7 Festival Essentials
The Seven Essential Things to Take to a Festival
You’ve got your sleeping bag, your tent and your wellies. And maybe a six-pack of ginger ale (steady on). But what else to pack on your big adventure?
So you’re heading to a festival? It’s hard not to these days - with around 1,000 music festivals attracting over 3.5 million of us into the fields, parks and stately homes of the UK throughout the summer.
But if you’re a seasoned pro, you’ll know - there are highs, and there are lows. And we’re not even going to mention the toilets at Glastonbury (actually, you don’t have to worry about these this year!).
So what can you take to make three days under canvas seem like a long weekend at the Savoy? Well, apart from virtual reality glasses and a hefty dose of imagination, we’d recommend the following in your survival kit. Works for us every time.
1) Eye mask
In the summer it gets light early. And we know what you’re like without your beauty sleep. Deprive your brain of light, and you’ll sleep longer. This is a fact. When your brain senses pure darkness, it makes melatonin, the chemical that keeps you in the land of nod.
2) ...add some earplugs. We recommend these silicone ones from Boots. Block out noise, and your chances of having a deep, restorative sleep improve dramatically. We’ll wake you when French Montana comes on at 2pm.
3) Dioralyte
A little miracle in a sachet. If you’ve been overdoing it, dancing all night in the big tent, or if those toilet trips are becoming a little too frequent, Dioralyte re-hydrates and helps replace the loss of fluid and electrolytes (minerals and salts) that make you feel lousy. It’s a pick-me-up in a shake.
4) Portable shower
This nifty solar shower absorbs the sun’s heat in the day, allowing you to have a soothing shower. The large capacity of 40L also enables you to shower with a friend. Hey, what happens at the festival stays at the festival, right?
5) Waterless shampoo
Soak your tresses in this liquid shampoo, massage into a lather, and you don’t need any water to wash it off. Just towel dry and, hey presto, soft, bouncy locks that smell like fresh apples. No, we don’t know how it works. Magic, we assume.
6) Power Banks
You switched onto low battery mode ages ago, and you’ve stopped playing Crossy Road and mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, but your phone battery is still looking sickly. Never fear, this small but powerful recharger can ping your iPhone back to life an incredible seven times. And it has a little light, too. Nice.
7) ...and finally, Wet Wipes
Really, we could live without all of the above. But send us out into the country without a wet wipe, and we’ll be a quivering wreck. But don’t bother with the flimsy, only-slightly-damp-wipes - the ones that rip as soon as you dispense them. Go for these tough, adult-sized, tackle-anything ones. They’re almost like a flannel. And they’ll clean you up a treat.