A weekend (or longer if you have the annual leave days) spent in a field, listening to great music with your best mates, trying not to let a cold pint trickle down your fingers - what could be better?
Up and down the country, festival goers are preparing for some of the summer’s greatest parties, from Glastonbury, Bestival, Leeds or Reading, or smaller affairs like Houghton in Norfolk, there’s one thing you’ll need above all else: a lightweight but robust festival tent.
Because even if you’re not planning on much sleep, you’ll still need somewhere to put your stuff.
How to shop for the perfect festival tent
If you’ve never shopped for a tent before, much less one for a festival, there are some crucial things to remember.
Size is key: whatever number of people the tent claims it can fit, halve it immediately. The figure never seems to account for backpacks, sleeping bags or any room at all unless you plan to lay completely still, side-by-side, like sardines wedged inside a tin.
Weight matters too: whether you’re planning to drive or get public transport, you’re going to have to carry everything yourself to the best pitch you can find. While your chosen tent may not feel so heavy on its own, once you factor in a full backpack, camping chair, and various totes carrying wellies, food and cans of drink, you’ll soon feel every kilo.
Of course, you can split the burden if you’re planning on sharing, but a bigger tent naturally will mean more weight.
We’ve rounded up the best festival tent options below to help you choose.
Leave no trace
But before we get into the in-tents world of festival camping, a quick note on responsibility.
According to the Association of Independent Festivals, some 250,000 tents are left abandoned at the end of British music festival every year. Although organisers employ teams to collect them and they’re recycled where possible, that’s a hell of a lot of unnecessary waste, not to mention money squandered.
Tents are a great investment and with care will serve you a good few festival-filled summers. With landfills at breaking point and avoiding single use plastic high on everyone’s agenda, do yourself and the planet a favour, and stick by the age-old festival motto: leave no trace.
See our selection below
Vango Omega 250 tent
- Weight: 4.05kg
- Type: tunnel tent
Weighing a sprightly 4.15kg, the 2018 Omega 250 basecamp tent may be designed for expeditions but it serves perfectly well as your festival HQ too.
Average pitch time is just 12 minutes, and for once the listing as a two-man lives up to the hype - thanks to the compartment design. The zipped sleeping compartment is separated from the large living area giving you dedicated spaces to sleep and change clothes so you always look your festival best. It’s a necessary addition if you want to keep the mess to a minimum and sleep in a mud-free zone.
Buy now £225.00, Cotswold Outdoor
Vango Galaxy 300
It takes just 18min to pitch this "three-man" tent, and you can actually house that quantity of people inside. The tunnel design's spacious outer chamber means you could indeed fit snuggle up with two friends in the 210 x 180cm sleeping compartment.
Breathable yet 100 per cent waterproof, it weighs 5.55kg and packs down to 55 x 22cm, which feels remarkably small when you realise how spacious it is once fully set up.
A good choice for all sorts of outdoor activities, the ability to stand up at the entryway makes it a winner for us. We also liked the thoughtful cable entry point, which allows you to charge your phone and devices from outside the sleeping compartment.
Buy now £319.99, Amazon
OLPRO Hive 6 Berth Tent
- Weight: 20kg
- Dimensions: 240 x 530 x 680cm
Why take three tents when you can house yourself and a few selected friends in one?
Sleeping anywhere between three to six people, this Tardis-like tent from Olpro offers three sleeping compartments shooting off a six-sided living space. The design is packed with considered features to help you enjoy outdoor living, rather than simply endure it.
There are large windows and a skylight to let in sunshine plus ceiling air vents that can shut if the breeze is a bit much. The front door comes with a canopy covering to keep drizzle at bay, but if it pours down, stay cocooned inside the fully waterproof shell. Everything is supported with fibreglass and steel poles for reassuring stability come rain or shine.
So, are there any downsides? A few. It's heavy: you'll need to split the weight amongst your mates if you’re taking this to a festival, but the slog will be worth it once it’s pitched. And it's large, even packed, so make sure there's adequate space to store it at home afterwards.
