DEEP DIVE
Your music festival survival kit
Music festivals were once fairly rare. Now there seems to be one every weekend, for every kind of music, everywhere from farms to beaches to big-city parks.
No matter which festival you’re heading to, these apps will make your experience a much more pleasant one. They’ll help you keep in touch, stay hydrated and, crucially, figure out the bathroom situation – you’ll still have to bring your own earplugs though.
Keep track of your friends
With Snapchat’s Snap Maps, you can keep tabs on friends who have shared their location with you. Find them anywhere on the grounds and then post a sweaty reunion Snap when you meet back up.
Drink up (water, that is)
As you revel in the music the last thing you want is to become dehydrated. Use Waterminder to make sure you’re hydrating so you’ll have enough energy for the 2am shows.
Know 100% of the lyrics
It’s always weird to be the only one in a crowd who doesn’t know the words. Learn them fast with the lyrics app Musixmatch – which can also serve as a tiny teleprompter display on your Apple Watch.
Chat over Bluetooth
There’s no way around it: being in a crowd of tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people is going to wreak havoc on your reception.
When the festival is in full swing, try Berkanan, a messaging app powered by Bluetooth and thus less subject to 50,000 people simultaneously posting their selfies to Instagram.
Locate a bathroom, possibly even a non-portable one
Flush. You can probably figure out what this does, and you’ll be glad you downloaded it before heading for a weekend in a field. Trust us.
Jazz up your story
Lots of apps let you post in-the-moment photos and videos. To do something a little more special with your shots, turn to Unfold, which helps you shape and create social media stories using a library of slick frames, templates and effects.
Get home safely
By the end of the night you’ll be weary, bleary and possibly in an unfamiliar city. Open Citymapper and let the app find your location.
Input your destination and the mapping service will tell you whether it’s best to walk, take public transport or grab a rideshare to your home, hotel or yurt for some much-needed rest – so you can wake up the next day and start this list all over again.