10 of the best festival gadgets

10 of the best festival gadgets

Tent? Check. Zany hat? Check. Dignity? No, you can leave that at home. Where you’re going you don’t need dignity, but you could probably do with these…

Cinch Pop-up Tent (from £230)

Pop-up tents don’t tend to inspire much confidence. They’re often flimsy, prone to leakages and make a portaloo look roomy. Step forward, Cinch. Available in sizes to fit between two and four people, Cinch’s pop-up tents aren’t just easy to put up, they come with lanterns, LED pegs and reflective ropes, plus if you spend a bit more, you can get them with solar-charged power packs.

Vodafone Smart First 7 (£20)

There’s no point buying a cheapo phone for a festival if you can’t join the crew’s Whatsapp group when you’re there. How else will you know where to meet before seeing Ambient Banter at 3am on the Bovril Energy stage? Vodafone’s Smart First 7 is a full-on 4G Android phone for just £20 and on Voda’s pay-as-you-go 1 tariff, it’ll never cost you more than a quid a day to use. Just don’t expect its 2MP camera to produce many Insta-worthy snaps of the band.

KitSound Diggit (£39.99)

There’s nothing worse than getting back to your tent after a hard day festival-ing to find some berk on the campsite banging out Ed Sheeran covers on an acoustic guitar. Fortunately you packed a KitSound Diggit – a splashproof Bluetooth speaker with an eight-hour battery. While it won’t go quite loud enough to drown them out, you can always connect two together to make a stereo pair, or, failing that, use the detachable spike to put an end to the inane warbling.

Goal Zero Venture 30 (£99.99)

There are portable chargers – and then there’s the Goal Zero Venture 30. Where the others would shrink in the face of a campsite, the IPX6-rated Venture 30 proffers its built-in microUSB cable, grabs you by the sideburns and bellows “JUICE ME” into your face at full volume. With a 7800mAh battery inside, you’ll get about two and half charges out of it for most phones, plus there’s a built-in torch in case you wake up in the night and can’t find your loo roll.

Scrubba (£42)

If you’re heading to a festival worrying about getting your clothes dirty, you’re going to get a big surprise when you find out where everyone goes to the toilet. If you really must spruce up your favourite vintage Genesis t-shirt halfway through the weekend, a Scrubba works like an old-fashioned washboard: just add water and detergent, squeeze out the air, give the contents a good rub and you’ll be smelling like roses again in no time. It’s just a shame that’ll make the stink of everybody else more noticeable.

Petzl Reactik+ (£75)

Walking the guy rope gauntlet is the most treacherous part of spending a weekend in a field, particularly when you’ve spent all day sampling the local ciders. Shed some light on the situation by sticking a Petzl+ Reactik+ on your head. It automatically adjusts the brightness depending on how dark it is and you can even use an app to activate different lighting profiles. Unfortunately there isn’t one called Lost Tent Locator.

Manniska Folding Solar Panel (£39.99)

While the British weather probably won’t allow you to rely on it, it’s always handy to have something solar-powered as back-up in case your portable battery runs out. This folding charger is splashproof, making it resistant to the first drops of any unexpected downpours, and comes with both Lightning and USB connectors, so you can use it to re-up your phone while you plan which bands to catch.

Nikon Coolpix W300 (£389)

The only problem with taking a budget phone to a festival is the lack of a decent camera. With a 16MP sensor, wide-angle lens and the ability to capture 4K footage, chances are Nikon’s sturdy Coolpix W300 takes better pictures than your phone would anyway, and with GPS onboard you’ll be able to see where each shot was taken even if your brain is having trouble pinpointing it.

GoTenna Mesh (£199 for two)

There’s not much point taking a phone with you if you can never get any signal, so get everyone in your group to carry a GoTenna Mesh unit. They create their own network, so you can send missives and locations data to each other without having to rely on the overloaded masts everybody else is using. With a range of up to four miles it’ll cover even the biggest festival site and if there are other GoTenna users in the area it’ll piggyback on their devices to send your messages even further.

BioLite CampStove 2 (£129.95)

Don’t make your morning cup of tea using one of those little gas stoves, kill two birds with one stone by firing up BioLite’s CampStove 2. It has a built-in 2600 mAh battery and converts excess heat energy into electricity, with fans inside to stoke the flames and fill it more quickly. Just plug your phone into the USB port on the front to use some of it.