Best Tent For Festivals
(And Why You Should Hire Instead)
What Makes A Good Festival Tent
Written By: Rob Porter
Date Published: 06/04/26
Read time: 5-7 Mins (approx)
If you’re heading to a festival this year, then it’s likely that you’ll need a tent, but knowing what is a good tent is a bit of a minefield of information. Often people are driven by price and end up buying something marketed as a “festival tent”. These are often about as useful as a bin bag, so are best avoided. So what should you look for instead?
The Problem With Buying A Tent…
Every year, millions of people buy tents for UK festivals, which is fine in itself. The problem is around 250,000 of them get left behind in the mud, because festival-goers are focused on the fun; but once the music stops, the reality hits: a wet, muddy tent needs cleaning, drying, and somewhere to live for the next eleven months. Many people don’t know how to clean a tent properly. Many more simply don’t have the storage space. So they walk away, with the vast majority ending up as landfill, as festival organisers don’t have the time or manpower to pack away each tent and find a new home for them.
52% of festival-goers now believe tents are single-use items (quick note: they’re not). Which leaves retailers quietly delighted because that belief keeps them selling cheap “festival tents” year after year, to the same people, at the same cost to the planet. There is a smarter way to camp and that’s by not buying one in the first place.
Why Hiring A Tent Makes Sense
If you’re planning to go to less than a handful of festivals or camping trips over the next few years, then hiring is a smarter choice that gives you better value gear for a similar cost to buying new (see our comparison below). It means you don’t need to clean it, maintain it and then store it afterwards, as that is all handled by us.
If you think OK, but I can sell it afterwards, then that is a valid thought. However, you need to consider that 6.5 million people go to festivals in the UK every year, that means tens of thousands of other people attempting to sell their tents as well at the same time. You still need to clean it and store it before you can shift it.
On the flip side, you might consider buying a second-hand tent instead. The problem is it’s a risk, as you don’t know what you’ll receive or how well it’s been maintained. You’ll spend hundreds on your festival tickets and getting there, why risk ruining your weekend pitching a second-hand tent just to discover it leaks worse than a sieve when the first bit of rain comes along.
Tent hire solves all of these issues.
Tent hire is perfect if you only need to camp a couple of times, live somewhere with limited storage, can’t be arsed with the cleanup faff, want to try camping without dropping serious cash. It’s particularly brilliant for festival-goers who want to turn up with minimal hassle and leave without worrying about the cleanup nightmare. And with Earthrise Camping hire starts from just £7.50 per night and the lowest deposit in the UK at £20, here’s how the numbers stack up against buying a quality tent.
The Earthrise Camping Cost Breakdown
Our Cheapest Hire
£31.00
For 3 Nights
Buy New
£125.00
One-time cost
Break-even point: 4-5 camping trips
If you camp 1-2 times a year, hiring saves you money for at least 2 years. Planning to camp more than 4 times? Buying makes more financial sense (if you’ve got the storage space!).
Best Festival Tents Available to Hire
Earthrise Camping is the UK’s first donation-powered circular tent hire service. Every tent has been unwanted, donated and refurbished in our fleet. Between hires each one has been cleaned, inspected, and tested before it reaches you. And with the lowest deposit in the UK at just £20, combined with our laid back attitude to returns, means no fees for muddy, wet returns. We currently have four tents available, covering everything from a solo weekend away to a group festival trip below.
Price: £7.50 Per Night
The Cairns 2 DLX is our best option for solo campers or couples. Don’t let the “2-person” label fool you, it’s spacious enough to fit a full-size double airbed, plus a porch for muddy boots. Double-skinned, 2000mm HH rated and at 3.7kg is light enough to carry solo across a festival site.
Price: £9.00 Per Night
The Quechua Fresh & Black is a compact 2-person tent, best suited for two people using sleeping bags or single mats rather than an airbed. Double-skinned, 2000mm HH rated, and featuring Quechua’s blackout fabric, keeping the interior dark in bright morning sunshine, perfect for late nights at a festival.
Price: £12.50 Per Night
The Arpenaz 4.2 is our budget group option, a tunnel tent with two separate sleeping areas and a central living space you can actually stand up in. Easy to pitch and the double-skin combined with 2000mm HH rating, keeps thing dry. 12kg packed weight is manageable solo across a festival site.
Price: £14.50 Per Night
The Hampton 4 is our most specced-out tent in the fleet. At 2 meters high, with two separate bedrooms, panoramic windows and a 3000mm HH rating, it’s well built to handle any festival. At 16.7kg, it’s best split between two people to carry, but the size (3.8m x 2.9m) gives you space most festival tents can’t touch.
Festival season doesn’t last, neither does our stock
You already know hiring makes more sense than buying, so get it sorted.
Browse our fleet, pick your tent, and leave the cleaning to us.
