I just read the reports of herpes at Coachella. It doesn't make a lot of sense, really - "during the first 2 days of Coachella, the site serviced almost 250 patients!!!" (From TMZ and HerpAlert) Herpes has an incubation period of 2-20 days, (the average is 3-6 days), so if someone has herpes symptoms the first 2 days of the festival, they came infected - they didn't get it there.
When people refer to skin-to-skin contact and herpes, they mean oral-to-oral, oral-to-genital, or genital-to-genital skin, and it requires some friction. It's not casual contact. Herpes is only infectious from the location of infection - the mouth or genitals. If it were easy to transmit, everyone would have it.
Unless you are kissing someone, having oral sex with someone, or having some form of genital to genital contact without clothing, you'll be safe at the festival.