r/Wellthatsucks 10h ago

Reading festival 2026

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u/Adventurous_Emotion9 10h 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.

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u/Ancient-Emu-8293 9h ago

Would be pretty convenient to pretend believing that.

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u/aardvarkbjones 9h ago

Is it? Tents cost money. 

Seems insanely wasteful, both environmentally and fiscally.

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u/scrollinnn 7h ago edited 6h 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.