Music Festival Packing List: What to Bring (and What to Leave Home)

Festivals punish bad packing in unique ways. An afternoon of sunshine can become a cold, wet night within hours. Your belongings will be walked on, sat on, rained on, and potentially lost. The ideal festival pack is: weatherproof, organised, light enough to carry from a car park, and built around the assumption that the weather will be worse than forecast.

Shelter and Sleeping

• Festival tent — lightweight and easy to pitch alone; footprint/groundsheet if not included
• Sleeping bag rated to at least 5°C below the average night temperature (UK festivals: 10°C minimum)
• Sleeping mat or self-inflating pad — insulation from the ground is what makes sleeping comfortable
• Tent pegs (extras, in case any break or pull out overnight)
• Small mallet or hammer (for tent pegs in hard ground)
• Padlock for tent zipper (not secure, but a deterrent)

Clothing: Prepare for Everything

Festival clothing needs to handle sun, heavy rain, and cold nights — sometimes in the same day. The key addition over normal travel clothing is serious waterproofing.

• Wellies (wellington boots) — essential for UK and Northern European festivals; if the ground turns to mud (and it will), trainers are unusable
• Waterproof poncho or waterproof jacket with hood
• Lightweight trainers or festival shoes (separate from wellies) for dry days
• 3–4 t-shirts
• 1–2 warm jumpers or hoodies
• 3–4 pairs of socks (wool festival socks if possible)
• 3–4 underwear sets
• Comfortable shorts and jeans or warm trousers
• 1 outfit you don't mind being destroyed (for mud)

Your Day Bag (What to Carry into the Arena)

• Small backpack (15–20L) — big enough for a day, small enough to not be a nuisance in a crowd
• Portable phone charger (20,000mAh minimum for 4-day festivals)
• Water bottle (refillable — most festivals have free water points)
• Snacks for the afternoon (festival food is expensive)
• Poncho or small waterproof (folds into your bag)
• Cash (many festival vendors are cash-only or charge fees for card payments)
• Earplugs (even if you want to hear the music — prolonged loud exposure at close quarters damages hearing)
• Festival programme or downloaded schedule

Essentials at Camp

• Portable camping chair or foldable groundmat
• Headtorch (hands-free light for night navigation back to your tent)
• Dry bags for valuables in the tent
• Wet wipes (showers at festivals are often poor or not worth the queue)
• Dry shampoo
• Small padlock for any lockable storage you rent
• Rope or bungee cords (hang wet clothes to dry between your tent and neighbour's)

What NOT to Pack for a Festival

• Glass bottles or containers — banned at virtually all UK festivals for safety reasons
• Expensive or irreplaceable items — assume anything you bring can be lost or damaged
• A hard-shell suitcase — almost impossible to carry across festival terrain; use a rucksack
• Too much cash — use a daily cash amount and keep the rest in a money belt

How Packster Handles Festival Packing

Enter your festival dates and location into Packster and select "festival" as the activity. It checks the historical weather data and long-range forecast for that area in that period, and adjusts the list accordingly — adding wellies if rain is likely, a heavier sleeping bag if nights are cold, or sun protection if a heatwave is forecast.