The Sleepless Night Challenge

Near where I live there are three or four music events and two of them are multi-day events. Last night when I was walking home I noticed just how much noise was bleeding from the festival and it polarised me into commenting on it, on Strava.

When I walked in town two days ago, and again yesterday I was struck by how dead the town is. Cars are rare, swings are empty. Roads are empty. There is barely any sign of human presence. If I didn’t know better I’d say we’re back in Lockdown, except we’re not. It’s not even because of heat that people are hiding.

I believe that almost everyone that can flees Nyon for a week, during Paléo. I believe that a few tens of thousands per night enjoy the event but that many others flee. They flee because they have no choice. Their children are on holidays, or their offices are shut for this week.

There is a silent portion of society that flees because of the event’s noise pollution, over not one or two days, but an entire week. I see a few tourists, but almost everyone I saw was at the Train de St Cergue station, or catching buses to get to Paléo. Few people, if any, are currently in Nyon. Even the frontaliers seem to be absent. Rush hour is quiet.

It’s funny, because if I say that I wake at four, to run at six in Morges people look at me as if I’m a lunatic. Those some people think nothing of staying up until four in the morning, and spending the next day recovering from a hangover.

I quite like waking absurdly early, to run, and then to get on with the day. This morning though, I didn’t, because I haven’t slept well in recent weeks,first because of the heat, but now because the music that keeps waking me up if I try to sleep continues until 02:30, if they stick to their schedule.

Normal people will never be critical of the event. They want to fit in, and be seen as normal. They don’t want the stigma. “Oh but this is the only fun event of the year” and “oh but it only lasts a week”. A week without sleep is a very long time. A week without sleep, if you’re driving a car, is dangerous.

Luckily the week without sleep is the week that two events out of four are in the evening, so they’re easier to participate in.

When people, or events, make it impossible to know whether you will sleep well, or badly, it’s harder to know whether you can participate in the events that you appreciate and cherish. It’s not that others can’t live their life and do what they want.

It’s that they should consider the impact of their behaviour on others. If you make noise all night and prevent someone from having a good night of sleep you impact the rest of their day.

This week, and this year, I was unable to flee. That’s why my post is written in the afternoon, rather than the morning. I also censored myself. I aim to be neutral on this topic.