Tortuga Beach Music Festival

This was our 1^st time experiencing the Tortuga Festival and I was super impressed by how well organized everything was!
We arrived at the Galleria and found a parking spot pretty easy. We were originally planning to use the water taxi to get there but saw all of the big tour buses lined up so we went over an inquired. $ 30 per person gets you there and back and the buses run every 15 minutes. Seemed like a no brainer so we ponied up the $$.
Nice comfortable bus ride over and they pretty much dropped us off right at the festival entrance. My only complaint was we later found out the pick up point to leave was somewhere different and our driver never mentioned that. It was pretty easy to figure out once we saw the buses lined up a few blocks away.
Once we hit the sand the excitement began. Wifey had us a little schedule all made up with the bands we were interested in hearing and the times. Pretty easy to navigate back and forth between stages and there were plenty of bars and restrooms along the way.
My only other complaint was we waited in line for about 15 minutes to grab a drink only to find out that particular bar ran out of booze. Seriously? There’s 32,000 fans walking around the beach and noone wants to hear you ran out of booze. We quickly moved along and found another watering hole happy to serve us up a $ 14 mixed drink and an $ 8 beer.
Food trucks and vendors lined the street with plenty of good eats to select from. There’s always some new «funky» festival food at these things. We managed to get but with some french fries drizzled with some cheesy/​meaty sauce that took care of our hunger.
We listened to some great bands like Skynyrd, Sam Hunt, Tim McGraw and more. Thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and definitely plan on repeating next year and dragging more friends along. I have to perfect digging out my own sand recliner with sand backrest next year.

This is our second annual Tortuga music festival and we plan on returning annually, even if/​after we move to Texas, because it doesn’t get any better than 3 days on a beautiful beach with the biggest and best country bands playing away all three days.
I was truly disappointed to see so few reviews of this great festival, and of those so much negativity. This is a music festival. On the beach. That draws a huge number of people. You have to keep your expectations in line with the event.
Last year was over crowded without question. Bathrooms were insane to get into, beer/​soda lines were the same way. I thought they considerably improved on that this year. Bathrooms were fine, longest wait was under 10 min by far. Tip: learn which set ups are true porta potties and which are the nicer ones that flush and are maintained. The ladies did their best to keep up with the constant stream of (mostly) considerably intoxicated women, and with the exception of the permanent bathroom and the porta potties, they weren’t too bad. Those two options I stayed away from tho, just not worth it.
The several water refill stations are near bathrooms and could be better marked. Seems like many people were confusing them for hand washing stations, they should have more obvious signage for those and promote the use of them a bit more. But they were there!
Beer lines were moving along this year much better than last it seemed. I waited behind three people, that was about it (because we avoided going during «peak» times right before and after shows were starting). Yes, yes the beers are overpriced. I’ve never been to a festival, concert, sporting event, anything where beers and drinks were not overpriced to the point of gauging. Either get a little creative with how you get your liquor fix or resign to drink less to spend less, it’s a personal decision but unreasonable to not expect gauging on alcohol and to let it affect your impressions of an event overall.
Now, the reason we’re all drawn here — the music! Yes, you need to make a plan for the artists you want to see just like any music festival with so much going on.
Others commented that they missed someone because of the app, that’s unfortunate as the app worked great for everyone in my group. We were getting pop up alerts and in the event, if we lost track of the schedule it pulled right up. Cell service is never strongest when you have so many people in such a condensed area. But we didn’t have trouble with it and made use of the map and schedule constantly.
The price for this event is steep. But I thought several times about how it really is a deal even if you only went to the closing shows each day, which are always the biggest names. Blake Shelton, dierks Bentley and Tim McGraw for $ 200 = score! No way you’d spend less on individual concerts. They do a great long set too, not five songs and they’re done. So worth it to me.
Food! They have many vendors that line the street selling a variety of food items. One regret this year is actually that I didn’t eat more. Go figure. I got a quesadilla one day, which was really good, other than that I just had some conch fritters and a corndog. Boyfriend had to get a funnel cake before the end and otherwise we ate before and after the event at other restaurants. Next year I’ll just be voting that we eat more while in the festival than worry about finding somewhere to stop at before and after because the options are numerous and all that we tried was very good!
All in all, this is a fantastic event. Be realistic with your expectations about certain aspects so as not to get letdown regarding relatively trivial things. The headache of some parts of the event are well worth it if you’re a country fan. Especially a country fan who loves the beach!

It’s a music festival on the beach. I’ll give it that. But $ 200 for 3 day GA is no where close to acceptable. Water stations don’t exist, neither do shaded areas. Unless you’re a die hard country fan, just go be lazy on the beach a mile north. You’ll enjoy yourself more.

Very disorganized. App was never updated!!! Missed sam hunt thanks to shity app!!!

If I had written this review about the innaugural Tortuga Music Fest 2 years ago or even last years it would have been 5 stars. This year there were WAY too many tickets sold. The first year there were approx. 25,000 people and it was perfect. You had to claim your spot early but you had a little bit of space to call your own for the day. This year there were approx. 88,000 people and it was a nightmare. If you got there early and got a spot anywhere near the stages there was a zero percent chance of getting back if you left your spot. There are no designated walking aisles so there are hundreds of people stepping all over you and cutting through everyone with no regard for anyone else but themselves. It got to the point that we couldn’t even enjoy the shows due to the amount of people cramming themselves in around us. After multiple «almost fights» with drunks after they attempted to plow their way through our group knocking over the girls with us and stepping all over our bags/​towels we decided to just go to the middle area of the grounds where the crowds were more spread out and hungout there for the rest of the festival. While this provided much less stress we were now a mile away from the stage and could barely see the giant screens flanking the stage and the sound quality was obviously poor making our group regret spending the $ 160/​ticket that it had cost us. Even with the increased attendance they kept up by adding bathrooms, concessions and other amenities so there was nothing to complain about there. I’ve gone to all 3 of the these festivals so far but will not be going back next year. The VIP experience appears to be much more enjoyable, however, with a pricetag of over $ 600/​ticket it makes it nearly impossible to afford. All in all, what was once a great musical experience has now been ruined by attempting to get as many people and as much $$$ as they can. Save your money and just spend the $ 30-​$ 50 to see the headliners and other acts when they come through on their own tours.

