A festival weekend is only ever as good as your campsite. Get it right and camp becomes your sanctuary: shady in the day, glowing at night, cold drinks on tap and a proper sleep when you finally crawl into bed at sunrise. Get it wrong and you’re the crew with the collapsed gazebo, warm drinks and a flooded tent on day two. This raver has done plenty of both, so consider this the complete festival camping guide for New Zealand conditions – picking your spot, shade, lighting, sleep, food, the full packing list, and what to do when the weather turns feral. If you’re chasing the full art-project campsite, our Festival Palaces guide takes things to the next level; this one covers the fundamentals every camp needs.

Picking Your Spot

Everything starts here, and you usually only get one shot at it. Arrive as early as entry allows and look for ground that’s slightly elevated – low-lying areas and hollows are exactly where water collects when it rains, and at a New Zealand festival it will rain on somebody’s weekend. You want close enough to the action that the walk home at 4am isn’t an expedition, but far enough from the main thoroughfares that foot traffic isn’t cutting through your camp all weekend. Check what’s above you too: full sun all day cooks a tent by 8am, so a spot that catches some morning shade is gold. And before you hammer in a single peg, think about where the water would go if the sky opened up. If the answer is “through my tent”, keep walking.

Shade And Shelter

Summer in New Zealand is wondrous, but the UV is extreme and shade is the difference between a camp people gather at and a camp people flee. A good quality gazebo is the centrepiece: it gives you a communal room, and the cross beams are perfect for hanging tapestries to make colourful makeshift walls. One hard-won warning – don’t cheap out on the gazebo. The budget ones with separate leg and roof poles fold like origami in the first decent gust. Get one where the leg and roof structure is a single expandable piece and it’ll stand up to the elements all weekend.

Beyond the gazebo: tarps stretched between car doors or roof racks make a great dry, shady annex, beach umbrellas are brilliant portable shade you can carry to the dancefloor as a crew rendezvous point, and if you want the full glamping treatment, our Festival Camping range includes an inflatable LED igloo that doubles as sun shelter by day and a glowing chill zone by night, plus a genuinely luxurious lotus tent that fits the whole crew. A rain poncho each and a spare tarp round out the weather kit.

Lighting Your Camp

One of the best parts of any festival is the transformation when the sun goes down – the whole site becomes unrecognisable. Light your camp well and you’re contributing to the magic, and you’ll also actually be able to find home at 3am. The playbook:

• LED strings along the path to camp, around your tent and along the guy ropes. This is half navigation, half beauty – lit guy ropes also stop people faceplanting through your camp at night.
• Glow sticks on tent zips and lines as cheap, cheerful markers.
• A blacklight on the gazebo to make UV tapestries and decorations pop – instant psychedelic lounge.
• Battery disco lights and curtain LEDs inside the tent or gazebo turn your camp into the afterparty venue of choice.
• Solar lights charge themselves by the entrance during the day and glow all night, no batteries required.

All of the above live in our LED Lighting and Black Light Tapestry ranges. A camp that glows is a camp people find, gather at and remember.

Actually Sleeping At A Festival

Sleep is the festival superpower nobody talks about. The music doesn’t stop, the sun comes up at six, and the difference between thriving on day three and being a zombie is almost entirely down to three cheap items. Earplugs first: our Silicone Loop Earplugs take the edge off a campsite that’s still thumping without blocking your alarm or your mates. An eye mask blocks the morning sun and buys you hours. And something comfortable to sleep on – an air mattress or decent mat – because the ground gets harder every night of the weekend, not softer. If you’re a daytime napper, a hammock strung in the shade is the most luxurious real estate in any campsite.

Food And Cold Drinks All Weekend

Here’s the trick that has made this raver a campsite legend more than once: the in-ground cooler. The earth two feet down stays cool no matter what the sun is doing, and with one black rubbish sack and ten minutes of digging you get cold drinks on day four of a scorcher. The method: dig a hole about two feet deep and a foot wide in a shady spot near camp (not where anyone walks), line it with a big sturdy black sack, fill a third with ice, add your drinks and food grouped sensibly, cover with more ice, fold the bag over and tie it with one of the bag ties, then cover the hole with a board, a tarp or the square of turf you carefully cut out at the start. The deeper the hole, the colder it stays. At pack-down, the melt water tips out and the sack becomes your campsite clean-up bag. Eco-friendly, conversation-starting, and genuinely better than a chilly bin.

Two supporting acts: a lockable cooler is worth having for valuables as much as food (it’s the last place anyone looks), and an insulated bottle filled with ice gives you cold water for hours on the dancefloor.

The Festival Packing List

The list we actually use, refined over more festivals than we can count:

• Shelter: tent (waterproofed – test it at home), tarp for underneath, gazebo, spare pegs and a mallet, rope or paracord.
• Sleep: sleeping bag, air mattress or mat, pillow, earplugs, eye mask.
• Light: LED strings, headtorch, solar lights, spare batteries and a power bank or solar charger.
• Weather: sunscreen (lots), hat, rain poncho, gumboots if the forecast is sketchy, warm layers for night.
• Hygiene: baby wipes (the festival shower), dry shampoo, hand sanitiser, toilet paper, a small first aid kit.
• Food and drink: water (more than you think), ice, insulated bottle, easy no-cook food, rubbish sacks.
• The fun stuff: tapestries, blacklight, hand fan, your best festival outfits, and a campsite flag so new friends can find you.

When It All Goes Wrong: Flooded Tents And Wild Weather

Sooner or later it happens to everyone – this raver considers a good tent flooding almost a rite of passage. When you wake up to water, don’t panic and don’t pack up and go home. Assess first: a few drops coming through is a minor leak, fixable with waterproof spray or duct tape from the inside. Proper flooding needs proper action: move your gear to the dry side or into waterproof bags, and if water is flowing under the tent, a small trench on the uphill side diverts it around you. Worst case, the car is a perfectly respectable bedroom for one night while things dry out.

Prevention is easier than cure, and it’s all stuff you did back at step one: pitch on the high ground, tarp under the tent, waterproof spray before the season starts. Do those three and the storm becomes a story instead of a disaster. Keep calm and carry on raving.

Keeping Your Stuff Safe

Festivals are overwhelmingly full of good people, but valuables still deserve a plan: keep phone, cards and cash on your person in a leg bag or bum bag, stash the rest out of sight, and use the lockable cooler trick from above. We’ve written a full guide on clever ways to keep your valuables safe at festivals that’s worth the read before your next event.

That’s the fundamentals sorted. Set up a camp like this and you’ll spend the weekend dancing instead of dealing with disasters – and when you’re ready to turn a solid camp into a legendary one, the Festival Palaces guide is your next read. Don’t forget to check out our Festival Camping range for the igloo, the lotus tent, hammocks and more. Have fun out there, look after each other, and we’ll see you on the paddock.