Choosing a Festival Tent

Having a big enough tent, able to stand up to the challanges of a British summer, is essential to your group's enjoyment of camping at any festival. Before you rush into buying a tent though, there are a few non-technical things to take into consideration, issues that may well affect your final decision.

How many people is the tent for and how is it to be transported? There is little point carting around a tent that is too big for your needs so don't just buy the biggest one you can find for your budget. A smaller 2 or 3 man tent may be better quality and more useful to you than the larger four person one at the same price. It could well be significantly lighter too. The weight of tents can vary widely and it is always wise to share out the bulk and weight of any tent over 4kg or so. Your festival tent will almost certainly have to be carried onto the site so make sure that transporting it isn't too much of a burden between you. Poles, pegs, outer tent, inner tent with sewn in groundsheet and an additional protective groundsheet are the common elements.

How much camping gear and clothing are you planning on taking? Travel light and you won't need too big a tent to put it all in. Tents aren't like the Tardis and if you and your mates are travelling with a dozen outfit changes each and half a skip's worth of other stuff you're not all going to get in that 3 person tent! When a tent manufacturer describes it as a '2 person' tent they are assuming that it is cosy dozing with just a daypack and sleeping bag each, not Everest Base Camp 1 supplies.

Do you need the tent to include one or more separate sleeping areas? If you wish to have a covered living area and one or more inner sleeping tents this requirement is offerred with some of the larger multihoop or multidome style family tents. This type of tent is also an option for groups of four as an alternative to two smaller tents. Be aware though that these tents can be quite heavy to transport.

Will you be visiting festivals that are particularly early or late in the season? This is a time when the weather could well be poor with strong wind and heavy rain and in these months the summer beach shelter type of tent will offer little protection from storms. If you wish to avoid waterlogged sleeping bags a properly pegged down, double skin tent is the only way to keep out of the weather and even then there are no guarantees!

Do you want to risk trashing an expensive tent? There's certainly no need to spend a fortune on a small tent for a festival weekend.. The proximity of so many tents, darkness, alcohol and general exuberance conspire to put any tent at risk of damage and there's no point in ruining a good 4 season Alpine tent made out of the latest high spec and costly poles and materials. The type of tent that you need to look for should be cheap but sturdy and relatively light in weight but spacious enough to accommodate you and all your stuff for the weekend.

Find cheap festival tents at low prices. Buy discount new dome, ridge or tunnel tents for the summer's music festivals. For bargain festival tents come to FestivalTents.info