Our Top Tips for Festival Goers

With festival season hopefully coming up soon, we thought we'd give you the lowdown of the best festival do's and don'ts. From what to pack, how to make sure you don't have your tent destroyed all the way to make the most of the long weekend; here are some of The Edge's top festival tips for this summer.

Katie Evans Only pack the essentials.

If this is your first ever festival, you're definitely going to hop online and search 'top tips for festival newbies' which is totally valid but might lead you a bit astray. There's always the 'what to pack' and 'what to wear' lists all over the internet, but the truth is - surviving a festival is really not that hard (and it's nothing to stress about!) If you see a huge list of what to take with you to the festival, remember, it's only a few days - what do you really need. The answer is simple: anything you'd need to stay clean, healthy and happy (as well as a tent and yourself), just don't go taking a huge rucksack full of things you can't even carry more than one metre, because you'll be likely doing a lot of walking.

Be prepared to get no sleep.

People are at festivals to have fun! Sometimes people have too much energy and end up staying up till the early hours. This is something you have to get used to and quickly. It's likely you'll get 4-6 hours sleep because people will be partying all night and the sun will wake you up to a sweaty tent and people get ready for the day ahead. As long as you're okay with little sleep, you'll get into the swing of the festival lifestyle pretty quickly - including the lack of showers and toilets.

Expect things to get a bit chaotic.

Mosh pits are your friends. They might seem kind of terrifying at first, however, once you learn the simple rules of keeping your arms in and not flailing and just going with the flow, they're a great way to meet new people who will soon become your random festival friends for the next few days. There's also going to be a lot of people, all of who will be on different missions to you and your group - some might be finding a place to buy an overpriced pint of cider, or looking for some niche indie band you've never heard of on some hidden stage, but this is all part of the fun and creates a strange community vibe you'll soon fall in love with.

Make the most out of your money.

Don't be one of those people who sits drinking around their campsite all day. That's a waste of money as you could literally be doing that at home for free. Take the time (you've got plenty of it) to explore your surroundings and learn about all the hidden parts of the festival. Grab a map (or borrow someones) and find out just where everything is happening. There's probably a DJ set going on you've not even heard about, or maybe there's a cool pizza shack that's serving funky vegan food. The thing is. you won't know unless you find out.

Just chill out and have fun.

Don't be one of those people who sits drinking around their campsite all day. That's a waste of money as you could literally be doing that at home for free. Take the time (you've got plenty of it) to explore your surroundings and learn about all the hidden parts of the festival. Grab a map (or borrow someones) and find out just where everything is happening. There's probably a DJ set going on you've not even heard about, or maybe there's a cool pizza shack that's serving funky vegan food. The thing is. you won't know unless you find out.