Preparation and routines / 8 min read
The festival wellness checklist worth actually packing
Before, during and after. Sleep, food, water, weather, feet, ears, medication and getting home. A practical preparation checklist with nothing exotic on it.
Last updated
The short version
A good festival checklist is mostly boring: sleep beforehand, a water plan, food you will eat, clothing for the actual forecast, footwear you have already walked in, hearing protection, whatever medication you normally take and a way home that does not depend on being alert.
Everything below is general safety and comfort information, kept deliberately separate from anything we sell.
The week before
The single most useful preparation is sleep in the days beforehand, because you are unlikely to get much during. Arriving already short is how a three day event turns into a five day recovery.
The rest is admin. Check the weather properly rather than optimistically, check the event rules on bottles, bags and medication, and sort out how you are getting home before you go.
- Two or three normal nights of sleep beforehand
- The real forecast, including overnight temperatures
- Event rules on bottles, bags, medical items and re-entry
- Transport home booked, including the late or tired scenario
- Enough of any regular medication, in its original packaging
What to actually pack
Pack for the ground and the weather, not for the photos. Footwear you have already broken in is the difference between walking twenty thousand steps a day and limping through the last one.
Hearing protection is the item most people skip and most regret. Filtered earplugs are cheap and hearing damage does not undo itself. Public health guidance is consistent on wearing hearing protection at loud concerts.
- Broken in footwear, plus dry socks
- Filtered earplugs
- Sun protection, a hat and something with sleeves
- A refillable bottle allowed under the event rules
- Layers for the temperature drop after dark
- Blister plasters and any small first aid you know you use
- A charged battery pack, because a dead phone is a safety problem
During: the three things to keep steady
Water, food and shade. Attach drinking to something that already happens, eat a real meal at least once a day even when the schedule is against it, and take deliberate breaks out of the sun.
Agree a meeting point with the people you came with and a plan for what happens if phones die. It sounds excessive until it is nine at night and nobody has signal.
Looking after the people you came with
Check on each other properly rather than politely. Heat, exhaustion and long days affect people differently and the person struggling is usually the last to say so.
Know where the medical and welfare tents are. Using them early is normal and staff would far rather see someone at the tired and unwell stage than at the emergency stage. If someone is unresponsive, confused, having a seizure, struggling to breathe or you are simply frightened by how they look, get medical help immediately and stay with them.
After: the part nobody packs for
Plan the return the way you planned the arrival. Do not drive while you are fighting sleep, give yourself an evening at home before the first commitment and expect the following day to be slow.
A shower, a normal meal, a long night of sleep and a light schedule cover most of it. The rest is time.
Where Journeyz fits
Our products sit in the preparation and recovery slots of a routine, which is what Before and After describe. They are not part of the safety advice above and we keep those two things apart on purpose.
If you want to evaluate them, the ingredient list and the amount of each ingredient per 6 capsules are published in full.