Earlier this month we attended Cornbury, our very first festival that required on site camping and it’s fair to say we felt pretty clueless as to what to take. However after reading numerous posts, speaking to fellow festival goers, and having experienced festival life first hand we now feel pretty confident that we know what to take and what not to take with us this weekend when we visit Nozstock festival for the first time. In case you are feeling like we were here is our festival checklist to make sure you have everything you need to make your experience the best it can be.
Festival checklist if camping
Tent – if you hadn’t thought of this already then you need more than just this festival checklist!
Blow up bed AND manual pump – it is important to remember that there is unlikely to be electric on your camp site so take the manual pump with you or risk blowing up your lungs before the singing has even started.
Sleeping bags – otherwise you will simply freeze.
Torch – perfect for finding your way back to your tent in the dark or for midnight loo trips!
All the wipes – hand, body, deodorizing and face, you never know just how far your pitch will be from the toilette and the showers so best to have some handy, especially with kids. We found some great ones in the festival isle at Home Bargains.
Hand santizer – trust me you will use it.
Cash – Not all festivals have cash points on site and some stalls will be cash only so make sure you have at least some cash on you.
Carrier bag/bin bags – again you may be miles from the nearest bin.
Trolley – We borrowed a trolley and it was an absolute god send for getting the tent and bags from the car to the camp site as unlike normal camping you can’t drive your car to your pitch.
Wellies – if your festival is in England then wellies are an essential regardless of what the weather report says.
Sun cream and after sun – It is Britain after all, you are just as likely to need sun cream as you are wellies and most likely both on the same day. We love the cooling cream from Balmonds as it is 99% natural and smells lush, they have a full range of skin salvation products that would be ideal for festivals and camping.
Power Bank – Again the lack of electric can leave you with no where to charge your phone with may be nice to go techno free for a while unless, like me, you use it to capture pictures all the time. We have the Recharge GP M series from by GP batteries which is brilliant as it comes with an adapter that is suitable for all smart phones and it can charge two phones at once.
Storm Tear Aid – You never know what is going to happen whilst camping so I always shove a bag of the storm tear aid in with our tent just in case as there is nothing worse then finding you have a leak in your tent in the middle of a stormy night.
Food and Drink
There will be food and drink a plenty at the festival covering everything from breakfast to evening meals as well as snacks along the way, so for this reason you could take no food or drink with you and still survive, however you will need a fair bit of cash if you decide to do this. Another option if to take a grill, BBQ or other cooking equipment with you and cook at the tent, however this means packing and carrying even more stuff. For us we decided to factor in eating in the festival for our evening meals, as lets face it festival food is amazing, and then took a variety of non cook food items for breakfast and dinner that we could nip back to the tent for. Here are my suggestions
Breakfast options
Non soft fruit such as apples that will keep whether in a cool box or not.
Breakfast balls such as these ones by The Protein Ball Co. which are delicious, healthy and do not need to be refrigerated or cooked.
Breakfast Bars – cheap and easy and usually loved by kids and adults too, our family are fans of the Goahead Snacks or the Brunch bars from Aldi.
Croissants, pan au chocolates, pancakes – as long as you don’t mind eating them cold which my kids don’t.
Dinner/Lunch options
Bread or baps, we found that making sandwiches back at the tent was a quick and easy solution to lunch time that was cheap to do, required no cooking utensils and kept everyone happy.
Jam, peanut butter, and cheese slices we popped all of these in a cool box with ice packs but knew that once the ice had melted these items would still be fine to eat as we were only there for 3 days.
Dunkers – always a winner with our kids
Pepperoni – again simple, quick and easy and doesn’t need cooking.
Snacks
Crisps
Biscuits
Popcorn
individual pots of jelly
and other easy to eat snacks that your family love.
Drinks
Top tip – we froze our drinks before we left and put them in a cool box with ice blocks, this helped them to stay cooler longer and also helped keep the food items in the cool box colder too. The children loved having ice cold drinks on the first day, especially as it was a hot one and some were still half frozen like slushies.
