I've made every mistake. Arrived on the wrong day. Camped next to a generator. Lost my wristband in a portaloo. Watched my phone die at 11pm on Saturday. At this point I've earned the right to tell you what actually matters — and what's just stuff people repeat because it sounds right.
Here's what I'd tell a friend the week before their first big festival.
Before You Go
1. Read the official festival map before you leave home.
Not a quick scroll — actually study it. Where are the main stages relative to camping? Where are the medical tents? Which gates take forever? Festivals cover a lot of ground. Bonnaroo's main stages are a 15-minute walk from the campsite entrance. Glastonbury can eat an hour just wandering if you don't know what you're looking for. Download the map to your camera roll so it's offline.
2. Book your travel for one day earlier than you think you need.
Traffic on the first day of a major festival is genuinely stupid. Not "a bit slow" — fully stationary, engine-off, people eating sandwiches on the motorway stupid. If the festival starts Thursday, drive in on Wednesday. You'll park closer, camp in better spots, and arrive without the rage.
3. Your ticket lives in three places.
Email, screenshot in your camera roll, and printed backup in your bag. Yes, printed. Phones die. Screens crack. Festival staff aren't going to help you access your email if your phone's at 2% and the queue is 400 people long.
4. Get cash out before you arrive.
ATMs at festival sites charge £5–£8 per withdrawal and run out of notes by Friday afternoon. Get cash at a supermarket the day before. Even cashless festivals have the odd trader who only takes cards they've set up themselves and whose reader's been glitching since Tuesday.
5. Don't buy new boots for the festival.
Wear broken-in shoes you've owned for at least a year. A blister at a festival isn't just uncomfortable — it means you're limping for four days on uneven ground. Bring a second pair. Feet get wet. Wet feet stay wet for days if you only packed one pair.
6. Bring a printed copy of your campsite tier/zone.
Festivals like Glastonbury, Roskilde, and Bonnaroo have specific camping areas tied to your ticket type. You do not want to figure this out at the gate while a volunteer points vaguely at the horizon.
Campsite Life
7. Your tent goes up on Wednesday afternoon, not Thursday morning.
By Thursday, the only available spots are next to the portable toilets, under a PA speaker cable, or that thin strip of gravel someone's already claimed with a flag. Get there early and pick a spot that's slightly elevated (drains better in rain), faces away from the rising sun (extra sleep), and isn't directly beside a main path (foot traffic at 3am).
8. Mark your campsite so you can find it at midnight.
A sea of identical tents in the dark is genuinely disorienting. Tie something bright and tall — a flag, a balloon, a foam pool noodle — to your tent poles. The higher and weirder, the better. You'll thank yourself Saturday night when you've had a few and every row looks exactly the same.
9. Bring a foam sleeping mat, not just an inflatable one.
Inflatables puncture. Ground at festivals is covered in tent pegs, broken glass, zip ties, and general debris from the previous day. A foam roll mat is ugly and takes space, but it won't go flat at 2am and leave you sleeping on hard earth.
10. Pack a padlock for your tent zip.
It won't stop a determined thief, but it stops opportunistic ones. Most festival theft is casual — someone unzips a tent, grabs what's visible, and walks off. A lock adds 30 seconds of effort, which is usually enough. Leave your valuables in the lockers the festival sells near the entrance. Worth every penny.
11. Bring more than enough layers for night.
Day temperatures and night temperatures at an outdoor festival can be 15°C apart. I've roasted at Coachella at noon and genuinely shivered at 1am in the same day. Pack a proper fleece or light down jacket you're not embarrassed to be seen in, because you will be wearing it.
During the Festival
12. Eat something real before the headliner.
Not a waffle. Not a smoothie. An actual meal — protein, carbs, the works. Your energy management over four days is mostly about food. People who crash on Saturday afternoon have usually been living on festival snacks since Thursday. Budget for one proper sit-down meal a day, even if the rest is street food.
13. The battery pack needs to charge 4+ times, minimum.
Get a 20,000mAh power bank. Don't go smaller. The ones with built-in solar panels are mostly useless — they charge at a trickle and you'd need to leave them in direct sunlight for six hours to get back any meaningful percentage. A wired pack from Anker or similar costs £30 and will get you through the full weekend.
