Glasto hacks 2.0

[The Martini Police]

Inflatable animals to find your mates. Worked incredibly well. Especially useful when there were a lack of flags like at Arcadia. 

[e_p]

yep, the drops were good. 

[Gabi_says]

Thank you to everyone who recommended Anker powerbanks. I got a 26800 mAh and charged two phones four times; totally worth the extra carrying weight.

[EMorgz92]

My notes from what worked this year..

- the hack to soak a bandana and tie around your neck/forehead and I also shared the tip with 2 of my mates who loved it ... literally felt like it was saving my life at some points ?

- needed to bring a clean pair of socks to go home in as I had to wear my Sunday socks again and my poor car mates suffered ?

- another vote for rehydration salts - I used the own brand sachets from Home Bargains and definitely noticed they made me feel fresher/less withered from the heat

- also utilised my hip flask, first with port for the Tuesday night queue and then filled with a 20% rum liqueur to drink at the headliners - less weight to alcohol percentage ratio and drinkable neat - might try the cherry bakewell mix next time recommended by @Curlygirl (also bring a funnel for refills)

[blutarsky]

Winners for me:

• Anker powerbank. Charged three phones twice each and still on 3/4 bars power coming home.
• Electrolyte tabs - helped the hangover and the magnesium stopped my aching jaw from getting worse...

Duffs:

• Space blanket on tent - did nothing to help. 

[Laurenkfj]

Another shout for the drops here!! Fantastic, and saved me loads of space not packing lucozade etc. 

Probably also helped with the heat too! 

[Beerqueen]

On 5/12/2019 at 2:58 PM, incident said:

I know that others have already correctly suggested to use the Lock Ups and one or two other bits may have been posted, but I want to expand on that a bit and add some extra bits regarding money at the festival and bring it all together.

The lock ups will happily take just a wallet or other small items - the way they operate this is to put it inside an envelope and get you to sign across the seal. Then when you take some money out of it, they'll ditch that envelope and repeat the process with a new one. This way you can be confident that not only has nobody taken your stuff, they've not even looked at your cards, ID etc.

For cards, most online banking apps these days have the option to selectively "Pause/Freeze" your card. I'd strongly suggest doing this when you're not intending to use it, that way if the card is pickpocketed or taken while you're asleep, or just outright lost, then you've got no worries and no rush to alert the bank and to see what damage has been done.

Better yet - there's now various app-based banking companies that will allow you to set up effectively a free bank account and/or prepaid debit card (precisely what they offer varies by company but it all amounts to the same thing for these purposes) - you can use their apps to transfer money over from your regular bank account as needed so even if the thing gets mislaid or stolen, and even if you've forgotten to pause it, there's still no danger of anyone getting access to your main bank / credit card accounts and the worst damage they can do is whatever you've currently got on the card.

The mostly free ones I'm aware of - check their sites/apps for precise details -
Starling (totally free, as far as I can tell)
Monzo (only fees are on overseas ATM withdrawls)
Loot (only fees are if you go over 2 ATM withdrawls a month)

Personally speaking - I'll be leaving most of my cash, my driving licence, and my paused "real" bank card in a Lock Up. I'll be carrying around a second wallet with just a token amount of cash (probably around 30-40 quid) and a Loot card, which I'll top up daily and then use to pay by contactless wherever possible (and leave paused overnight). If enough stalls accept contactless this year, then hopefully I shouldn't need to return to the lockup until I'm getting ready to leave, but it's nice to know it's there as a fallback.

And oh yeah, as others have suggested, take a photo of your Lockup receipt and ensure it's backed up to a cloud service - Google Drive or whatever the Apple one is called. That way if you lose your receipt you're covered, and even if you lose your phone you'll ultimately be OK.

 

On 5/12/2019 at 10:29 PM, MoilyX said:

Advantages -

• you get notifications every time money goes into/out of your account so you know exactly when the card has been used;
• you can see your exact balance at any time;
• but most importantly, as incident said you can lock your card using the app on your phone so even if you lose it it can't be used.

If you're worried about having to transfer money into a spends account then take a look at Curve card - this is a proxy card that you link your real cards to and when you use it the transaction gets re-charged to one of your real cards of your choosing. With a Curve card you get all the benefits above but you don't need to open a new account or keep a balance on it.

https://www.curve.app/en-gb/cards

The Blue one is free. It works really well.

Thank both of you for this advice - I applied for a curve card and love it - I get a notification every time I use it and took your advice to put my "real" debit card in the lock up.  I'm a definite convert.

[Crazyfool01]

beer / water holders  

[MoilyX]

Another +1 for the electrolyte drops. Superb stuff!

[carlosj]

9 hours ago, Gabi_says said:

Thank you to everyone who recommended Anker powerbanks. I got a 26800 mAh and charged two phones four times; totally worth the extra carrying weight.

Same here. I charged mates' phones about 5 times and it still had loads of charge left.

[lukemack]

4 hours ago, blutarsky said:

Winners for me:

• Anker powerbank. Charged three phones twice each and still on 3/4 bars power coming home.
• Electrolyte tabs - helped the hangover and the magnesium stopped my aching jaw from getting worse...

Duffs:

• Space blanket on tent - did nothing to help. 

I bought the £15 survival blanket thing off amazon someone posted in here, and it did really help, or at least I think it did, tent was never unbearable warm.

I annoyingly left it behind though after packing my tent up, should of put it straight in the tent bag, will likely get another one for my next festival.

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by lukemack