Last Updated on 14 April 2025 by Colette
So you’ve shelled out on your festival tickets, if you’re lucky you got in early and secured them at early bird prices, but even still you’ve probably spent a good few hundred pounds or more on your tickets depending on the festival. But buying your tickets is only the start, now you need to think about the money you’re going to spend at the festival itself.
It’s important to consider how much spending money you need at a festival – or more importantly how much spending money you can afford as it’s easy for your festival spending to quickly get out of hand when you’re caught up in the spirit of it all!
Going to festivals is not a cheap pass time but how do you stop the costs of being at a festival from spiralling? If you’ve found yourself wondering “how can I save money at festivals?” or “how much money does the average person spend at a festival?” then this is the post for you!
Not all of the tips will apply to every festival or every family as each festival has different rules and each family has different needs, but here’s ten ways we keep our festival budget in check without taking away from our festival experience.
Ten ways to save money at a festival with kids this festival season
1. Take your own food and drink
First and foremost I would say the biggest expense at a festival is going to be food and drink – at The Big Feastival and Camp Bestival last year we probably spent upwards of £400 each weekend just on food alone. We had breakfast at the tent and then two meals a day on the festival site setting ourselves a budget of £10 for lunches and £15 for main meals. Over the course of three or four days at a festival this quickly adds up and whilst we really enjoy choosing and eating our meals at festivals, this year we’ve decided to take much more food with us.
How much money this will save you depends on the festival as some festivals like Camp Bestival Shropshire are happy for you to take your own food and drink (yes even booze) into the arena which has the potential to save you an absolute fortune, whereas others like Y Not are super strict so you’d have to go back to base every time you wanted to eat and drink – which is hard going if its a long walk back (the walk to camp was over a mile at Y Not Festival this year). At festivals like this I think you need to strike a balance between saving money on food and drink and missing out on acts that you’ve paid to see because you’re having to walk all the way back to your tent for meals.
You can read more about taking your own food and drink to festivals here:
What food to take to a festival
2. Set a budget and stick to it
Its really important to set yourself a festival budget and stick to it – this might be based on what you think you need to spend, or it might be based on what you can afford to spend – and these are two really important distinctions! You might prefer to set a daily budget or a budget for the whole weekend, or even budgets or specific things.
Typically as I mentioned above, we set a meal budget for festival food – this is so the kids can make their own meal choices within their set budget. This gives them the independence to choose their meals and means we can keep an eye on how much is being spent – I should also say that we make it clear to the kids that their meal budget is a “maximum spend”, not a “target”! Though if they spend less on lunch, we do let them add that onto their evening meal budget or use it for a pudding later on.
Then you need to factor in drinks (which can be really expensive even if you’re only drinking soft drinks so taking an empty water bottle to refill with free drinking water on site is helpful) – I don’t really drink at festivals but Dave is a big fan of a festival beer and, if I’m honest, I doubt there’s much budgeting goes on there!
While we’re on the subject of drinks, I have just invested a set of lids for cans of pop as I find the kids end up drinking their drinks too fast because they can’t fasten them again. It also means should deal with less spillages – but I’ll report back on that one!
Other festival expenses to consider are fairground rides, paid for activities, stalls and emergency purchases. . . though these are all things I’m about to tell you to try and avoid in the interests of saving money!
3. Plan ahead to avoid emergency purchases
Typically you’ll find a campsite shop selling the sorts of things you’re likely to have either forgotten or have lost / damaged – so things like air beds, wellies, pans, washing up liquid – all at vastly inflated prices. Last year we had to buy sanitary towels and shower gel thanks to me coming on my period two weeks early and we have previously had to buy a new pan after forgetting to take one!
Some things you just can’t plan for – like forgetting your toothbrush or your sleeping bag so its important to make sure you have an emergency fund set aside – but the more organised you are with your packing, the less likely you are to have to drop unnecessary money on last minute purchases on site.
4. Make sure you’ve paid for parking ahead of time
Whilst we’re on the subject of planning ahead – make sure you’ve paid for your parking beforehand as it’s almost always more expensive on the gate. (I must admit paying for parking on top of an already expensive festival ticket really winds me up but it is what it is)
5. Invest in a portable charger
Another festival money saving tip which requires a little forward planning is to invest in power banks that will see you through the weekend so that you don’t have to pay for expensive charging lockers. We have two really big power banks that should charge our phones several times over which we use for mine and Dave’s phones (mine is especially important as I’m usually working at a festival so need my phone and camera to be well charged!). We have a couple of smaller ones that we use for the kids’ phones but these are less important!