3.5 stars.
This was my first year attending Tortuga and while I don’t know if I’ll be going back, I had a good time overall. I don’t expect you to read this monster of a review but can’t really write about the festival without mentioning all of the below.
MUSIC: First thing first, I’m a country fan. I can’t imagine finding this enjoyable if you don’t somewhat enjoy country artists as that’s all you’ll hear all day long (with the exception for Sublime (?) this year). You can buy single day tickets or the two-​day pass. We made a weekend out of it so did the two-​day, but it was clear A LOT of people opted for single day admission on Sunday as it was A LOT more crowded (sometimes unbearably so). So yes, I enjoyed Saturday more than Sunday, but also had friends saving a spot all day long for Kenny Chesney that made the ENTIRE weekend experience worth it.
LAYOUT: I was actually pretty impressed with the organization of the event. I never had to wait in too long of a line for a drink, food or restroom (although I tried to avoid using the Porta Potty as much as possible). Nothing was marked up in price, with a 24 oz beer costing $ 11. They had a wide array of food vendors — everything from pizza and burgers to banh mi and conch fritters. One of the stages was WAY further from the other two but it spread out the crowd… They even had water bottle filling stations!
TRANSPORTATION: Our hotel wasn’t too far from the park so we ended up taking Ubers both days. They also have water taxis and shuttles leaving from different spots around Fort Lauderdale if you happen to reside closer to those. For us, Über made the most sense. Leaving the festival right after the final act was a bit of a mess (at least the first night, the second we knew better and left early). Traffic was crazy and we couldn’t find a nearby restaurant to seat us, so ended up walking about a mile until traffic quieted down and an Über could find us. You live and you learn.
CROWD: How do I put this nicely… There were lots of people walking around in skimpy bathing suits that shouldn’t have been in said skimpy bathing suits. That being said, it was HOT and anything other than a bathing suit would have been too much. Of course, there were some rowdy drunks but overall, I didn’t encounter anything too crazy, redneck or trashy (more or less my three major concerns).
CONCLUSION: VIP tickets might be worth it to avoid the mess of a crowd… Even so, I think I’d rather stick to seeing all of these acts during their main tours for just a couple hours, rather than having to camp out 12 hours in the sun, two days in a row which can simply be exhausting no matter how old you are. I even had to miss two of my favorite acts (Sam Hunt and Zac Brown Band) because there were simply too many people and it was more effort than it was worth… I think the mission behind Tortuga is a great one and a great component to the event. I think that it will be successful for many years to come but not thanks to me.

Awesome performances but very crowded, lines too long for everything and anything. can’t go in the water? Why have it on the beach? All around disappointing except for jake owen, of course :)

Had I written this review 3 years ago, hands down it would’ve been 5 stars. However, things have since then changed. I have been attending Tortuga Beach Music Festival since its first year (2013). This year (2015) was my least favorite.
I felt like this year they sold way too many tickets, the beach was way too packed. They did make more room by moving the stages further apart, but. this made it hard to see different acts at different stages because the walk from one end to the other in the crowd was FAR, & you would lose your spot. Beer and
Alcohol lines were ridiculously long, and to top it off — they were selling beers that were WARM ! I’m sorry but 11 $ for a beer — at a concert in the hot sun — those beers should be ice cold.
Porta-​pottys were gross (as is expected at these types of events) however I remember last year there were more hand washing stations, I think I saw 1 this year… kinda gross.
Lastly — the whole reason and meaning behind the music festival itself when it began was to raise awareness about the ocean/​beach ecosystem and to preserve the environment. Years 1& 2 a lot of artists through out the concert referenced this and they very heavily promoted cleaning up after yourself and leaving the beach clean. I felt as if this year that was completely over looked, and as some one who’s grown up on these beaches seeing the way they were left with garbage thrown everywhere was a huge disappointment.
All in all, the event is a fun one and the musical acts are great, however I’m not sure if I will be attending in the future years unless it VIP. Also, I think they should really continue to promote the whole Reason behind the festival it self — ocean /​beach conservation.
. Party on people

We’ve been attending Tortuga from the start, first two amazing, despite the rain from last year, this year was way too overcrowded, and for some reason they made the stages so far apart, it took nearly 34 minutes to walk from one end to the other. We really doubt we will be attending next year, with that amount of people. It raises blood pressure having to navigate through 1000s of drunk douchebags. People drink all day in the sun and get in fights when you want to pass through. Not worth the stress, forget having to pee mid concert, you’re never getting back to your spot.

I can’t speak for those who paid to attend this event on the beach, but I would have to say attending by boat is the way to go! I am sure inside the festival was amazing and being in the mix was a great experience for most, but I always say you can’t beat free! No line to the bathroom, no one stepping on your feet, byob and food — we had a great time! Of course the sound isn’t as great as if you were in front of the stage but you could still enjoy it. Can’t wait to do it again next year!