That said, if you’re in green fields every summer and you're fed up with crouching and crawling in your temporary living quarters, the Hive will leave you feeling rested and restored - yes, even at a festival.
Buy now £450.00, Mountain Warehouse
Decathlon 2 Person Blackout Pop-Up Tent
Best for: easy set up and take down
Pop up tents seem like a good idea at the time - practically set up in two seconds flat, what’s not to like? Well, we’ll tell you. The pack up can be like wrestling with a demon made of tarpaulin or requiring a masters degree in origami.
No such trouble with Decathlon’s time-saving design, which promises easy dismantling as well as construction. It’s an eco-design too, thanks to the greige and rope dyeing processes (leaving them in their raw state sidestepping the need for harmful chemicals).
A handy thing to have in the cupboard for hiking and fishing trips as well as weekends away, the single internal chamber has space for two but we think it’ll be more comfortable for one sleeper - and it should be easy to carry solo at 4.7kg.
Best of all, if you’re trying to get a few hours kip between bands, the blackout fabric means you can expect 99 per cent darkness inside, even in broad daylight.
Buy now £129.99, Decathlon
Eurohike Teepee Tent
- Weight: 4.7kg
- Dimensions: 300 x 300 x 210cm
Don’t underestimate the glorious ability to stand upright in your tent: we’ve been bent double trying to change in our fair share of tents over the years to know that such a feature is priceless.
Teepee-style tents, while offering plenty of glamping vibes, are notorious for their weight - which is why this one, at just 4.7kg, is such a find. Why so light? It’s down to the single support pole and light fabrics rather than heavy canvas as seen on other tepee tents.
Ideal for a couple or a pair of friends, you should have no trouble splitting the weight until you find the perfect festival pitch. It’s an old-school tent with plenty of modern features: waterproof fly and groundsheets and a hydrostatic head to keep the elements from your living quarters.
Buy now £85.00, Amazon
Regatta Malawi 2 Pop-Up Tent
- Best for: lightweight option
- Weight: 2.5kg
This 2.5kg is an attractive proposition for first-time festival-goers, but make sure you watch the instructional video in our intro showing you how to fold it away after use.
The design is kept lightweight thanks to a single skin and fibreglass poles. While this style of tent claims to sleep two people, from experience, we say it’s more of a single-berth situation - especially when you factor in clothes, shoes, wellies and your other festival bits. The single-skin means this is an option best kept for warmer weather only.
There are internal pockets to help you organise essentials like your toothbrush, wallet and contact lens kit, and plenty of mesh panels to allow air to circulate without letting rain in. Hydrafort fabric on the flysheet acts as a further shield to stormy skies. It packs down to 75 x 10cm.
Buy now £69.99, Very
Coleman Unisex Adult, Darwin 2 Tent
- Weight: 2.8kg
- Packed dimensions: 46 x 15.5 x 15.5cm
If you’re looking for a roof over your head for just a few days, Coleman’s Darwin tent is an attractive option - thanks mostly to the fact that, when packed, it weighs just 2.8kg and measures 46 x 15.5 x 15.5cm, only slightly bigger than a 10-inch iPad.
Once constructed though, the spacious interior has enough room to insert a double airbed. It has plenty of other magic tricks up its sleeve, from a roomy porch area to store your stuff and shoes, as well as a place to sit and relax before you head out to the festival.
Pitch time, it’s not as fast as a pop-up tent but it’s still fairly quick, using a ring and pin pole attachment to get the extended dome structure up and ready to party.
Buy now £69.99, Amazon
Clostnature Waterproof Camping Tent
- Weight: 2.37kg
- Packed dimensions: 40 x 17 x 17cm
To claim this tent can sleep six is a stretch of the imagination, unless you’re counting your childhood set of Sylvanian Families. It does, however, offer plenty of space for two but with no outside area of porch, you’ll have to pack light or store your stuff elsewhere to be comfortable inside.
