r/Wellthatsucks • u/mattloaf666 • 9h ago

Reading festival 2026

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12.6k Upvotes

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3.3k

u/crowhouse 8h ago

Why do so many people abandon tents?

3.7k

u/Adventurous_Emotion9 8h ago

There’s a belief that the tents left behind are taken by charities and given to homeless or those who need them. This has been debunked by organisers time and time again as not being true.

1.6k

u/Ancient-Emu-8293 8h ago

Would be pretty convenient to pretend believing that.

550

u/aardvarkbjones 8h ago

Is it? Tents cost money. 

Seems insanely wasteful, both environmentally and fiscally.

809

u/NoForever3645 7h ago

Let’s be honest, festival goers aren’t exactly known for being fiscally or environmentally responsible.

134

u/halosos 7h ago

Shit I need to go visit the aftermath of one for a free tent

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u/your_red_triangle 5h ago

enjoy the free piss and shit that comes with it, that's one of the reasons people abandoned them. Went years ago, our neighbours would get out in the middle of the night and just piss anywhere they felt like it.

18

u/Fergnasty007 3h ago

I have been to over 50 camping festivals in the US in the past 15 years and this is not even close to the norm.

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u/Sailed_Sea 2h ago

camping festivals in the uk tend to be very different from those in the us, usually more alcohol and other drugs.

•

u/Front-Bookkeeper2139 46m ago

And way more fun

5

u/ImmortalMoron3 2h ago

Well Reading is in the UK sooo...

-2

u/Fergnasty007 2h ago

I was talking about him saying everyone pisses everywhere.

2

u/eggs_mcmuffin 2h ago

inside the tent or outside? because most grass has piss on it at this point in history lol

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u/mark_b 5h ago

Even if the other two replies weren't true (they are), the tents that get left behind aren't good tents, they're £20 tents off Amazon.

1

u/Mehh_itsa_name 1h ago

Yea lol. People ain’t ditching MSR’s or Blackdiamonds here.

•

u/godlesswickedcreep 31m ago

Well some of the tents in this video are not especially quality tents but they’re worth much more than £20.

11

u/SexlexiaSufferer 5h ago

Don’t hit it with a black light

68

u/After-Barracuda-9689 7h ago

I used to go to festivals in the early 2000s and never experienced anything like this. Maybe it was the festivals I was attending, but everyone packed their stuff out. I’m sure there were some thing left behind, but nothing like this scale.

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u/Glittering_End_6864 6h ago

Yeah, this is crazy. I have never seen a festival with this much garbage left on the ground like this.

7

u/BarbaraBeans 6h ago

I'm just talking out my ass here but this seems like TikTok/IG behavior. People who go to festivals to snap a few pics for social media.

I go to a few different music fests and there is absolutely no littering occurring at all.

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u/SecondaryWombat 5h ago

Leave No Trace festivals are the norm for me, some smashed grass and a couple tire ruts are all that get left behind.

3

u/SymbolUnderTheCaret 2h ago

same here

3

u/SecondaryWombat 2h ago

Even the idea of seeing that level of trash at a festival is like looking out my window and seeing an alien spacecraft in my yard.

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u/SymbolUnderTheCaret 2h ago

yep. last event I went to, there was a large tent peg that had got stuck in a tree root. Someone spent hours struggling with it rather than leave it behind.

1

u/SecondaryWombat 1h ago

Exactly. Was at a festival where a woman's bead dress exploded. She just shrugged and walked off. About 10 of us spent a while picking it all up, and then we tracked her down and put it in her trash along with a lecture to her and her camp. We don't do that here....

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u/justme002 5h ago

In 1969, cleanup after Woodstock required $50,000 and buldozers.

Edit: in today's money that's in excess of $450,000

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u/NZRedditUser 5h ago

Maybe you left early or yea was the size of event. Overnight events where tents are common you cant have a clean place cause at night people just chuck shit around, and whe people see mess it adds up

3

u/After-Barracuda-9689 4h ago

Yeah, I think it was the festivals I attended. I no longer enjoy that kind of thing, but I wouldn’t be shocked if those same festivals are still nothing like this.

2

u/Aksi_Gu 4h ago

Yeah I was at reading in 2003 and it looked like this.

Maybe not on the scale, but there's always been shitheads

2

u/StinkyWeezle 4h ago

You couldn't pick up a new tent for 10% of the ticket price back then.

