Funky festival tents

Funky festival tents

There is nothing better than camping at a festival, even if you claim you don’t like mud and stink. Most festivals have clever eco-showers now anyway, and mud makes you grow roots, lady! Here are some of our favourite funky festival tents for 2009 – along with tips on how to get the best festival spots for your tent.

How to get the most out of your funky festival tent

  • Get there early so you can find a good spot for your tent.
  • A good spot for your tent is high up (better for drainage if it rains).
  • Good camping spots are close to a hedge or side barrier – that means fewer drunk people walk past and collapse your tent while trying to find their own.
  • Camp away from the main stages and thoroughfares so (a) you’re not in mudslide central, (b) no-one rips up your tent pegs or pisses in your tent. Or falls on it and goes to sleep. If someone climbs in thinking it’s their tent and you wake up next morning with them next to you? Let’s just hope they’re nice people.
  • No matter how fantastic and bright your tent, you will lose it in the vast tent ocean. Buy a fishing pole, or a big tent flagpole, and fix your own Mooky Pirate flag, plastic banana or god knows what on top of the pole. It will be a beacon for miles around, and make you feel like king of the kingdom.
  • Going to the festival as a group? Don’t get one big tent. Get a bunch of smaller ones, and arrange them in a fairy ring with all their entrances pointing to the middle. That’s your little private garden. You can eat, sunbathe, build a fire there – have people round – whatever you like. Again, build your own tent kingdom, and sod the rest of them.
  • When you leave the festival, no matter how ragged you feel or how disgusting your tent is because someone peed in it or had a beer bath in it or God threw rain and mud on it, PACK IT UP. Pack it up, you lazy wretch! Glastonbury makes sure the millions of tents left behind go to charidee, but charidee begins at home. You just spent £40 quid on that tent, so pack it up.
  • If you stick around a bit after the festival, you’ll see loads of people that have left their tent behind. We personally allow you to go and nick the most expensive empty, discarded tent you can find, along with any folding stools and flag poles that have clearly been left to rot, splendid and new though they are. These evil miserable beasts couldn’t be bothered to pack their stuff up? Lazy wretches. That stuff is yours now. You just made yourself about £200. Well done!

Vango 2 Person Deluxe Festival Tent

This good quality festival tent from Vango is suitable for both festivals and real grrl camping, plus it’s a lovely Matrix-style industrial colour scheme. Includes a small porch area for storage and dirty Doc Martens. Packs down small and lightweight and has a high waterproof rating. If you’re going for a 2 person tent you’ll probably be wanting a double air bed, too. You seriously need to keep your body off the ground when kipping at festivals or you’ll wake up with the face of an angel and the spine of an octogenarian.


Summer Flower Quick Pitch SS tent

This Summer Flower Quick Pitch SS tent is a pretty little 2 man tent that’s really quick to pitch (see their quick pitch video) and will give you shelter from the rain in no time. It’s also made of proper camping tent material that’s capable of handling the outdoors as well. It’s also pretty lightweight with its own carry bag handle, which is ideal for festival-goers begging lifts off a friend or getting to festivals by train.


Army Camo Elite Quick Pitch tent

With just 2 fixed fibreglass poles, the Quick Pitch Elite tent is a completely trouble free tent to pitch. Simply unhook the tent poles and peg the flysheet, and you’re ready to go. Perfect for a festival or weekend away. Also, as pretty as flowery tents are, hardcore revellers and sturdy weekend campers can’t beat the sheer gung-ho joy of a camouflaged tent. So old-school. Just make sure you stick a bright flag on it – otherwise it may blend with its surroundings so well you’ll never find it again. Also, it looks like army style tents are cheaper than funky flower tents. Good!


Cloud tent

This quickdraw tent is just – it’s really nice, isn’t it? It’s a cloud tent. It’s got a little bedroom inside, then a tiny corridor before the outside world where you can put your stuff so it stays vaguely dry. And it’s a tent made of clouds. Probably quite cosy as 2 man tents go, but so what? It’s made of clouds.


Mad Cow tent

We’re not knocking cows, but they’re not known for living life in the fast lane. However, anyone who pitches up the the cooking fire in front of your bovine curiosity at 2 in the morning will know that you are, in the best sense of the term, a proper mad cow.


2 Man Teepee

This 2 man teepee won our hearts. It’s fairly small, yes. And maybe a little harder to put up and make sure your stuff doesn’t get wet. But teepees are designed so you can lower bits to keep you warm and raise bits to keep you cool, and the height of the teepee means you won’t feel crushed and bothered. And you’ll never lose your teepee in a sea of tents. And it will turn your festival camping weekend into a really NICE experience. Can’t you just imagine living in this teepee? Get your friends to buy one too and you can have your own little teepee village.


Myhab – recycled 2 man tents for hire

Now, a Myhab is a strange thing – it’s a ‘tent’ you hire. It costs about £120 for a 2 man tent, and you book it for the festival you want to attend via the Myhab website – then it’s there ready and waiting for you! It’s a very sterile urban look, but the Myhab tent is made out of nearly 100% recycled materials, and is quite high and roomy – and so sturdy it’s guaranteed not to get mud splashback on all your stuff from soggy ground. Interesting… why not make Myhab a Yourhab this festival season?


Pretty in Pink 3 man tent

This high quality double skinned One Stop Festival 3 man Tent is a bargain at this price, most other tents in this price range offer only a single skin. With these funky tent designs and colours you’ll have no trouble finding your tent in the crowd. Comes packaged in a handy zip up bag, with handles and a shoulder strap. £45 for a funky festival tent is a bargain, especially if you keep it. Roomy for 2, perfect for 3 and so brightly pretty in pink you’ll lose the plot before you lose your tent.


Cath Kidston floral 6 man teepee

Between 5 or 6 people, you’re looking at £20 each for this floral teepee. Cath Kidston is the queen of indie floral, and if you’re all girls or quite sensitive boys who are looking for fun and gigs and ice-cream not a quick boozy weekend tumble, this 6 man teepee would be a fun place to hang out in for a couple of days.


We would not recommend anything bigger than a 6 man tent, unless it was a proper canvas teepee with poles so big you need a lorry, and hay bale beds, and a big campfire in the middle. To be honest, a bit of privacy with you and maybe another person or two is plenty in a tent. If you want a big group, get lots of small tents and set up your own tent village in the festival. Earth, wind, rain and sun – and no clocks telling you what to do – is the joy of a festival, and a big industrial polyester beast – and fighting over who’s got the epilator recharger – is only going to cramp your style.


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