That said, it has lots going for it, from the fast set-up time of 10min (even on your own) and just 2.37kg in packed weight. It’s also waterproof and has factory-sealed seams to protect against the infamous British weather.
The inner tent is the star of the show here, with a shorter second layer, the flysheet, protecting the mesh panels from the elements. Also available in forest green.
Buy now £44.99, Amazon
Easy Camp Moonlight Yurt - 6 Person
- Dimensions: 365 x 320 x 220cm
- Weight: 7.7kg
Sure, a yurt may seem a little OTT for the festival experience, but this one can comfortably sleep at least four including luggage, so if you’re only going with a few pals and want to cut down on bags - this may be a worthy option for you.
It’s heavier than the other options on our list (7.7kg), but that’s the only drawback.
Pros include a hydrostatic head, waterproof to 3000mm, 220cm of full head height and plenty of mesh inserts to keep airflow circulating. It packs down to 69 x 21cm and comes with a 100 per cent polyethylene groundsheet to protect against the damp ground if it has been raining before your arrival.
Buy now £202.89, Amazon
Naturehike Mongar Ultralight 20D Silicone Backpacking Tent
- Weight: 2.1kg
- Dimensions: 210 x 135 x 105cm
In a world where all tents look the same, opt for something that stands out - if only to help you spot your temporary home in the festival’s sprawling tent city.
Available in a neon, can’t-miss-it green, this lightweight tent is low and wide, offering enough space for one person to sleep or sit cross-legged inside with a max height of 100cm.
It’s dinky at just 2.1kg and the flysheet offers superb wraparound, keeping your inner tent protected from the weather whatever the conditions are like outside. Designed for cycling and hiking, it performs well on the festival field too.
Buy now £139.00, Amazon
Kelty Far Out 2-Man Tent with Footprint
- Weight: 2.47kg
- Packed dimensions: 40.7 x 15.3cm
This easy-breezy three-season tent has a unique selling point: the tarp covering can be rolled back over the mesh inner tent, permitting sleepers a gorgeous view of the night sky above. It may not be ideal on a busy festival campground, but certainly makes a fun feature if you're planning wholesome weekend adventures in the countryside.
In terms of assembly, it’s fairly simple and happily requires no forcing rods through teeny canvas tubes. Two long aluminium poles form the support structure for the tent, to which the inside and outer layers are clipped. Little mesh pockets around the tent’s sides provide handy storage points for keys, phones and torches. It’s compact, which makes it lighter to carry but also on the small side. No air mattresses here: there’s just enough space to sleep two people comfortably.
The Far Out’s ace are the multiple exit points. There are doors and vestibules on each side of the tent, meaning campers can roll in and out easily without climbing over each other to go to the toilet or keep shoes out of the rain without dirtying the inner compartment. A win in anybody’s book. Vicky Jessop
Buy now £285.00, Mountain Warehouse
Sierra Designs Clearwing 3,000 2 Man Tent
- Weight: 2.1 kg
- Packed dimensions: 50cm x 15.5cm
Light, compact, and easy to put up, this tent is a good option for any festival or impromptu camping trip.
The structure is a little unusual – with two semi-circular arches joined by a middle pole, instead of poles that cross each other in the middle. However, the colour-coded silver and grey poles make it intuitive to put up, and the inner tent's double arches make for a little more room for sitting up inside.
The compact dimensions mean it's a bit of a squeeze for two tall people lying down, and the porch isn't huge either – but that only makes it lighter to carry. The clearwing is not top of the range, but it feels sturdy.
It's not as flimsy as your traditional tent, and the streamlined shape helps withstand fairly heavy rains and winds without blowing down the hillside. The 'burrito' bag, which is loaded sideways, also means it's easy to put away when it’s time to go home - Robbie Griffiths.
Was: £250.
Buy now £180.00, Mountain Warehouse
Verdict
The Vango Omega 250 tent and Vango Galaxy 300 offer ample space from teeny packed proportions. Buy well, buy once (in a blue moon).
