Music Festival Backpack Hacks: Top Picks

Music festivals are very popular activities among teenagers and young adults alike. Whenever you attend a music festival, it is imperative to have a few essential items with you at all times, and there is no better way to hold them than with a sturdy backpack.

What are some of the best music festival backpacks? Some of the best backpacks that you can buy for a music festival include the Kipling Ravier Flap Backpack, Filson Ranger Backpack, Topo Day Pack, Lipault City Plume Backpack, and Tumi Tahoe Marshall Sling.

All of the above options are equally compact, lightweight, and easy to carry around while you are standing and walking all day at a music festival.

When it comes to getting all of your outfits and belongings together for any upcoming music festival, it is always important to make sure that you have a good backpack to keep everything in. While it is true that most of your items can stay in your tent or hotel room, you will need to have some things on hand for added convenience.

If you are interested in finding a great music festival backpack, or just some tips on how you can pack better for your next planned event, you will find all of the information that you need within this detailed guide. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about music festival backpack hacks.

The Best Backpacks For Music Festivals

When you are at a music festival all day and night, no matter how many days you will be attending, it is imperative that you have a good backpack to carry all of your belongings in.

This is obviously much more preferable than trying to hold everything in your hands or pockets, because we all know how crazy music festivals can get. While jumping around and dancing to your favorite songs, a lot of your personal belongings can go missing quickly if you do not properly secure them.

In this section, we will be going over all of the best backpacks for music festivals. No matter what you need to carry with you and if you are a guy or a girl, if you are looking for a great music festival backpack, you can find it all in the list down below.

Stick around and keep reading to find out some more details about each individual bag that is included in the list.

Here are some of the best backpacks that you can bring to a music festival:

  • Kipling Ravier Flap Backpack
  • Filson Ranger Backpack
  • Topo Day Pack
  • Lipault City Plume Backpack
  • Tumi Tahoe Marshall Sling

Both the Kipling Ravier Flap Backpack and Filson Ranger Backpack are fashioned in the form of a regular day bag. They each have somewhat of a boho vibe to them, with an oversized flap that secures underneath for safety and style.

If you are looking for a more vibrant color, you should go with the Kipling. On the other hand, if your style is a little bit more minimal and you like  vintage pieces, the Filson will be the best choice for you.

The Topo Day Pack, on the other hand, is designed more like a traditional backpack that you might have worn in school. It comes with a diagonal zippered pocket on the front area, and has a strap for holding it in your hand when you need to transport it from place to place.

Similarly, the Lipault City Plume Backpack is a causal and contemporary style backpack for music festivals. With a sleek black color, you can store all of your items in each of the compartments without drawing too much attention.

Finally, the Tumi Tahoe Marshall Sling is not necessarily considered a backpack, but it can do the same job as a more traditional design. Instead of two straps for the shoulders, there is only one large strap on this bag.

However, you can still place your belongings into the zippered pockets on the outside, and sling it over one shoulder like normal. This type of bag can be worn with any music festival outfit, and can even be matched with what you might already have planned.

All in all, when you are trying to find a great backpack to carry with you all day during a music festival, you really can’t go wrong with any of the above listed options. Depending on your individual needs for a festival bag, you will most likely be able to find your solution thought these possible choices.

How To Hack Your Music Festival Backpack: Helpful Packing Tips

Now that you have gotten a pretty good idea about which backpacks are hands down the best for music festivals, we are going to get a little bit more into detail about the actual packing part of things.

In this section, we will be going over all of the music festival backpack hacks that you are looking for, in the form of helpful packing tips. Take a look at the list down below, where you will find some easy suggestions that you can use while you are preparing to get out onto the festival grounds.

Helpful Packing Tips For Music Festivals:

  • Only carry the essentials with you daily
  • Keep the bulkiest items at the bottom
  • Keep the necessities in an easy to reach location
  • Use separate pouches for organization
  • Use packing cubes to save space

The most important thing to remember when you are trying to pack efficiently for a music festival is to only carry the essentials with you daily.

While it is true that a lot of the good music festival backpacks that were mentioned in the previous section are capable of holding a lot of stuff, that does not necessarily mean that you want to be hauling something bulky on your back all day.

The stuff that you bring with you on your entire music festival trip is very different than what you should be carrying around with you in your backpack, which is something to keep in mind while you are getting read for each day of the festival.

Additionally, you should keep all of the bulkiest items at the bottom of the backpack. This is an old hiking tip, and will help you out equally in this situation. In doing this, your bag will be balanced, and your back will thank you later.

Keep all of the necessities in an easy to reach location as well. Although it is recommended that you only bring the necessities with you in your backpack, you should prioritize the things that you will be needing to use most often.

This will make it easier to reach into your bag and grab what you need the first time, instead of shuffling around and ruining the careful organization that you put together.

For example, if you know that you will be needing your water bottle every thirty minutes or so while you are at the festival, it should be stacked neatly on top of the other items that are present in your backpack.

Otherwise, you would have to dig to the bottom a couple times every hour just to get your water bottle and end up putting it right back again. All of the mess that comes with this phenomenon can easily be avoided with some easy organization tips.