1

u/Appropriate-Falcon75 3h ago

We (as a society) have brought up our youngsters to believe that individuals matter more than society and everything is disposable.

If 90% of people only plan on using something once, producing something that is high quality and last for years is pointless as it just adds cost.

1

u/gsfgf 3h ago

Same. And well run festivals like Bonnaroo have trash collection procedures that work. Trash bags are handed out constantly, and there are designated trash disposal locations that people actually use.

1

u/somajones 3h ago

I was at Woodstock (the original one in '94, not the one with the rapes and the fires in '99) and though it wasn't this bad there were still plenty of sleeping bags, pads and tents left behind.

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u/After-Barracuda-9689 2h ago

The original one was in 69 my friend. But I remember the one in 94.

1

u/somajones 2h ago

It was a joke that apparently only amuses me.

37

u/GermanRedditorAmA 7h ago

Depends a lot on the festival, but any that has high alcohol consumption will probably check this.

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u/Dorny_Hude 7h ago

You’d assume a Reading Festival is lot tamer than almost any other and people there are somewhat knowledgeable.

80

u/Mountain-Discount161 7h ago

Reading Festival

Just so we're clear. This isn't "a" reading festival. This is a festival named after the town Reading in England.

10

u/Standard_Gur30 6h ago

Are you sure? This looks like the morning after a large book club to me. 🤣

7

u/IAmANobodyAMA 7h ago

It can be both 🤣

-8

u/Dorny_Hude 7h ago

Wow ok, thanks. OP should make that clear.

14

u/Vesalii 7h ago

Reading Festival is pretty well known though. I'm not from across the pond and I know it too.

Hilarious misconception btw hahahahaha.

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u/TheEldest80s 7h ago

Ikr, my granny would say "bless their hearts" lol

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 7h ago

As a Reading Festival veteran from my younger years, it's one of the more chaotic ones. Young crowd, lots of nutters. I've been to plenty of festivals since that are very civilised overall, and I suspect with minimal (comparatively) rubbish left behind. There will of course always be some.

4

u/icansmellcolors 6h ago

But they have been known to claim to be fiscally and environmentally responsible.

8

u/KwisatzHaterach 7h ago

As a festival goer I resent this, at the same time I must acknowledge the veracity of part of the statement for I’m a financial chaos demon.

5

u/RockstarAgent 7h ago

The fact is that if you can afford to go to an event like this, you can afford to leave a tent behind and not deal with it. So it’s a matter of convenience.

1

u/NoForever3645 6h ago

It’s a matter of convenience for you, but not for all of the people who have to clean up after your mess. Hence environmental irresponsibility.

1

u/NoForever3645 6h ago

Obviously there are some good and responsible people in the crowd, but the evidence left behind by every single festival over and over again is overwhelmingly damning for the majority of people who attend these events.

2

u/Dumbwaiter819 3h ago

"Let’s be honest, festival goers aren’t exactly known for being fiscally or environmentally responsible."

This is tragically hilarious when you remember a lot of people who attend things like this claim to be all "pro-earth" because they use reusable grocery bags and are against seed oils or whatever the fuck social media is pumping into people's heads these days

1

u/tfhermobwoayway 6h ago

A lot of festivals bill themselves as being big celebrations of art and the Earth.

1

u/NoForever3645 6h ago

Yeah, the hypocrisy makes my stomach turn. I’m sure the organizers often have good intentions, but the reality is that many of the event goers don’t share that altruism and the event does more harm than good.

1

u/DazzlingRhubarb2000 3h ago

Unless the festival in question is Fuji Rock.

1

u/OuttHouseMouse 7h ago

Well, ive got the real answer for you my friends as to why they abandon tents.

They pack a bunch of stuff in. They party hard. Last thing they wana do hungover at the end of a festival and pack up a fucking tent. Ever tried squeezing one in a bag? Fuck that. Then carry all that heavy shit out? Hell nah. Thats why they leave unopened beer and shit too. its heavy

They just wana grab whatever is light, and get the fuck home to their bed so they can recover for work

Plus you know how much a festival cost? Buying two tacos and a drink is the same price as that tent. It is definately disposable in this case

3

u/NoForever3645 6h ago

Maybe they shouldn’t go to the festival and get a hangover then if they cant handle the responsibility of cleaning up after themselves. I’ve gone camping many times, it’s not hard to pack up a tent. But I’m also responsible and actually care about other people and the environment.

1

u/OuttHouseMouse 6h ago

Lol tell them that.

