Grateful Dead Fans Continue Envelope Decorating Tradition

Tuesday marked the first day Grateful Dead fans could mail order for tickets to Fare Thee Well -a celebration of 50 years of the Grateful Dead featuring Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Trey Anastasio, Jeff Chimenti and Bruce Hornsby. We’ve been excited to see how seriously fans have taken the old school mail order as many have decorated their envelopes, continuing a tradition that dates back to the ’80s.

While there’s no specific mention that decorating your envelope will help you secure tickets to the see the performances, which will be held at Chicago’s Soldier Field over the Fourth of July Weekend, there’s no word that it won’t. Even the Chicago Tribune has picked up on the first day of mail order story.

As mentioned, the tradition dates back to the band’s glory days as the Grateful Dead Archive contains nearly 15,000 (!) examples of decorated envelopes that were sent into the Grateful Dead Ticketing Service.

We’ve compiled a few examples of decorated envelopes for Fare Thee Well. For more, head to TreyfulDeadMeme’s Envelope page and take a peek at DeadheadLand’s gallery.