Do you have a festival addict in your family?
Are your kids getting hyped for their first festival, or maybe your partner has already bought tickets to every festival available next year (if they happen at all that is…)
Well, with Christmas just around the corner, I thought I’d come up with a list of great gift ideas for the festival addict in your life.
This post will focus on the practical items. The things that they will definitely need for their festival experience.
I will include some links of different price levels, and some general tips when buying the item to ensure you’re getting something good.
Just to be clear: this is not a sponsored post.
All of the things I have put on this list are just useful things that I would love to receive for Christmas and so I assume other people would too.
Practicalities
As I mentioned, this blog post will focus on boring but useful practical items. When you go to a festival, you want to be able to trust the camping gear you’ve taken with you.
Give someone the gift of comfort and let them rest easy (on the cold , hard floor) knowing that the have quality supplies.
I will likely follow this blog up with a list of more quirky and fun gift ideas that are festival themed though, so keep an eye out for that!
A Good Tent
Going to a festival; you’ll want a tent. You know, big brighly-coloured canvas thing?
When looking for a tent, there are certain elements you want to focus on: durability, size, ease of use.
I always recommend NOT getting a pop up tent. While they are easy to put up, they also have a reputation for being flimsy.
I actually wrote a whole blog post on why you should not choose Pop Up tents, so read that if you’re still not convinced.
Look for a tent that is easy to put up but still has good reviews and wilful be good to use more than once.
Advice
When choosing a tent, be sure to check the size rating. Tents use a ‘man’ system, as in ‘this tent is designed for this many men to sleep in’.
However, this literally means this tent can hold this many people and nothing else.
So when buying a tent, get one that has a rating double the number of people sleeping in it. If you are looking for a tent for two people, get a ‘four man’ tent’.
The stuff that a person brings: clothing, food, alcohol etc, essentially equates to one person.
So to ensure the occupants are comfortable in there, get one twice as big as it says.
Options:
I use a four-man tent with a porch (for shoes and clutter) and a top-cover. It is easy to set up, big enough for me, my partner and our stuff, while still being compact enough to carry from the car park to the camp site.
I have put several tents below that I think would be a great tent for anyone for a festival. I have put them in price order, starting with the cheapest.
Tents can absolutely be very expensive, but try seeing the price as an investment. With proper care, a tent can have many years of use and help any festival goer survive potentially dozens of festivals.
Arpenaz Camping Tent – £70 (3-man)
Regatta Kivu 2 Man 2 Room Dome Camping Tent – £100 (4-man)
Vango Carron 400 – £190 (4-man)
A Good Chair
A good camping chair is something that’s easy to overlook, but will definitely come back to bite you if you do.
First off, absolutely remember to buy a chair before you get to the festival!
The camping chairs that are sold on site at festivals are overpriced, badly made and short-term. The chair will almost certainly break before you go home again.
Trust me; you will miss the £20-£40 you wasted on it when stood at the nearest McDonalds on the way home wishing you could order something better than a pound-saver burger.
Advice
When looking for a camping chair, ensure it has good reviews, looks big enough to comfortably laze in, and has drinks holders (as as I call them; beer holes.)
You’ll be sitting in this chair quite a lot of the time, and likely with a drink in hand.
With nowhere to put the drink, you’ll put it on the floor and risk it getting knocked over. A cup holder in the chairs arms is a surprisingly important aspect.
Options
There are so many variations of the camping chair around, so the price can range quite wildly.
For example, you can get this reclining monstrosity…
Again, here are some good options that I would be okay with using, again listed with cheapest first.
Eurohike Peak Folding Chair – £18
Hi-Gear Kentucky Classic Chair – £40
Vango Samson Camping Chair – £45
A Sleeping Bag
A good nights sleep is very useful at a festival, and unless the festival goer you’re buying for intends to pass out from exhaustion/drunkenness, a good sleeping bag is a good way to ensure they have a great nights’ sleep.
A good sleeping bag doesn’t need to be expensive, but it does need to have a decent season rating.
Advice
The Season Rating on a sleeping bag is a rating of how well insulated it is.
A low season rating is like sleeping inside a plastic bag: Uncomfortable and will not keep you warm.
The ratings go from 1-5, with 1 being the least-insulating and 5 being the most.
4 is really for expeditions and sleeping out in the freezing cold, so probably not necessary for camping in a field in the UK in July.
I would say that a rating of 2-3 is probably where you want to be looking.
The Beast Sleeping Pod – £50
Berghaus Unisex Transition 200C Sleeping Bag – £65
Vango Ultralite Pro 100 Sleeping Bag – £90
Wrap Up
If someone you love is heading off to their first (or one-hundredth!) festival next year, they may be so excited about all the fun things to pack that the they forget the basics.
Show them you care by investing in a good tent for them, buy them a decent chair that will last, or make sure they sleep soundly in a warm and cosy sleeping bag.
If they already have their camping essentially ready, keep an eye out for part two of this blog, more focused on the fun and weird festival-related presents!
