Festival Essentials

Hello from Arizona! Phoenix is beautiful and I have already seen a cactus (well actually many of them). So I guess I finally get to use the word cacti.

Tomorrow our first festival adventure of the season begins at M3F Festival – formerly known as McDowell Mountain Music Festival – ohhhhhhh I get it, those are the three M’s In any event, now that a festival is imminent, it seems like a perfect time to talk about festival essentials.

Here’s a look at a few things that will definitely be going in my bag tomorrow:

Priority number one is the actual bag itself, I will be using a very handy dandy drawstring/athletic bag. No pockets and small enough to meet most festivals size requirements.

Another awesome essential, especially for camping festivals or if you plan to use your phone a lot is a power bank. My personal favorite is this one, by EC Technology.  It came highly recommended by one of my favorite festival mentors, and has gotten me through multiple festivals and a two treks to base camp at Mount Everest. It is a little heavy, but it will give you multiple full charges before it dies. In fact, I made it 7-8  days in Nepal using it and it was still half way charged.

I also recommend a bandana. They can save you from all kinds of things: dust, sweat, rain, a messy lunch, or even help keep your hair out of your face.

This may sound weird, but I always pack my deep relief essential oil. It just makes you smell better after hours in the sun.

My final tip comes with a picture. One of the best things I have learned is to either take a picture or find someone who has created a digital version of the schedule. Simply screenshot it and set it as your lock screen. This will allow you to see the day’s schedule without draining your battery or trying to pull things up when your phone can’t get signal when everyone is in the same place on the festival grounds. 

Here are a few other essentials:

• sunscreen (non aerosol)
• chapstick
• ID/Cash
• sunglasses
• festival wristband
• raincoat (can serve the normal purpose and great to sit on instead of grass or mud)
• hat (to keep sun out of your face and hide your messy festival hair)
• alcohol prep pad – turns out this is key to cleaning off a camera lens (in addition to its many first aid uses)

Let us know what’s in your festival bag in the comments.