Get more vits – we chose the Get More Vits orange and mango drinks as I knew the children’s diet wouldn’t be as healthy as it is at home and these drinks contain lots of vitamins and taste delicious so the kids didn’t bat an eye lid at them – winner.
Shaken udder milkshakes – again we froze these milkshakes so the kids could have some ice cold drinks. I also wanted to make sure they got their dairy and calcium fix over the weekend and they saw them as treats so everyone was happy. We tried the strawberry and chocolate ones and both were delicious and I will definitely be buying them again.
Remedy Kombucha – For the adults we recommend the Remedy Kombucha drinks. These come in cans are easy to carry and keep cool. They are low in calories, and bursting with live cultures (good
bacteria), antioxidants and organic acids that can support gut health which is great when you are away and probably not eating and drinking as healthily as you would normally be doing! They are available in six flavours, Mango Passion, Ginger Lemon, Peach, Cherry Plum, Raspberry Lemonade and Apple Crisp, so you will be bound to find the perfect one for you.
Fentimans – Another favourite of ours are the Fentimans drinks. These can be drank as they are, enjoying their delicious flavours from rose lemonade to ginger beer or they can be used as the most amazing mixers. I highly recommend rose lemonade and gin, it is the perfect summer festival tipple! The only thing to note is that these come in glass bottles so be careful when packing them.
Water – we took a large bottle of water as we had heard water was expensive in the festival and it something I knew we would need. This worked really well and saved us a fair bit of money and reduced our plastic use as we just refilled our own bottles.
Alcohol
Alcohol is not really an essential but if you are planning on having a drink at the festival then I highly recommend you take your own with you. Most festivals will not allow you to take your drinks in to he actual arena with you but you can enjoy them when relaxing by your tent.
Spritz in a can – One of the alcoholic drinks I would recommend are the Croft Twist spritz in a can drinks. They are elderflower, lemon and mint flavour with a dash of premium croft fino. They are only 5.5% and make for a really refreshing drink. They are also vegan friendly and only have 150 calories in each can.
The extras
Sun cream – Don’t forget to pack your sun creams and after suns. You will be out in the fields for hours at a time and the British weather is nothing if not unpredictable.
Bucket Hat – Everyone needs a bucket hat a festival! And we recommend this Fred Perry Branded Tape one from Mainline Menswear, available in black or white.
Travel games – These are perfect for both the car journey and for downtime back at the tent. One of the one we recommend is Travel Tension, the top 10 naming game suitable for those aged 12 and over.
Bubbles – if you have small children grab a few packets of bubbles or a bubble wand from your local pound shop as these will keep the kids entertained and be much cheaper than buying them there.
Face paints – If you are pretty creative, or can at least do some simple shapes then take your own face paints. One it will save you money when there but two it will save you spending three hours in a queue with 100 children.
Fancy dress –most festivals will have at least one fancy dress day/night with a specific theme. Make sure you heck out their website in advance so you can plan your outfits.
Light up toys – All of the above will be on sale at most festivals so if you want to save yourself a few quid then you could take some or all of these with you.
CBD – there are tons of activities in the festival, and there may be times that you’ll need some pain relief if the activities became too strenuous. Formula Swiss has a selection of CBD products that are all-organic and vegan-friendly.
CO alarm – The FireAngel CO-9X Carbon Monoxide alarm is a handy little gadget that you keep in your tent and it alerts you if you have a carbon monoxide leak, which is brilliant if you are taking cooking utensils or a BBQ.
If you have any other festival camping essentials that you think we have missed of them be sure to let us know in the comments.
If you like the idea of a family festival but want to start with day time only festivals then check out our reviews of the BBC summer festival in Liverpool and Cheshire Fest near Manchester.
(Some of these items were sent for review and inclusion but all opinions are my own.)