But im certain thats why

2

u/NoForever3645 6h ago

Bunch of lazy turds, it’s very unfortunate.

1

u/ChickensInSpace 2h ago

Hope something bad happens to them.

0

u/JobSpecial9274 2h ago

“Festival goers” is such a broad category of people you aren’t making the “gotcha” point you think you are here. “Festival goers” is essentially inclusive of just about every walk of life out there. There are festivals for every genre of music, there are festivals for everything but music. It’s hilarious seeing posts like this on Reddit because before you even glance at the comments, you know without fail there’ll be some friendless redditor who never leaves the house who’s convinced themselves they are in the right and completely morally superior for doing so.

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u/Most-Hawk-4175 7h ago

No, many tents are dirt cheap. They are just using the excuse that the tents are used as charity so they don't have to dismantle, pack up abd haul off their tent. They are just being gross and lazy.

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u/Iwantmoretime 4h ago

Yeah, even if the charity thing was true, pack it up and drop it off in a collection area. This is 100% making stuff up to justify pure lazyness. Pretty disgusting.

2

u/PrintShinji 1h ago

A festival I visited a couple of weeks ago 100% encouraged this. If you had anything useful you should just drop it off at their "zero waste points" and it would go to charity (homeless work/ukraine/refugees). Things like canned food, tents, pots and pans, airbeds were all very much wanted.

•

u/Iwantmoretime 40m ago

That's a great example of a coordinated and planned (i.e. real) effort.

A far cry from telling yourself to leave trash and stuff wherever and someone will come pack it up to give to charity. That's just dilusional.

•

u/PrintShinji 12m ago

Yeah this festival genuinly picks things up. They also check out abandoned tents and all that, but highly appreciate it if you just deposit it yourself.

Friend of mine bought a new cheapish pot for the festival and decided to leave it because it was too big and he wanted to get something better for camping. The pot is completly fine otherwise but it would be gathering dust on his shelves. Perfect to just give to the next person.

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u/chickenMcSlugdicks 7h ago

Checking Amazon, definitely options for about $40. People absolutely just leave them as they see that $40 as an acceptable loss, especially after the inside is dirty, the outside is still wet from dew when they're packing to leave, aaand the hangover from a few days of festival life. Environmentally, I got nothing. I feel bad for the volunteers who spend time picking all this mess up.

4

u/fickle_tartan 6h ago

Most summers you can get a cheap crappy tent as low as like $20-30 here in the UK, they'll be poor quality as well which makes people feel even better about dumping them afterwards.

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u/gsfgf 3h ago

Ah, that definitely would make a difference. Most people in the US use Walmart or Coleman tents, which are good tents.

1

u/smythy422 4h ago

If you share a 6 person tent with 4 people it's an additional ~20 a person. Consider that a full pass is 325, so really a very minimal cost even if you do it year after year. The festival would need a way to make it more expensive to leave your tent if they want attendees to take their trash with them.

1

u/Remarkable-Fig206 2h ago

If you don’t want it afterward because you bought it cheap and you’re a fucking slob and pissed all over it or whatever, fine, but it’s still YOUR TRASH. You can’t just leave it behind because you don’t want to deal with it. This is a very basic concept even older children understand. JFC.

2

u/chickenMcSlugdicks 1h ago

I agree with you wholeheartedly friend

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u/MokitFall 7h ago

Right? Especially those big ones. I think I've found my next side hustle.

Come on down to my new and slightly used tent store !

7

u/AdventurousAbility30 6h ago

I recently stayed at a hotel that was filled with wedding guests that had a camping night as part of the 3 day wedding, and I got so many tents it paid for my new Blackstone flat top & grill lol.

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u/flatgreyrust 4h ago

how did you sell them?

2

u/Snuzzlebuns 4h ago

I've been going to festivals since 2002. As a broke kid, I got a bunch of cool equipment for free like that. But when my tent was on its way out in the late 2010s, I "shopped" for a new one for several years, I would say I searched at about ten festivals. Couldn't find one I would have taken. They were all either broken in some way, or the super cheap garbage type.

5

u/Leading-Let-5632 7h ago

They're dirt cheap, especially around festival time. You get a pop-up for like £15.

Cheaper than the food and drink you will consume that weekend

3

u/Not-24_7Bantz 7h ago

Also most of them dont fold back up too well😂 no one wants to wrestle with it on Monday morning after a 3 day bender. You just want to go home 🤣

1

u/Leading-Let-5632 7h ago

Worst feeling in the world is that last morning. Only thing you can think about is maybe a shower, but also a nice bed.