Speaking of organization, you can use separate bags and containers to keep all of your stuff in their respective locations inside of your backpack. For example, if you are bringing some extra makeup products for touch ups throughout the day of the festival, you can use a small pouch to keep it neatly tucked inside of your bag.

Alternatively, if you were to just throw all of your items separately into the backpack, they would be scattered throughout your other belongings and very hard to find when you needed them. One of the worst case scenarios could also be a spill on your other items.

For some extra organization, you can use packing cubes to put all of your stuff together. Packing cubes are compact cubes that allow you to put your belongings inside and zip them up, just like a regular bag.

However, the cubes are compact and they can be easily stacked inside of each other to make more room inside of your backpack. So, if you find yourself using a lot of little pouches stacked up in your bag, you might consider the use of packing cubes instead.

This will help you to conserve space in your backpack for other things. In doing this, just make sure that you are still keeping the most important items toward the top so they are easy to reach when you need them.

So, aside from how you should pack your backpack for a music festival, what should you actually have in it?

Whether you have been to a music festival before or not, you are probably aware that the entire duration of your adventure will require you to either stand in front of a stage or walk around to another one.

Either way, you will be in the sun for hours on end, spending most, if not all, of your time on your feet.

With that being said, it is important to have only the most important things packed into your backpack. Otherwise, you will be lugging around 50 pounds on your shoulders

Here is what you should have with you in your backpack throughout the duration of the festival:

  • Sunscreen
  • Sunglasses
  • Lip balm
  • Water bottle
  • Snacks
  • Cosmetics for touch-ups

One of the most important things that you must have with you everyday at the festival is sunscreen. This can be in the form of a travel sized bottle, or a full sized spray can. Whatever you choose to bring, just make sure that you will have enough to keep reapplying.

For an entire day in the sun, it is recommended that you reapply sunscreen approximately every 30 minutes to stay protected from sunburns. With that being said, the spray bottle is usually the easiest one to use for this purpose.

Sunglasses are another must when you are spending the day in the sun. To protect your eyes from the harmful rays and to just help you see better in general, sunglasses will be your best friend.

A good option for music festivals in particular is to bring a few different pairs of sunglasses that will match your outfits. When it comes to music festivals, the clothing ensembles are everything to the attendees.

Since you wouldn’t want to mess up the outfit that you put together for the festival, you can still protect your eyes by matching some stylish sunglasses to what you are planning to wear for each day.

To go along with the sunscreen, you will need to protect your lips as well from getting dry and even burned by the sun. Make sure this one is in an easy to reach place so that you can stay moisturized during the day.

Another one of the most essential items is a reusable water bottle. This can and should be refilled very frequently, because you will need to stay hydrated throughout the day to avoid any medical emergencies.

Snacks are convenient to have in your backpack with you, so that you can hold yourself over in case you get hungry. The food vendors at music festivals can be tempting, but you might not always want to give in to the temptation, especially when you are on a budget.

Overall, though, it helps to be able to grab a quick snack from your bag instead of having to stop what you are doing and walk over to a food cart or make arrangements to go to a restaurant. After all, you are at the music festival for a reason, and you probably want to stay there for a good amount of time.

How To Prepare For a Music Festival

When it comes to attending a music festival for the first time, it is very important that you come prepared. This will include making all of the necessary arrangements and having everything that you need with you when you get there.

To tie this all up, we will be going over some steps that you can take advantage of in order to effectively prepare for a music festival. Take a look at the list down below to discover this process, and keep reading to get all of the details.

How To Prepare For a Music Festival:

  • Purchase your festival tickets
  • Get your travel and sleeping arrangements together
  • Gather all of the essentials and pack them up
  • Get your outfits together
  • Decide what you will be doing for food (and budget accordingly)

Before you can plan on going to a music festival, you will obviously need to purchase your festival tickets. This can usually be done online through the music festival’s official website, and you will receive your wristband in the mail prior to departure.

This is something that you will always need to have on you for entry into the festival. If you lose it, it is very likely that the organization will not reimburse you, and you will have to miss out on the event all together, which is the last thing that you want to happen.

Once everything is in order with admission tickets, you will need to get your travel and sleeping arrangements together. This includes your flight tickets or the car you will be taking if you are close enough to drive, as well as your hotel or campsite for sleeping.

Come up with a detailed packing list that includes everything that you will need to travel to the festival, from the time you get on the plane to when you arrive back home. It is crucial that you do not leave anything out in this process.

Another essential component of preparing for a music festival is planning your outfits. As mentioned earlier, this is something that is very important to festival-goers, and has become part of the culture in recent years.

With all of your ideas mapped out for what you will be wearing, you can begin to acquire the pieces and put it all together in your luggage before you go.

Finally, decide on what you will be doing for food, and budget accordingly. There are so many food vendors throughout the music festival but, as you have probably already guessed by now, they are extremely marked up.

Depending on how much money you wish to spend during your festival trip, along with what your eating preferences are, you can make the decision of how you would like to get your food throughout the duration, whether you are splitting meals and snacks or cooking for yourself every night.

As you can see, there are plenty of individual factors that go into packing up your backpack for a music festival. While it might seem like a simple concept, you will need to make sure that you get everything right for the best possible experience.