Festival Packing List: Chairs, Coolers and Power Banks

We have all been there: you finally get through the gates at Glastonbury Festival, trek half a mile across a muddy field with your rucksack digging into your shoulders, and realise you have nowhere to sit except the damp grass. Then your phone dies, you lose your mates, and the weekend spirals. After years of festivals, we have learned that the real difference between a miserable weekend and a brilliant one comes down to three things: a decent chair, a cooler that actually keeps drinks cold, and a power bank with enough juice to last until Monday. This is our no-nonsense festival packing list.

Why Your Festival Packing List Needs a Rethink

Most festival packing guides bang on about tents, wellies and wet wipes, then stop there. That advice gets you through the basics, but it ignores the two things that genuinely change your experience: comfort and power. At a weekend event like Glastonbury Festival or Reading Festival, you are on your feet for hours, queuing for everything, and walking miles between stages. A good chair and a reliable cooler can make or break the whole trip, and we would argue they matter more than the brand of your tent.

The Comfort Factor: Why Chairs Matter

By day three, sitting on the ground stops being charming. A proper festival chair gives you a base camp, somewhere to eat, somewhere to rest your legs between sets, and somewhere to gather your group before the headline act. It also makes you the hero of your camp when everyone else is squatting on wet grass. If you plan on playing beer pong or any drinking games at your pitch, a chair with a cup holder is genuinely a game-changer.

Power and Cooling: The Unsung Heroes

A dead phone means missed meetups, no photos, and no way to find your friends in a crowd of 200,000 people. A warm beer on a hot Saturday afternoon is its own kind of tragedy. Power and cooling are the unglamorous items that quietly hold your entire weekend together, and they are the first things people forget.

Choosing the Right Festival Chairs

There is no single best chair, only the best chair for how you festival. We compare folding chairs, inflatable sofas and lightweight options from brands like Vango and Quechua, and we always look for one feature above all others: a cup holder. It sounds trivial until you are balancing a pint on your knee during a beer pong tournament.

Folding vs Inflatable: Which Is Better?

Folding chairs are sturdy, quick to set up, and survive being sat on by your heaviest mate. Inflatable sofas are more comfortable for lounging and pack down small, but they puncture, they take effort to inflate, and they are useless in wind. For most UK festivals, we lean towards a folding chair for reliability, and an inflatable only if you are driving and have space to spare.

Top Picks for UK Festivals

• Vango chairs: solid, well-built folding options with padded arms and cup holders, ideal for a full weekend.
• Quechua folding chairs: lightweight and affordable, easy to carry from the car park to the campsite.
• Inflatable sofas: great for couples who want to lounge, but bring a repair patch.
• Compact tripod stools: tiny and cheap, but only for emergencies.

Coolers and Cool Boxes: Keeping Drinks Cold

Warm lager is the fastest way to ruin a party. We take cooling seriously, because cold drinks are the foundation of any good campsite gathering, whether you are running a beer pong table or just cracking open a few cans before the evening sets. Hard coolers from Yeti and Coleman hold ice far longer than soft bags, but they are heavy and expensive. Soft bags are lighter and cheaper, but they struggle past a day in direct sun.

Hard Coolers vs Soft Bags

Hard coolers win on ice retention, durability and doubling as a seat. Soft bags win on portability and price. If you are at a festival like Latitude and walking your gear in, a cooler with wheels is an absolute lifesaver, because carrying a loaded hard cooler across a field is brutal. Our advice: buy a wheeled hard cooler if you can, and a soft bag as a backup for day trips to the arena.

Ice Retention Tips for UK Weather

• Pre-chill your cooler with a bag of ice the night before you leave.
• Use block ice rather than cubes; it melts far more slowly.
• Keep the cooler in the shade and never leave the lid open.
• Freeze bottles of water and use them as ice packs, then drink them later.
• Drain melted water regularly, as it speeds up the melting of remaining ice.

Power Banks: Staying Charged at Festivals

We cannot stress this enough: a dead phone means missing your mates, missing the secret set, and missing every photo. Anker power banks are our go-to for reliability, with Belkin offering solid alternatives. Look for high capacity and multiple ports so you can charge a phone and a speaker at the same time.

Capacity and Ports: What You Need

For a full weekend, we recommend a power bank of at least 20,000mAh, which will charge a typical phone four to five times. Two USB ports are the minimum, and USB-C fast charging is worth paying extra for. Remember that a bigger battery is heavier, so balance capacity against what you are willing to carry.

Solar vs Standard Power Banks

Solar chargers sound brilliant and look great strapped to a rucksack, but in reality UK festival weather rarely delivers enough sun to charge a phone quickly. We treat solar as a top-up, not a primary source. A standard high-capacity power bank is more dependable, and you can always top it up at a charging tent if your festival offers one.

Essential Party Gadgets for Festival Camping

Once the essentials are sorted, a few clever gadgets turn a muddy campsite into a proper party. We pack portable speakers, LED lights and a beer pong kit, because these are the items that bring the house party ideas and garden party vibes straight to your pitch.

Speakers and Lights

A decent portable Bluetooth speaker keeps the camp alive from afternoon until the early hours, and a set of LED string lights or a lantern makes your tent easy to find in the dark. Both are cheap, light and worth their weight in gold when you are stumbling back at 3am.

Beer Pong and Drinking Games on the Go

A foldable beer pong kit packs flat and turns any picnic table into a tournament. Add a set of plastic cups, a few ping pong balls and a waterproof playing surface, and you have an instant social hub. Just check your festival’s rules on glass and open flames before you pack anything risky.

Our Festival Packing Checklist

Here is the short version we actually use when loading the car. Print it, screenshot it, or just copy it into your notes app before you head off.

Must-Have Items

1. Festival chair with a cup holder, such as a Vango or Quechua model.
2. Cooler or cool box, ideally wheeled, from Coleman or similar.
3. High-capacity power bank, at least 20,000mAh, from Anker or Belkin.
4. Portable speaker and LED lights.
5. Beer pong kit and plastic cups.
6. Reusable water bottle and sun cream.

What to Leave at Home

• Glass bottles, which are banned at most UK festivals.
• Gazebos and large tents that breach size rules.
• Anything valuable you would be devastated to lose.
• Excessive food that will spoil in the heat.

FAQ

What size power bank can I take into a festival?

Most UK festivals allow power banks in the campsite without issue, but some restrict them in the arena. Check your specific event’s rules, and stick to a 20,000mAh model from a trusted brand like Anker for the best balance of capacity and portability.

Are hard coolers worth the extra weight at a festival?

Yes, if you are driving and can wheel them in. Coleman and Yeti hard coolers keep ice for days, which soft bags simply cannot match. If you are arriving by train or coach, a soft bag is the more practical choice.

Can I bring my own alcohol to Glastonbury Festival?

Glastonbury permits personal alcohol in the campsites but not in the arena, and glass is banned. Always check the current rules before you travel, as policies change year to year.

Do I really need a chair at Reading Festival?

Absolutely. Reading Festival is a long weekend with limited seating, and a folding chair with a cup holder makes a huge difference to your comfort and your social life at camp.

How do I keep drinks cold without a fridge?

Use a quality cooler, pre-chill it with ice, use block ice rather than cubes, keep it shaded, and drain melted water regularly. Frozen water bottles double as ice packs and drinking water later.

Pack smart, and your festival weekend takes care of itself. With the right chair, a cooler that keeps its cool, and a power bank that refuses to quit, you can focus on what actually matters: the music, your mates, and that hard-fought beer pong final. Sort these three essentials before anything else, and you will enjoy every moment from the first afternoon set to the last late-night encore.