Once went to a festival down south and had a 5 hour journey back. Worst day of my life

1

u/purpletube 4h ago

people also do it with much more expensive tents, we got a free £200 RRP brand new tent at a festival last month because some dickhead left it. completely serviceable, will last us 10+ years

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u/UMACTUALLYITS23 7h ago

It's cheaper to buy a tent and then abandon it while getting to stay at the event then it would be to get accommodations and pay for transportation to and from.

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u/whatsuperpowers 7h ago

Of course it's cheaper to stay on the grounds, but it's still a loss if you don't take the tent you paid for.

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u/Koffeeboy 7h ago edited 7h ago

I bet a fair amount of people fly in. They get there without a tent, purchase the cheapest one they can find and then leave it behind. Why would they want to try and repack and pay to check a filthy, cheap, potentially damaged tent that they have no intention of reusing. it's a symptom of a disposable lifestyle.

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u/Aiken_Drumn 6h ago

It's all UK teens. Noone is flying to this

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u/Sovarius 5h ago

Yes exactly. I think a lot of people in this thread do not realize tents are as cheap as $20-$35.

$35 is a lot for some people. I would not leave trash/tents behind, but you bet i'm not wasting a couple hours + energy for $35 at the end of a long weekend.

I got to Magic (card game) events and ditch free stuff i get thats too large to fly with. What am i gonna do, stress myself so i can sell a $20 box i don't want? That's a freebie for someone else or i trash it

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u/Throwawayyyygold 5h ago

Same thing happens on Catalina Island. I did get a $200 REI sleeping pad that has a pin prick sized leak that I was able to fix when I got home. The tents that were abandoned were abandoned because they were crappy. We did use the ground covers as extra shade at our campsite.

2

u/IDoStuff100 6h ago

Yeah, exactly this. You can get a tent for less than 50 bucks at any Walmart. A small additional cost for what they're already paying to attend

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u/gsfgf 3h ago

It sounds like part of the issue is that they don't have Walmart tents. Ozark Trail (Walmart brand) tents are solid tents, so people in the US don't abandon tents because those are our regular car camping tents.

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u/Uncle-Cake 7h ago edited 7h ago

If you stay in a hotel, you don't get to take the hotel room home. And a tent is WAY cheaper.

They probably spend more on alcohol and drugs, and they don't get to take those home either. Call it a rental. If you're spending hundreds of dollars or more already, the cost of a tent is peanuts.

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 7h ago

This is really stupid logic though. If they take it home, it still costs the same... they just don't have to buy another one for the next festival. What point are you arguing for?

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u/Coolflip 7h ago

Many people fly to festivals, it's not necessarily free to take it home.

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u/Chance_Golf1795 7h ago

Not the in the UK they don't. I'd put that figure at minute percentages. In the US, maybe. But folks in the UK will train, bus, or drive.

0

u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 7h ago

The overwhelming majority won't fly to festivals. If they do, and they bring a tent, are you suggesting they'd get checked luggage one way but not the other so they throw away a tent to save themselves the fee? I'd imagine a significant amount of people who fly to festivals will not be camping anyway.

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u/JohnnyMacGoesSkiing 7h ago

Cost money to fly it home, too. Many of these tents are oversized cargo, even when packed. So the cost of flying it home may be close to the entire price of the tent, bought in-situ.

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u/insideyelling 4h ago

People see these tents as disposable products much like a paper plate. You could clean off a paper plate and reuse it a few times but no one does that. These tents are often the cheapest ones they could find, like $50-$100 I imagine. Split 2-4 ways means you are going to spend more on a meal at these festivals than you did on the tent so if its destroyed or abandoned it doesn't really matter to them.

It is indeed dumb logic and wasteful but sadly that is how people think. They know the tent is going to be a wreck by the end of it, many of them do not camp out in tents normally and treat their tents like garbage so its inevitable that they get destroyed but like the other people have said, you dont get to take the hotel room home when you are done so if you treat your tent in the same way then it doesnt really matter to them if they leave it.

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u/Mostly_Afloat 7h ago

They are arguing for the stupid, wasteful people with more money than sense apparently.

0

u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 7h ago

Surely those people would just camp in pre-pitched tents or some other premium sleeping system? It's cheaper AND easier to get a pre-pitched tent than it is to buy a tent...

