10 Must-Have Festival Essentials to Maximize Your Experience

This year’s festival season is in full swing, and we’ve compiled a list of essential items to keep you comfy as you dance all day and night.

The arrival of March means that festival season is now in full swing. Events like Skyline Festival and CRSSD Spring kicked off the year in style, and this week sees Miami Music Week and Ultra Music Festival take place on the East Coast, while Beyond Wonderland SoCal is on the horizon on the West Coast. Other experiences like Coachella, EDC Las Vegas, Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, and more are just around the corner. So, if you haven’t started prepping what essential items to bring with you, now is the time to do that.

What you bring into an event can often make or break your whole experience. What might be an obvious essential item you bring in your festival bag or hydration pack might be one that’s overlooked by others. To help you out, we’ve narrowed our favorite items down to ten that we love and use at every festival to help you pack the perfect festival bag in 2024, so keep reading to check out the full list.

10 Must-Have Festival Essentials to Maximize Your Experience

Tile By Life360 Tracking Devices

Are you always losing things, both at festivals and beyond? Or worse, have you ever had a personal item like your phone, wallet, or bag stolen at a festival? Yeah, we’ve been there more than once. That’s where this awesome collection of Bluetooth tracking devices, Tile, is here to help. Slip one of their Tile Slim card-like designs into your bag, phone case, or wallet to easily keep track of your items via the Tile app. Ping your Tile using your phone, or ping your phone using your Tile- even if your phone is on silent.

You could also opt for their keychain style, the Tile Mate. Or their smallest Tile Sticker design that sticks virtually anywhere, perfect for your emotional support water bottle, stuffie, or dare we suggest our most forgetful friends using a Tile Sticker to find camp at the end of a long night?

Tile products are available via their official website and on Amazon. We like this Tile Mate Essentials 4-Pack that includes one Slim, two keychain Mates, and one Sticker, perfect for sharing between your squad.

festival bag essentials rechargeable fan

Rechargeable Hand-Held Fan

If there’s one thing we will never forget to pack as 25+ ravers, it’s our trusty Amazon fan. Rechargeable via an included USB-C charging cord and your favorite portable charger, we’ve found that this Tripole fan can last almost a full festival weekend before needing a new charge. It also comes with a lanyard to wear around your neck or tie to the side of a bag.

Not only do fabric hand fans annoy the people around you if you clack them, but they also leave indents in your palms and sore wrists. You exert more energy flapping your arm back and forth, which, in turn, only raises your body temperature.

Poy-Sian Inhalers

You’ve heard of Vicks, which you shouldn’t use recreationally, and Boom Boom, which you’ll find costly. So, if you’re looking for an inhaler, what should you choose? We love the Thai-made essential oil inhaler from Poy-Sian. One end of the stick is the inhaler, and the other is a tiny reservoir of the oil itself; it’s perfect for putting on your wrists or pashmina without bringing a full bottle of your favorite oil.

These are great for dealing with bad smells around you, congestion, nausea, and anxiety. You can get a six-pack for under $20 on Amazon to share with everyone in your rave crew.

Deodorant Wipes

Bringing in an entire deodorant stick seems excessive and bulky, and may even be turned away by festival security. Additionally, underarms aren’t the only places that sweat during festivals – it’s everywhere.

By now, you’ve likely seen ads for the PH-balanced all-over body deodorant Lume. We were intrigued to see that they also make their formula in deodorant wipes that you can easily throw in your fanny pack to stay fresh anywhere on your body that you need them.

Carabiner Clips

A simple carabiner clip is always one of the best things you can bring to any festival. Not only are they useful at camping events to hang lights and accessories, but you can’t go wrong with having one attached to your bag for several uses.

I use mine to clip items like hats, rain jackets, water bottles, and pashminas. I find that the more things I keep attached, the less likely I am to lose anything while also saving bag space. I’ve even used them to clip a pair of slides to my backpack for the walk back to the lot at the end of the night if I dared to break out the platforms- an absolute game-changer if you ask me.

Battery-Powered LED Shapes

While not a complete essential, having one of these battery-powered neon signs zip-tied to my hydration pack was the best way for friends to find me in packed crowds without lugging around a totem. It’s also an incredible way to keep an eye on your bag when you want to sit down for a while, creating a lit pathway on the ground around you. This way, people can easily spot and walk around you in the dark instead of stumbling over you or your belongings.

Not to mention, they look pretty cool, and you’ll get a ton of compliments on your glowing bag when the sun goes down. I carry around this pink moon, but there are many options on Amazon, like this pink butterfly or neon green alien.

Liquid I.V.

Most in the festival community are no strangers to hydration aids like Liquid I.V. A true essential for hot events, a stick can be thrown in your bag to add to any water bottle.

Sometimes the free water at events will have a strange taste, so these are even great to use with a big jug or large hydration pack for light flavoring and electrolytes. Liquid I.V. has come out with an array of new options in recent years from probiotic flavors to sleep aids and energy boosters. Their newest sugar-free flavor, Raspberry Melon, is one of our favorites.

Kleenex Packs

Are we stating the obvious with this one? Maybe. But are we always handing out our tissues to every friend in need, including the new bestie we just made in line for the porta-potty? Yes, we are.

Don’t be caught without one of these slim tissue packs, with so many uses they really could save a life.

A Bag Buddy

Whether for a personal touch to your bag or an emotional support buddy, we love bringing a friend. Squishmallow clips are undoubtedly one of our favorite bag buddies, and you can even grab a set of five for your whole crew or gift them to neighbors along the way.

We’re also hooked on these fidget slugs to calm our anxiety during events, and they usually never fail to make other people laugh.

A Small Trash Bag

Our final item is another basic that is too often forgotten. Bringing in a small trash bag can help your crew and everyone around you stop littering and not have to carry around trash until you find the nearest trash can. They can also come in handy if someone gets sick in the middle of a crowd, if a clothing item gets wet, or—one of my favorite hacks—to sit on the ground when it’s wet.

A Ziploc, grocery bag, mini trash bag, or anything else will do, and we would be truly thrilled if more festivalgoers took this extra step to stay mindful of their trash.