First festival for teens! Are your teens heading off on their first teenager holiday? Then read these 15 top tips for festivals to get yourself prepared!
A festival is a great first solo trip for teens away from their parents, many ask to go after exams and camping at a festival is fast becoming a rite of passage! The UK has so many amazing music festivals and they are a great way for an older teenager to have fun in a relatively secure environment.
Security is generally pretty good at festivals and sites are more secure than ever and this builds in another level of safety if it is the first festival for teens.
The Festival season starts in June time and there are so many great festivals to try. Most people remember their first music festival for years to come, however many go unprepared but to help we are sharing this festival essentials list based on experience.
My eldest and her best friends went to their first festival after doing their GCSE exams, it was two nights of camping with a tent and sleeping bag. They had so much festival fun and it gave them a real sense of independence for their first festival experience. As a parent, I was a little nervous and apprehensive but I’ve never been a helicopter parent and knew that it was part of growing up.
The first trip was a relative success, but they learnt from their rookie mistakes and after doing festivals for two years they then spread their wings a bit further and headed off to Malia after A-Levels! I felt confident that everything would go well on that holiday as they had been to festivals and had practised the skills needed for travelling independently on a teenager holiday.
I have put together this post on tips for festivals if your teen is going for the first time and it will help them (and you) avoid the pitfalls we had! This list covers the bare minimum that they will need to take with them and covers the essential items needed for a long weekend away for the first time!
Top Tips for Festivals
- Firstly consider which festival is a good fit for the first trip. They will want to be far enough away from home but some festivals are busier than others. All festivals have a lot of people attending but some are based on huge sites while others are smaller. Glastonbury is a huge event but it might be too big for the first festival. Boardmasters is very popular with younger people and teenagers but it is quite a distance away, as it is right down in Cornwall. Choosing a festival will also be impacted by what type of music the young person and their good friends are into but there are festivals to suit all music types these days.
- Festival tickets can sell out quickly, so do your research, check festival dates, and pick a medium-sized festival that is a few hours away if things don’t work out as planned.
- Another festival tip is to try to make your tent stand out too – add a flag to the top of your tent or put a marker on the side of the tent. There are large crowds at festivals and it can be tricky to find your tent after a late night when the sun has set!
- Next, I made the kids practise putting up the tent in the garden, I wanted to be sure that they could put it up and secure it with the guy ropes! I would suggest not taking a huge tent either as it can be quite a walk from where buses drop teenagers off to the actual camping area. The first year we made the rookie mistake of taking an eight-person tent the following year they took smaller tents. The first year they had an hour’s walk to the camping area and carrying the tent, camping chairs, food and bags were hard going. So our pro tip is smaller tents are best!
- A good festival is all in the planning! Have a look at the itinerary before you go so that you know when your favourite bands are on as you won’t want to miss them. For the most popular sessions at the main stage, it will get busy so get yourself in position in plenty of time to find a good spot. A festival site can be huge and it can take some time to get from one place to another. Have a pre-arranged meeting point with friends if you get lost or your phone runs out.
- Arrive with plenty of time for setting up, many festival campsites open up the day before the artists arrive, which means the prime spots get snapped up quickly, so if you don’t have prebooked camping pitches you need to act quickly, especially if you are a group of friends hoping to camp next to each other. Arriving the day before is a good way to familiarise yourself with the site and its layout too.
- Inside the tent, it is best to take an air mattress for sleeping on as the ground is hard and it also keeps you warmer if you are off the ground. Taking a torch is important for walking back to your tent in the dark and those trips to the loo!
- Next, it is a good idea to plan your festival food. BBQs are often allowed in certain areas but for a first festival, I suggested sticking to easy! The kids took plenty of snacks like sausage rolls, crisps and biscuits. For hot food, they relied on food stalls and food vendors and although this may be a little more pricey it is easy and you don’t need to worry about food poisoning from DIY BBQs! Plus it is less to carry!
- Taking a reusable water bottle is one of my favourite festival hacks. Remind your teenager to stay hydrated by drinking lots of water, there are often plenty of places to refill your bottle for free.
- Toilets and showers at festivals are not the cleanest of places and there are often long lines. Take your own toilet paper for festival toilets as they always run out. Baby wipes or wet wipes and hand sanitiser are your friends as is dry shampoo. My daughter plaited her hair before going as it keeps it tidy and still looks good.
- Dressing for the weather is also essential. Your teen will need to remember that it can still get really cold at night even on a warm day. Your teen will need comfy shoes as they will be wearing them for hours on end! Not much sleeping happens on a festival campsite! A rain jacket will be a good idea as in the morning the dew makes things wet plus rain showers are pretty common in the UK during festivals!
- In terms of clothes layers always work well as you can add more as and when needed. Mainline Menswear has a great selection of designer that works well at festivals. Head over to their Festival Essentials Style page for inspiration where you can find T-shirts, shorts, accessories and more. My teenage son opted for a North Face lightweight jacket. The whole jacket can be packed away into the left sleeve which makes it ideal as packs tiny to fit in his bag.
13. He also picked out a Ralph Lauren Short-Sleeved Crew Neck T-Shirt In Black this goes with everything. Finally, some jeans for if the weather isn’t hot he liked the Emporio Armani J06 Jeans In Mid Wash Blue, Slim Fit.
14. The evenings and especially the early mornings can be chilly when camping even if the day is hot. Be prepared for the weather conditions as a festival is not fun when you are cold. The ground can also be wet in the early hours so boots are always useful along with some comfortable shoes as you will be wearing them all day.
15. My festival camping essentials also include a bum bag or fanny packs as they are called in the US, you’ll want to be hands-free but have somewhere safe for your money and phone. A money belt is another alternative. A portable phone charger is really useful (my actual top tips for festivals) and we recommend the Anker Power Bank which is available from Amazon, this holds a couple of chargers and can easily see us through a weekend away. You can often pay for charging a phone at festivals but it is much easier to bring your own and a portable charger is not too expensive these days.
16. More tips for festivals include remembering to pack bin bags for the big tidy up, they also double up if it’s raining and can help keep your gear dry by wrapping it in bin bags! A small but practical first aid kit is useful to have between the group, some blister plasters, paracetamol, a bottle of water, and anti-bac wipes should do it. Hopefully, they won’t be needed but it is a great idea to be prepared.
17. Finally, when packing up after the festival, make sure that your teen knows to leave the area as they found it. Clear your area of litter and if the tent is wet when you pack it down, make sure you put it back up at home to air and dry out otherwise it won’t be any good the following year – and to be honest once your teen has the festival bug they will definitely want to do it all again!
If you follow these festival tips we are pretty sure that you will be prepared for whatever happens and that your teenager will come back exhausted but will have had a great time and learnt a little about travelling independently. I found that once my teens had done this they had that little bit more confidence in themselves which is all part and parcel of their journey into adulthood.
Teenagers need to do these things and it although it can be hard for parents to let go we need to understand that we are preparing them for adult life. I honestly believe that doing things in small steps and giving them their independence creates happy healthy kids who feel safe and secure. Going to a festival before heading off on a longer holiday makes sense. After all, when they hit 18 they may be heading off to university or college and living away from home for much longer periods. These small breaks help prepare them for that transition.
Let me know if you have any tips for festivals that I have missed or not included. I’d love to hear about the festival hacks that you have, especially if they will help teenagers or parents get prepared for this next step in parenting!