14. Leave the big acts 20 minutes early.
The last three songs of a headliner are great. The 45-minute queue to get out of the arena is not. Decide in advance which song you're fine missing and use that window to beat the crowd. You'll be back at camp while everyone else is still shuffling through the gate.
15. Carry small bills and a backup card.
Separate your money. Keep £20 in a front pocket, the rest in a money belt or buried in your bag. If you get pickpocketed — and festival crowds are a pickpocket's paradise — you haven't lost everything. A backup debit card (not your main one) lives in a different pocket.
16. Use the festival app's schedule, not just your mental plan.
You will forget what time the act you care about is playing. You'll be having a conversation or queuing for food and suddenly it's five minutes before the set. Download the official app, build your schedule in advance, and set a 20-minute reminder for anything you'd genuinely be gutted to miss.
Health & Safety
17. SPF 50, not 30. And reapply at noon.
SPF 30 in theory sounds adequate. In practice, you're sweating it off, swimming in it, and putting it on once and forgetting about it. SPF 50 gives you more margin. Apply before you leave the tent, carry a small tube for midday top-up. Sunburn on day one ruins the rest of the weekend.
18. Earplugs are not optional.
Not foam ones from the chemist — actual musician's earplugs that reduce volume evenly without muddying the sound. The Loop or Eargasm models run about £20–£30 and are genuinely worth it. Sustained exposure to festival sound levels causes hearing damage. Tinnitus is not a fun souvenir. The music actually sounds better through good earplugs because the low-end distortion drops out.
19. Drink water before you're thirsty.
Thirst is a late signal. If you're thirsty, you're already mildly dehydrated. Carry a reusable water bottle everywhere and fill it whenever you pass a free water point. Aim for 2–3 litres a day minimum; more in heat. Mixing in electrolyte sachets (Nuun, SIS, or even just a pinch of salt) helps in hot weather when you're sweating heavily.
20. Bring a small first-aid kit and actually know where the medical tent is.
You need: blister plasters (Compeed, not standard ones), ibuprofen, antihistamines, rehydration sachets, and something for upset stomach. Know the location of the nearest medical tent before you need it. Walking there to check when you feel fine takes two minutes. Finding it while feeling awful takes twenty.
21. Your feet will be wrecked by day two. Plan for it.
Bring Compeed blister plasters and apply them the moment you feel a hot spot, not after the blister forms. Wet wipes are good for basic foot cleaning at the end of the day. Dry socks matter more than most packing items. If you can fit a spare pair in your day bag, do it.
The Social Game
22. Don't spend the whole festival looking for a signal.
Mobile networks at large festivals are overwhelmed. Expecting to coordinate on the fly via text message is setting yourself up to stand in a field alone for 45 minutes. Before the day starts, agree on a meeting point. Something obvious — "left of the main stage info board," or "the big tree near the food market entrance." Pick a time. Show up. It's old-fashioned and it works.
23. Going solo is actually great.
No compromises on whose set to catch. You move faster. You meet people in queues and at stages the way you never would if you're already in a group. The standard social lubricant at festivals is just asking the person next to you where they're from or what they've seen. Most people are friendly. Go alone if that's your situation — it's not a downgrade.
24. Group size above six is a management problem.
More than six people trying to agree on where to eat, what stage to be at, and when to head back to camp will eventually split anyway. Make peace with that early. Have one shared meeting point for the morning and one for the night headliner. The rest of the day, let people move freely and reconvene when it matters.
25. The moment you remember most won't be the headliner.
It'll be the act you wandered into by accident. The weird set on the small stage at 2pm that nobody was particularly there to see. The conversation outside the food trucks at midnight. I've been to festivals specifically to see big names and come home talking mostly about something I stumbled into. Leave gaps in your schedule. Don't book every hour.
That's the list. The basics — bring a tent, don't forget your ticket — you already know. This is the stuff that separates a decent weekend from one you're still talking about years later.
Pick your festival, pack smart, and go.
