Top 11 Festival Hacks for Music Fest Veterans

The festival season is all but over in the Northern hemisphere, but it’s just getting started in Australia, New Zealand, and South America. That’s why we’ve got you prepared with these unusual festival hacks.

Chasing the never-ending summer? Running away from the blues into the arms of another beautiful experience? Or planning for 2025? Either way, you’ll find at least a few of these quite handy.

1. Festival Hacks #1: Numbing Cream

At any festival you can expect to clock up the miles while walking, and the hours while dancing. Spread this over the typical two-five day festival and this will take its toll, for even the most seasoned festival goer.

Seasoned is the key word here. As veterans ourselves in this area, we recommend you come prepared for aching feet and calf muscles with numbing cream.

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there.

2. Stand proud and go anywhere

One of the biggest complaints and fears about going to a festival is the toilets. No matter how hard the festival works to keep them clean, it’s almost always never enough. Yep there’s a few festivals that have the designated areas between the sexes, but most are mixed (it’s 2024, after all).

Ladies we’re focused on you here, so do yourself a favor and stand up proud while you pee.

Aim for the center.

3. Create an out-house fit for a king or queen

If queuing up and wading through drug infused piss isn’t your thing, then maybe you should consider setting up your own out-house .

1. Portable pop up tent
2. Collapsible toilet
3. Don’t forget the wetwipes. Oh and while we’re talking about sanitary you can’t go wrong with packing dry shampoo, thank us later.

4. The gum-free festival hacks

Instant legend status is always awarded to the person with gum. However, your pretty much guaranteed to run out if you’re fueling your squads jaw clenching needs for the whole of the festival.

Now we’re not trying to convince you to ditch the essential rave staple that is gum, but let us present you with an alternative that is guaranteed to be yours and yours only, welcome to the world of the chewy necklace.

Bite down kids, we’re going on a trip.

5. Dude, where’s my tent?

Festivals attracted thousands of people which comes with thousands of tents making it difficult to find your homebase. This is magnified 100x more when you’re intoxicated or sky-high. Of all the top festival hacks featured here, we think setting markers to get back safe is an essential one.

Picture this, you’ve walked past a sea of tents in the general direction of your camping grounds. You arrive and have no idea where you’ve set up camp, it has to be somewhere… right?

That’s where this telescoping flagpole comes in, just set it up on day one with a ridiculous flag and go collapse on your hopefully still inflated air mattress.

6. Listen to your dad and bring duct tape

Duct tape is an essential festival hack item that you may not have thought of, but your dad has, so you should probably listen to him. Below is a non-exhaustive list that will have you frantically clicking to buy.

1. Tent seam, tear repair and waterproofing
2. Tent stake reinforcement
3. Rope x line repair
4. Camping chair/air mattress repair
5. Clothing/footwear and other accessories
6. Pranking your mate by taping him to the chair you just repaired
7. Kinky shit (Dad may not approve)

Life ain’t grey and neither should your duct tape be.

7. Have the last laugh

There’s a high chance you may get laughed at for this one, but you will have the last laugh when taking these emergency survival blankets with you to a festival. There is no genius without having a touch of madness. Now, depending on the weather you have a few uses (this is why it’s genius).

1. If you’re braving a hot festival, cover the whole of your tent from the outside so the suns rays bounce off ( another use for duct tape)
2. If it’s cold and wet, or lets simply say, if your attending a UK festival, then cover the inside of your tent to trap in the heat
3. Add an extra layer to your sleeping bag for extra warmth
4. Block 5G frequencies like a boss
5. Take one with you to the stages to keep warm and look like a complete twat

Don’t just survive, thrive!

Pro tip: check out our article on festival survival tips here.

8. Pool noodles, the unsuspecting festival hacks

This one is definitely not on your mind while looking for festival tips, but hear us out before you judge, it may give you a better night’s sleep.

We’ve all been there, you’ve climbed into your tent to attempt at least a few hours of sleep. You put your ear plugs in, allowing a somewhat dimming down of the outside chaos. Only for you to have to deal with a shaking tent every time some drunk passes and trips on your guide ropes.

Relatable so far? Here’s where the pool noodles come into play (not 100% guaranteed) slice them down one side opening up the tube and place on all ropes. This should give passers by a little more of a warning that they’re going to end up face down in the dirt.

Noodles aren’t just for pools

9. Consider this one as a reminder

We’re not going to sit here and tell you exactly why you need a power bank at a festival, it’s obvious. Especially if you plan on using your phone for the duration of the festival. So, yea just consider this as a reminder that you need to have one packed.

Stay connected

10. The burner phone, one of the key festival hacks         

The powerbank won’t last forever, especially if you have a bunch of electronics. I would say forget the high end phone completely but we know that you have to “influence” over saving power to call your friends when you inevitably get lost on a side quest.

Here’s your solution. Grab the squad a bunch of burner phones that won’t drain power and just switch it on when one of you goes missing, if the burner does run out of juice, just give it a quick charge on the power bank and you’re good to go.

Alternatively (and more expensive) grab everyone a decent walkie talkie. 

Choose your method of communication: burner phone or walkie talkies

11. Move your equipment (and drunk friend) with ease

To end this list of the top festival hacks is this heavy duty wagon.

Even if you were to pack everything featured here, we still know that you will have a bunch of other things to take. Including the copious amount of alcohol, tent, sleeping bag, and everything in-between. Do your back a favor and kop a wagon to haul everything around the in.

Oh and it should also hold the weight of your friend if they’ve had one to many and need a helping hand.

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