There is simply no situation where buying a tent specifically to throw it away makes sense

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u/Impressive_Ice6970 5h ago

Yeah youre right. The hundreds have no clue....or, people make different choices about how they live, what they are willing to waste etc.

Let's face it we all "waste". Maybe you drive an unnecessarily big vehicle or don't carpool when you could. Maybe you enjoy getting the newest and greatest phone every 2 years instead of dealing with a battery with a little less life.

The truth is unless the phone/computer you're using to post this is weaved with native grasses, you have a footprint youre responsible for too but you feel youre decisions are right for you.

Im not religious but maybe your are. "He who hath not sinned, cast the first stone." Your righteous indignation may make you feel temporarily superior but I highly doubt you don't leave a mark on this world.

If this field was left like this, I bet there were circumstances that led to this. Perhaps storms made organizers clear the site and the storm lasted long enough that people just bailed. Things can get really uncomfortable when youre cold, wet and unprepared for harsh weather. Let's say the weather wasn't projected to change for 30 hours and the festival would be over by then. Are you saying youd stay more than a day to get your soaking wet sleeping bag and tent, assuming they didnt get destroyed in storm?

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u/Aegi 4h ago

No it's not a loss compared to your expenses if you were mentally accounting for staying at a hotel before that.

It's also not a loss if it's just shitty friends borrowing stuff from their friends and not giving you shit if they just have to be a little apologetic for their friend or something when they get back home.

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u/nalaloveslumpy 4h ago

You mean like the hundreds of dollars in drugs and alcohol I'm going to consume over the four days of the festival? That kind of loss?

They're not going to miss a $50 tent.

-1

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/five-oh-one 7h ago

it wasn’t worth it for me to try to pack all of that shit up and take it home.

This does not compute.

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u/Jinky522 7h ago

That's so incredibly lazy? I've been to so many music festival running on 0 sleep and I'll pack all my shit away for use next time.

0

u/Celtic_Legend 3h ago

Nah luggage costs like 50+ dollars and these tents do not cost that

-5

u/MrK521 7h ago

That’s assuming half of these low-lives paid for their tent, as opposed to stealing one.

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u/mootallica 7h ago

lol that's a bit much

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u/Deus-mal 7h ago

In every festivalw there're abandoned tents. Even if 1% of them are stolen, it would still be impossible or some kind of conspiracy. Bc tents aren't lying around to be stolen.

-1

u/MrK521 7h ago

There are cheap tents in every Walmart, target, dicks sporting goods, etc, all over the place.

People steal shit all the time.

8

u/bbreddit0011 7h ago

This sentence makes no sense. Cleaning up after yourself is free. Don’t mask irresponsibility behind some imagined cost benefit of being a total dickhead to the organizers of the event and to the environment itself.

8

u/bobbadouche 6h ago

Their comment makes total sense. You're reading something into it.

It's the thought process of a lazy person. Their comment doesn't preclude that the festival goer is irresponsible. They're flying in, buying something disposable, and then leaving the site and making someone else clean up after them.

1

u/manofnotribe 6h ago

It's just shitty behavior, humans are animals and the thin veneer of civilization hides selfish and boarish behavior. Everyone is capable of cleaning up after themselves but it's easier to just let someone else.

I think they should just leave all that crap there and next year you got your festival on a garbage dump, enjoy. There are zero consequences for actions, and it'll always be a trashy mess. And it's nothing more than entitlement to think you paid to go to a festival so someone should clean up your mess.

Now GTFO my lawn 😎

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u/Abject-Expression548 7h ago

in my day, 2008 ish, and I guess its still the same, a large number of festival goers arrived by train, and its a decent walk from the station to the festival site. by monday morning everyone is knackered/hungover/still drunk/high so tents get left

0

u/Mantis_Toboggan--MD 7h ago

But why isn't just packing it up and taking it home like a sane person an option in your scenario?

3

u/xmgutier 7h ago

Honestly if I was super hungover from a multi-day bender, I'd probably think it'd be pretty well worth tossing it instead of trying to pack it up into the stupid bag that never seems big enough to fit it again.

Not to mention that cost is probably split amongst friends and if one of them wants to keep it they can pack it up and pay the checked bag fee to bring it back home.

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u/-BluBone- 7h ago

If you can afford $1k for a ticket you can afford to leave behind an $80 tent.