Make sure you turn off WiFi and data when you’re not using your phone as this will help to extend your battery life too – network coverage is notoriously poor at festivals and constantly searching for network can really drain your battery!
6. Avoid fairground rides
Fairground rides are always really expensive – the worst we’ve seen was at The Big Feastival last year where they were around £6 a ride or at Y Not Festival this year they were about £5 a ride – which soon adds up if you’re putting three kids on!
We tend to be quite strict about not doing rides or allowing only one or two over the course of the whole festival unless they want to pay for themselves (which even then I try to discourage as it just seems such a waste of money).
Setting a budget for this sort of thing is helpful – if you say they can have £5 each for rides and they can choose what to do with that, it might mean one go on the Ferris wheel or two on the swings – or they might need to top it up. Either way, I find setting your stall out at the start and explaining that there will be no rides at all or a ride budget helps to avoid pestering later.
7. Don’t buy accessories etc on stalls
Festival stalls are way too tempting with their novelty items and sequins but nine times out of ten you’re going to spend a load of money on something you don’t need and will probably never wear again!
Chloe bought a bucket hat for a tenner at Y Not Festival this year, a near identical bucket hat was about £7 on Amazon. You will always pay through the nose for accessories on stalls at festivals. That said Amy bought a fantastic headdress at The Big Feastival last year, Chloe bought an awesome pair of vintage sunglasses and I really regretted not buying a very cute pineapple broach so sometimes it’s worth it for something a bit unique!
8. Do your own glitter / face paint / braids
There’s always a stall or two at a festival doing face glitter and glitter braids – but it’s much cheaper to do this yourself. If you want to apply glitter to your face, you just need a small pot of vasleine, there’s no need for fancy glues. And there’s a whole world of glitter available – we love this neon glitter and I’m a big fan of this mixed gold glitter.
If, like me, you don’t have the skills for fancy braids, you’ll probably find its cheaper to get those done at the hairdresser beforehand – I’m lucky that our babysitter is really good at braiding so I paid her to do Amy’s hair for me before adding glitter to the parting with gel.
9. Take bubbles / glow sticks
Bubbles and glow sticks are often really popular with kids at festivals – if you can plan ahead to buy a bubble gun / bubble liquid or glow sticks before you go, you’ll save a fortune because, as I’ve said before, you’ll always pay a premium at a festival. I bought a big box of glow sticks at a discounted price to last us all summer and just shove a handful in my backpack each day.
10. Resist the merch!
Festival merch is super tempting and yes, if you can afford it it makes a lovely souvenir (unless like Amy you spend £25 on a t shirt, wear it twice & then promptly lose it). However, festival merch is always really expensive so if you’re looking to save money at a festival, walk away from the merch, I repeat, walk away.
And a final bonus tip from Gemma that I would never have thought of:
“Can I suggest another from my most expensive ever festival mistake? Take a spare car key and keep it locked in the car if you can. I lost my car keys at Boardmasters one year and had to get my car towed home. The breakdown company told me to keep a spare key in the car because all they’d have had to do is pop my window open and get me on my way. £170 that cost me at the end of the festival”
(I also recommend adding a Tile or Apple AirTag to your keys so that you’ve got a better chance of finding them if they do go missing!)
Keeping your money safe at a festival
Whilst we’re on the subject of saving money at festivals, it’s important to make sure you don’t lose money a festival too!
If you’re wondering “how do you keep your money safe at a festival?” then there’s a few things to consider – firstly, most festivals are now cashless so there isn’t the same concern about having too much money on you, leaving cash in your tent or paying through the nose at an onsite cash machine with astronomical ATM fees. However the downside of this is that it’s too easy to just tap away on contactless payments without really thinking about or noticing what you’re spending. I’ve heard lots of tales of people being double charged for purchases at food stalls so keep a close eye on that. And of course, if you lose your debit card or your phone then you’re stuck aren’t you! It might be worth considering a pre-paid credit card to help you to stick within your budget and for added security if you lose your card over the weekend.
Fingers crossed these tips on how to save money at a festival have helped you to think of ways you can cut corners and stick to a budget without missing out on the festival fun!
Have a look at these posts next:
Tips for surviving festivals with kids
Tips for camping at at festival with kids
Tips for volunteering at festivals
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