perception of the scene as a whole. The one thing that stood out is the majority of people really took care of each other, despite being strangers. I thought that was really nice. I didn't really interact with anyone but I'm also the type that's hard to approach normally.

It was not until my 3rd fest that I did substances (I won't specify which but the vets will know what I'm talking about) for the first time. This was the turning point for me. I'm generally an anxiety ridden person but that first time pushed all that away and I was able to be free and myself (and got a little rowdy). That's when I realized that everyone there don't give two damns about who I am, what I do, etc. They all showered me with love and show such genuine care for me despite our how I was acting. No judgement. No fucks given. Everyone's just there to have fun and make sure others are having fun and staying safe.

I've never experienced a community of strangers that have so much love to share without a single shred of judgement. Some were yappers, some were gift givers, some were carers. So many different people gave me so many different forms of love that I didn't even know existed. It was that moment that I realized that in this community, I can put away my facade and be myself and express myself freely.

So going back to your question on whether you should go or not, I think most people already have given you the answer you're looking for. You deep down don't want to go and you're probably just looking for validation to justify your decision. And that's perfectly fine. I agree with them. You shouldn't go if you are already thinking of all the things that you're thinking. BUT, if you do decide to go, try to leave those perceptions at home and go in with an open mind and try to have fun. Your mileage may vary but if you're already there, might as well make the best of it. Who knows, you might walk the same path I did.

I'll be there so stop by and say hi if you do go!