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u/PutUrPawzUp 7h ago

Typically the sorts of people who can go to festivals are already affluent and don’t necessarily understand the value of money.

It is not a reach to assume most of the attendees got in on their parents dime.

1

u/Tall-Ad6328 7h ago

That is a wild generalization. Lots of people spend hard earned money in those experiences because some of them are absolutely worth it. Sorry if you have no passion

But where I'm from, you leave the field how you found it and that involves taking out your own trash.

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u/edbuckley 7h ago

That's a stupid generalisation, you've got absolutely no evidence to back that up, because there isn't any.

0

u/PutUrPawzUp 7h ago

A hit dog sure will holler

-1

u/edbuckley 7h ago

My festival days ended decades ago, but I know how hard some kids save to go to Gastonbury, Reading etc. Wildly claiming that festivals are a sole preserve of the rich only highlights your ignorance.

2

u/PutUrPawzUp 7h ago

You are projecting an attack that I did not make. Read what I said and take it literally, I’m autistic there is no intended subtext. Most is not all, and I’m sorry you’re so hurt by what I said.

-1

u/edbuckley 7h ago

I'm not hurt, I'm disinterested in the whole subect. But, you said what you said and it needed pointing out that it was ill-reasoned horseshit. Good day.

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u/Ancient-Emu-8293 7h ago

Oviously idiots don't care.

1

u/Uncle-Cake 7h ago

Relative to the price of the festival, or compared to the price of a hotel room, they're really cheap, even if you only use it once, ESPECIALLY if several people are sharing the cost. They probably spend more on alcohol than they do on the tents.

1

u/SnausageFest 7h ago

You can get a basic tent for like $20 on FB marketplace.

1

u/MourningWallaby 7h ago

I just checked Amazon, a 2 person tent can be as cheap as 40 bucks, and a six person like 100. so if you and 3 friends pitch 25 bucks you get a tent that you don't care about.

Makes me feel bad because I have a 2-man tent that was like 200 bucks, but it's also a more specialized tent compared to whatever you'll get at amazon.

1

u/Jabberminor 7h ago

A tent can cost the price of a meal and a beer from Reading festival.

1

u/Elderbrute 6h ago

Cheap tents can be like £20 they are shit and fall apart after one use (if they last that long) not defending it but the tents are destined for landfill before they are even bought. The world we love in is insane.

1

u/almondbutterthicc 6h ago

If you're willing to leave it behind money is not an issue for you. It's convenient for them, just not for anyone else.

1

u/mijo_sq 6h ago

Tent's are relatively cheap disposable for people, since they don't have to pay to lug it back to their home by air. This was similar when I went to Florida for vacation, when I went to Walmart. So much tourists, and lots of cheap beach toys for kids to play and abandon.

1

u/xxrainmanx 6h ago

The cost to take down safely (needles, sharp objects etc), transport, clean, sanitize and store until given away would almost guarantee the process costs more than buying new tents in bulk from a wholesaler.

1

u/scrollinnn 6h ago edited 4h ago

Tents cost money

I see you are not a festival goer. These mostly are known as "popups" (at least in Germany). You can buy such tents for 40€ on Amazon. My friends bought cheap popup tents and chairs like that with the intent of leaving them behind. So they can leave quickly and without much weight while being hangover. Downside is, while I was at the open air festival with my genuine hiking tent and the others with their cheap popups I was the only one not wet and sick after a day of heavy rain. All tents but mine where submerged in water. All who slept in cheap tents had become sick. I slept like a baby completely dry.

Anyway yeah, pricing for throw-away tents and sometimes chairs is precalculated in the festival trip. I.e. they don't care.

I want to clarify that I am completely against this behaviour and have never left trash at these sites. I have also not been to a festival for several years now.

1

u/champignax 6h ago

Tents are super cheap, folding them is annoying and they are a bit heavy. Also you won’t use it for a few years maybe.

1

u/CaptainParkingspace 6h ago

Amazon Basics 4-person tent £36. A lot of choice for £100 or less.

1

u/m71nu 5h ago

Extra luggage on Ryanair is more expensive than a tent.

1

u/SalvationSycamore 5h ago

Tents cost money.

So do drugs, alcohol, and festival tickets

1

u/AwesomeMacCoolname 5h ago

you can pick them up in Aldi or Lidl for a tenner. I've had one in my garden shed for twenty years, never used. It's probably completely unfit for purpose by now.

