Whether you’re heading to a one-night festival or a five-night adventure, there are plenty of things you need to pack. From the bags you need to the camping gear, here are the essentials to bring. As a festival vet who has gone to 6-7 festivals a year for 5+ years now, this is my very comprehensive list of Must have items for any camping music festival! I continually come back and update it as I think of more smaller tips so I highly recommend bookmarking it to reference later when you need it again.
Before we talk must have items for your camping festival experience – we need to talk getting there. If you are flying and renting a car and haven’t figured out plane tickets or car rentals – I highly recommend checking out Kayak.com for both. You can set price alerts for your flights and they’ll email you when the prices change. You can also compare rental car prices from all the different companies in one spot. The great thing is you don’t even have to book on Kayak.com. Use them as a search engine then click through to the company you want to go with and book direct!
Luggage – Bring something for just your clothes you can just toss in the tent. You don’t need a whole suitcase, a large duffle or backpack works perfectly here. I like to use large ziplock bags per outfit (the bags that shein clothing come in work well) so they’re easy to just pull out each day. I also throw my dirty clothes back into the ziplock bags. This makes life easier. I now bring these vacuum seal bags with a pump from Amazon everywhere I go. They’re useful for just general travel but I save space and they can be reused too. Great if you’re flying into a festival.
Hydration Pack – You should look for something with at least a 2L bladder and I prefer the mouth pieces with a cover on them. I do this because everyday I’m tossing my bag on the ground to relax, hanging it in the porta potty or tossing it somewhere when I get to camp. Having a cap on your hydration pack helps keep the mouthpiece from getting dirty all weekend. I prefer the SoJourner brand Hydration Pack on Amazon, I’ve had 4 different different kinds of Hydration Packs in my festival life but just make sure you buy something stretchable.
I’ve also owned the holographic version that several companies make and they just don’t last as long. You cant overpack them because the material doesn’t stretch so they break down quickly. Especially if you’re trying to bring in enough stuff for a whole day without going back to camp.
Other Miscellaneous organization hacks:
Use a shoe organizer to hang on your canopy at camp, put all your various supplies in it. A 3 tiered hanging fruit basket works really well for that too.
Canopy
If there is anything on this list of Must Have Items that you buy, its absolutely should be a 10×10 STRAIGHT LEG canopy. Canopies are a must buy item for any Camping music festival. They are more expensive but consider it a good investment in your weekend. Any canopy is better then no canopy BUT the 10×10 slant leg canopies are only 8×8 at the top so they only cover 64 sq. ft. of your site with shade whereas the 10×10 straight leg canopies are 10×10 at bottom & top and are 100 sq. ft. of shade. It definitely makes a difference too! Less moving stuff around to keep it in the shade, more open space covered and more shade over your tent or hammock area!
I started with this slant leg from Dicks Sporting Goods and quickly moved on to a better version of it which I currently use. Great thing about Dick’s is you can order online and shipping to store is free plus they have a pretty solid warranty policy. I buy the protection plan on my chairs and canopies there because lets face it – they’re made cheaply. When they break I just go in and they look up my policy and its a quick exchange where I’m just buying another protection plan on the new item. This is especially useful for canopies because wind at festivals has definitely made a few go flying over the years and hit car windshields.
Speaking of flying canopies – ditch the cheap stakes that come with every product and invest in some solid heavy duty stakes. You can get them from Walmart or Amazon and they aren’t overly expensive. They’ll save your stuff – trust me on this one.
Tapestries – Either buy some or tie dye some old sheets (I get mine at goodwill!) to block the sun out of your tent. I also throw a tapestry in my bag to sit on inside the venue between sets or if we want to chill in the back. I use large binder clips to secure them to the canopy.
Tent
If there’s a large group of you, you might want to consider 2 tents, depending on your car situation and how much space. Whatever you buy -the instant popups are best. They come in multiple sizes. My recommendation is something UNDER 10 feet due to the way most camping festival parking grids are set up. This is the tent I have and it takes under 5 minutes to set up. The 6 person Coleman fits 3 adults and all their “stuff” pretty comfortably. Remember 6 bodies in a 6 person tent generates a lot of heat and leaves very little room to move, stretch, change, etc. I like using the rule of half, 4 person tent for 2 people, 6 for 3, etc. At some point its useful to have 2 sites next to each other with 2 tents then it is 1 huge tent. You are going to want privacy at some point especially for things like baby wipe showers.
Tent Stakes
It’s likely you’ll get some which come with your tent, however, I’d recommend buying another set of 4 or 6. You can pick them up $2 ones at Walmart which have the orange top and are way more sturdy!
Hammock & Straps
Alright so first off my favorite hammock brand is Eno. You might be wondering why I say bring a hammock? Well I actually sleep in myh hammock at camp. I bring a hammock stand and sleep under my canopy and skip the tent all together. This might not be for everyone though but I love it and sleep really well. If you plan on bringing a tent then the hammock is fantastic for afternoon naps. Electric Forest, Okeechobee & Bonnaroo have great spots for hammock naps!
Sleeping bag
Tents can get very cold at night, so it’s essential to get a good sleeping bag, which is warm!
