Re seating - festival rule: if someone sets up chairs and leaves them up, and they aren't sitting in them, you're allowed to use them. You just have to give them up when the people return. It took me a long time to learn that the people who spread out huge tarps at the front are not claiming all that ground. They have a place to sit, but any open space is fair game.

I've never stayed in a motel for the festival, so I can't help there. I usually don't go to bed until the sun starts coming up anyway. I went to a concert at the site once, and stayed in a very cheap, very run-down motel right on Rt 146, less than 5 miles from the site. I think it cost less than $40 a night. (Damned if I can remember the name. The place was reeeeallly run down, but the bed was comfortable and everything worked.) A note on the quiet vs jamming areas of the campground: the quiet area is only quiet until the kids start waking up at 6 or 7 in the morning. The area for jamming is usually quiet for a bit later.