1

u/Prestigious-Bat-574 5h ago

Someone that goes to a festival for the weekend is probably paying a few hundred dollars just to get in. Possible they'll drop another hundred just to park somewhere for the weekend.

Then they're going to pay hundreds more in food, beverages, merchandise, etc.

You can buy a tent for $30.

1

u/ActivePeace33 5h ago

Tents like that cost $25. It’s a tiny expense in context.

1

u/pm_alternative_facts 5h ago

True but you can get a really shitty tent for under 20 euros, that's like 3 drinks or 2 slices of pizza at a festival.

1

u/RadiantSweater 5h ago

You can get small tents for like $30-40, even cheaper if you spend some time looking. It is still insanely wasteful. But fiscally it's not that crazy.

1

u/cmontes49 4h ago

Nah tents are pretty affordable now days. Compared to the cost of a festival ticket and food. A lot of these look pretty small as well

1

u/WackyRacketeer 4h ago

I dont think the people leaving behind unopened booze and tents are the picture of fiscal responsibility. It it literally more convenient for them to leave it behindm

1

u/round-earth-theory 4h ago

They buy the cheapest shit for the festival. The ticket and travel costs make the equipment price look like a rounding error.

1

u/veryfungibletoken 4h ago

Going to festivals costs even more money.

1

u/Fedoraus 4h ago

A tent is like 30 bucks. Festival tickets are like 3k a pop

1

u/diskodarci 4h ago

It is but if you're flying in for a festival it may be less expensive to buy one locally and ditch it than to pay for shipping of your own personal tent. It's definitely gross but this is why it happens

1

u/poney01 4h ago

These tents cost 30€. Nobody is taking a super duper ultralight tent there.

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u/TrojanGoldfish 4h ago

You can easily buy a bundle of tent,mat,sleeping bag for sub £40. Shit quality, but fine for a night. You're not a camping sort of person, so you're not going to be reusing it. So you're basically paying £40 for shelter for the night, and then those nice people come around and collect all the unwanted ones, and give them to charity (for clarity, this does not happen) so you're basically doing a service for charity!

Take Your Shit Home With You

1

u/CowBoyDanIndie 4h ago

You can get cheap tents for like $30-40. They are very low quality and tend to leak and tear easily, but for a festival you probably aren’t staying anyway if the weather gets shitty. If they didn’t put down a tarp there is a pretty good chance they are already damaged.

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u/maxfields2000 4h ago

Those tents all fall in the $100 or less category, a sum of money likely not to bother your average festival goer who spends more than that on everything else. Some of them are probably even $60 or less.

Tents, all things considered, are insanely cheap for what they are. Anyone who buys the really expensive, high quality tents is likely an avid camper and isn't going to leave it behind.

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u/Not_an_okama 3h ago

Last tent i bought was under $30 and lasted me about 4 years until i was too lazy to flod it back up and it got moldy. Thats probably the cost of like 2 beers and a hot dog at the festival.

Not that i condone littering, just pointing out that you can get tents for cheap. Im of the belief that you should leave your camp site looking like no one was there, but most of my camping has been in the backwoods and we were probably trespassing at many of these sites now that i think about it.

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u/biggreasyrhinos 3h ago

Don't think people are bringing good tents tho. Cheap crap falls apart quickly

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u/LateEffect1742 2h ago

Tents don't cost that much nowdays. $20-30.

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u/mighty_conrad 2h ago

Not as much as attendance ticket. Nobody would leave your fancy ass ultralight Dyneema or giant tent there, I assume that 90+% of stuff in the video is bought from Temu and intended to be disposable by attendees. Would be cool if it's salvageable or useable by anybody else, but this is mostly landfill material.

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u/JimmyStewartStatue 2h ago

Wait til you see what people do with their phones.

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u/love2killjoy410 1h ago

Right? I treat my 150$ Coleman tent like it's treasure. Deep clean after every trip AND I even put it away to fit in it's original bag. I don't care how difficult it is, I'm keeping it pristine for as long as fucking possible.

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u/Reference_Freak 7h ago

The wrong people have too much money.

People with too much money can afford to avoid accountability for their wasteful, destructive decisions.

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u/_WorldHopper_ 7h ago

Festival culture us very closely tied to trust fund culture.

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u/JoeKingQueen 7h ago

There's a subset of people who care much more about their short term emotions than their general responsibilities, fiscal social or otherwise.

The ability to be lazy and feel like they're helping appeals to them.

The repurcussions are not even an afterthought