20 Festival Hacks you wish you'd known sooner

18 June 2025, 16:13 | Updated: 19 June 2025, 18:05

Heading down to a festival this year? Then you’ll need to be prepared. Here are some of the best hacks from the Radio X team - all tried and tested and they could possibly save your summer.

1. Invest in an external phone battery

   

   You don’t want to spend the majority of your weekend queuing with ten thousand people to recharge your dead phone, so why not avoid the fuss? USB battery chargers are now affordable - the higher the milliampere-hours (mAh), the quicker the pack will recharge your device. Or, more expensive are solar power chargers, which won’t run out as long as you can recharge them with sunlight. In a real emergency, wind-up USB chargers are cheap and cheerful.

2. Take an old phone with you

   

   Your iPhone 16 Pro Max may be great, but chances are it will run out of battery at some point, and charging it will be a nuisance, so don't rely on it too much. Also, if you drop it down the long drop, you’ll never see it again. So dig out an old phone if you still have one, that does the basics and can be used as a back-up. If you're trying to stream Netflix at a festival then you're doing it all wrong.

3. Eat at least one solid meal a day

   

   Raving all day and raving all night takes up a lot of energy, so make sure you eat properly. Ensure you have a substantial dinner with carbs in it before heading out for an all-nighter to keep on ’til dawn. Also, take some cereal bars - they're a cheap breakfast, no milk required… And it saves you paying a tenner for a bacon roll.

4. Take a bigger tent that you need

   

   Always add a “person” to the size tent you’re taking to your festival. If there’s two of you, get a three-man tent. Why? Because you need to have all your rucksacks, clothes, food and other junk in there with you, which takes up a person’s worth of space.

5. Be a clever camper

   

   Try and get on site as early as you can. The earlier you are, the better spot you can bag. Don’t fret if you arrive later, though - just be prepared to walk further to your campsite. Don’t camp at the bottom of a hill (you can imagine what happens when the rain starts to fall), and be careful you don’t camp too near the Gabba Revival All-Nighter Tent if you want to get some kip. Make sure you don’t pitch downwind of the toilets BUT don’t camp too far away from the lavs in case of an emergency.

6. Know your place!

   

   Remember where you’ve pitched your tent and its relation to the festival site. Find a decent landmark: a path, a toilet block, a group of gurning rave revivalists, anything that will be familiar to you when you’re staggering back to your crib at a million o’clock in the morning. Putting a England/Scotland/Wales/Union flag on top of your tent won’t cut it - EVERYONE does that. If you've got a (well-charged) smartphone on you, What 3 Words and a Google Maps pin, which you set up once your camped, are even more handy!

7. Don't pack a pillow, pack a pillow case!

   

   You’ll struggle to fit a pillow into your rucksack, so why bother? You’ll have plenty of clothes with you anyway, so simply stuff the empty pillow case with a nice jumper and Bob’s your uncle. A festival pillow that can double up as spare clothes when you need them!

8. Wrap some gaffer tape around a water bottle for future use

   

   You don’t need to pack a whole roll of the stuff, just enough in case of an unexpected rip/tear/deflation/tent pole snap- A space-saver and a very possible life-saver in an emergency.

9. Stash some dry clothes if you can

   

   If you drive and you’re taking a car to the festival, leave a spare pair of jeans and socks in the car, so when you leave after four days of torrential downpour and hijinks, you'll be clean, warm and snug.

10. Get minimal with your toiletries

    

    Anything you pack makes for extra weight to be carried or dragged from your house to the festival site, so travelling smartly can be a boon. Don’t take a whole bar of soap, shave off some slivers with a kitchen grater for a “one-wash” wonder. Don’t take a whole tube of toothpaste, bring a mini one. Or in a if you're really desperate, squeeze some blobs onto a plate, let them dry over a couple of days and chuck them into a waterproof bag.

11. Pack a mallet

    

    The amount of times we’ve turned up at a festival and had to try and push our tent pegs into the hard, unforgiving stony ground. You can get a rubber mallet for a few quid at any camping store and it makes using tent poles a walk in the park.

12. Invest in water and bananas

    

    One morning you will be worse the wear from alcohol, so you need a cure. You’ll need to re-hydrate (hence the water) and potassium is vital for proper nerve function (hence the bananas). Plus, those bananas will help with the low blood sugar you’ll experience from too much alcohol. And, now more than ever, always have a reusable water bottle on you, so you can fill it up at free access points across the festival site to keep you hydrated in hot weather.

13. Keep a layer of warm clothing in reserve

    No matter how cold you are, there's always potential for it to get colder - even if it's baking in the daytime, those clear skies mean chilly nights. An extra hoodie or jumper might bring you relief as you stand and watch the Rinky Dink Bike at 4am in the morning.

    Why not make it a Radio X hoodie? They're available at the Radio X Merch Store right now!

    

14. Plan your pockets!

    

    Keep each essential item in the same pocket every day, so despite how drunk you get you’ll always remember where your phone or wallet is - or if it's suddenly gone missing. And don’t put your phone in your top shirt pocket - because you will inevitably lean over and drop it straight down the long drop.

15. Wet wipes are your bathroom now

    

    Forget trying to have a proper wash or queuing for a shower, stock up on LOTS of wet wipes and freshen yourself up that way. And always go for the biodegradable ones!

16. Leave early... or leave late

    

    Make sure you plan your getaway - either pack up and get off the site in the early hours before the masses wake up, or take your time on the Monday and wait for the crowds to thin out. If you go between 7am and 9am, you’ll inevitably get stuck in a bottleneck trying to get through the exit gates.

17. Choose your toilets carefully

    

    The festival toilet is a tricky beast to negotiate, but do not fear it. The long drops may be your idea of hell, but being out in the fresh air, with many feet between you and the pit of human filth is often preferable to being enclosed in a hot and steaming portable toilet with someone else's feculence.

    Avoid the toilets near the main stage areas and thoroughfares - they’ll be battered beyond recognition from thousands of people using them and will be RANK. A good tip is to spot which loos have just been cleaned and use them before they go “on the turn”.

18. Mind those stingy hands!

    

    Contact lens wearer? Always wash your hands before putting your lenses in, because it's more than likely your hands will be covered in anti-bacterial handwash and it'll sting like hell. Dip your fingers in the saline solution you’ve just taken your lenses out of for pain-free eyeballs.

19. Don't push!

    

    Brute force can cause accidents. Trying to push your way in front of 100,000 people is not always the best way. Keep calm and stay relaxed, this is meant to be a fun experience, after all.

    And think very carefully before trying to push your way to the very front barrier - the sound quality is worse, you’ll have less space to do your thing and will find it’s almost impossible to leave. This is a communal event, so remember your fellow festival-goers!

20. This one simple rule will save you any grief at a festival:

    

    Don’t take anything you’re not prepared to lose or damage in some way. We think that speaks for itself.