Blow up bed (or a cot but I hate cots personally)
I usually take a the raised twin size mattress because its the most comfortable. Note: I only do air mattresses when its too cold for my hammock stand setup
Pillow
You can get festival pillows; however, I prefer my camping pillow but you could bring whats on your bed and taking an old pillowcase to put it in.
Camping chair
Not an essential if you don’t mind sitting on the floor, but having a camping chair makes the drinking by the tent a lot comfier!
A Bathroom Bag
We buy a $1 backpack from the dollar store and add lysol wipes, baby wipes, toilet paper and hand santizer to it. Its perfect for that early morning run to the porta potties just as they get cleaned.
Toilet roll
An obvious one! You’ll be lucky to find TP some festivals and if you do, it won’t last long, so take your own! Throw however many squares you need into a plastic bag to take in with you to the venue.
Trash bags
If you leave garbage lying around outside your tent, you’re going to attract flies, wasps and maybe even something worse!
Shewee
For the ladies – I’m a bit rubbish at using these, but they’re a godsend to some!
Blankets
After a long day of dancing – you’ll probably end up back at your tent and its probably going to be cold or damp. It even gets damp at bonnaroo. Storing extra blankets in your trunk is the perfect way to keep you warm!
Speaking of storing your bedding in your car everyday, it probably sounds like a hassle but its so much better to come back to camp to bedding that isn’t damp from the dew settling in. If you aren’t in the mood to moved your stuff everyday I’d suggest grabbing some damp rid from the dollar store and throwing it in your tent. Its not perfect but it’ll definitely help get rid of some of that dew.
Camp Stove if you plan on cooking breakfast, hot dogs, reheating food you made ahead of time or just a simple quesadlia
A Table – this folding table is compact enough for the car but has enough space for your stove and other things you dont want on the ground.
These blow up chairs are so much fun to sink into.
This sofa is equally if not slightly better because you can turn it into a bed and take an afternoon nap under the canopy if you need to.
Camping area rugs are nice to throw down under your canopy. You can lay down or stretch on them, while also not sitting directly on whatever bugs might be lurking in the grass.
I’ll just repeat myself on this one but a hammock on a hammock stand is one of my personal favorite things to have at camp. Nothing beats an afternoon hammock nap.
Stay Hydrated – bring Pedialyte or Liquid IV. This stuff is essential for anyone at a festival especially if you’re partaking in anything from alcohol to whatever. You sweat so much at festivals and just drinking water isn’t always enough. Order 1 large bag for your camp and split it and you’ll be so happy you did. I prefer the liquid IV flavors. I’ve also been known to mix them into the first drink of the morning to restart the party and kill yesterdays hangover.
Hydration Pack – the first thing I mentioned in this post!
Bandana – there is an imense amount of dust at festivals and I keep a bandana on me at all times to cover my face if it gets bad. This is especially useful walking back to camp at night because of the golf carts and bikes-for-hire running around.
Vitamins & Emergen-c – this is something I bring for all my friends that partake. Even just a multivitamin everyday helps but I highly recommend doing your research.
Some of these are obvious, so I don’t need to go into more detail!
Baby wipes
Sunscreen
Micellar Water/Face Wash / Face Wipes
Moisturizer
Deodorant
Hairspray
Dry Shampoo
Hair Brush
Hairbands
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Anti-bacterial hand wash
Mirror
Ideally, a stand-up mirror as it allows you to have both hands when doing your make-up, hair or putting your glitter on!
Glitter – One of my favorite things about festivals is being covered head to toe in glitter and not being judged! if youre bringing glitter I highly recommend purchasing biodegradable glitters.
Vaseline – The perfect and cost-effective way to apply glitter is by using Vaseline!
Face mask
It may sound like an odd one, but this year I’ve packed a face mask for Bonnaroo! You feel drained from little to no sleep. The little sleep you do get needs to be in the dark so definitely toss one in your bag for when you stumble back to camp as the sun is rising and you wanna catch a 3 hour nap.
I don’t need to mention packing your outfits, so this just covers the basic clothes and shoes you’ll need! Get creative on outfits, camping festivals are where people feel the most free to where whatever they want.
More Underwear & socks then you think you need. It’s not something you want to run out of!
Warm PJs & Hoodie – Tents can be both a sauna and a freezer, throughout the night temperatures can really drop so you’ll be grateful for some warm PJs and a hoodie!
Extra Clothes – Always pack an outfit or two more than is needed in case of bad weather!
Extra iPhone or USB-C Cables – I always bring an extra if we lose one or one of them stops working.
External charger/Power bank (or two!) – this is my all time favorite one because it lasts all festival:
Its a godsend! iPhone batteries are rubbish, and it’s likely you’ll want to capture some of the memories you make on your phone, so you’ll need an external charger, or two, depending on how long you’re going. You can get external chargers in a lot of places now, but I’d recommend finding one which may cost a little bit more money, but in turn, charges your phone up more times than a cheaper alternative. I avoid the solar ones, while on the surface they seem practical but they really take a long time to charge up and who has time to waste waiting on their charging bank to charge?
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