After a fallow year in 2018, the UK’s most famous festival Glastonbury is returning to take over Worthy Farm next weekend.
Far from its roots as a £1 event that provided free milk to all attendees, the musical extravaganza is also one of the biggest tech-enabled festivals in the world.
This year, Glastonbury is laying claim to being the first 5G-connected festival ever. Thanks to its partnership with EE, there will be EE 5G network points installed across the site, which will provide 2G – 5G signals, as well as Wi-Fi.
You may think that Glastonbury is all unplugged and dancing in fields but actually, a network like this is necessary.
At the last event in 2017, a whopping 54 terabytes of data was used by revellers, with the Sunday going down as the busiest day for data usage. Almost one million calls were made during the festival, with 253,000 taking place on the Saturday alone.
EE is predicting that more than 70 terabytes will be used up at this year’s event, which is equivalent to 784 million Instagram posts.
If you’re joining the nearly 200,000 other people attending the Somerset-based festival next week, here’s the tech you need to take with you.
The smartphone: Google Pixel 3A
The general advice is that you shouldn’t take a smartphone to a festival but let’s be honest, the majority of people will. The new Google Pixel 3A is an excellent choice – it has all the camera prowess of the more expensive Pixel 3 line, but is a fraction of the price at £399.
Made of plastic, not glass, with a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 chip and importantly, a better battery than the Pixel 3, this phone allows you to take amazing pictures (seriously, try the Night Sight mode) and keep charged up during the festival.
£399, Carphone Warehouse
Alternative: Nokia 8110 4G
If you want to be sort-of off the grid during Glastonbury, Nokia’s revamped 8110 4G will stand you in good stead. With a battery life that will last around 25 days on one charge, this phone still has 4G so you can be connected to friends on WhatsApp and the like.
You might not take many pictures with the 2MP camera but you’ll feel sufficiently retro using The Matrix banana phone.
The charger: Anker PowerCore 10000 PD
You’re going to need a power pack for the five days without a mains plug. The Anker PowerCore is a 10,000 mAh portable charger, which should give you around three full charges depending on the battery size of your device.
You can even charge two devices at the same time if you’re feeling particularly generous.
Alternative: EE recharge packs
For extra juice during the day, or if you forget a charging pack, EE will have a Recharge Tent on hand offering free power-ups for 30 minutes at its 336 charging points, regardless of the network you’re on.
As well, festival goers will be able to purchase an EE Juice Tube Power Bar for £20 at the Recharge Tent, which can be swapped for free once a day during the festival so your phone can keep going as long as you can.
The app: Glastonbury app
The Glastonbury app is the most useful way to get around the site. Create your own schedule of the acts you want to see, bookmark your tent spot on the vast map and keep up to date with all the news and goings on during the event.
The app even has a lower-power mode to preserve that all precious battery.
Alternative: Find My Friends
You will lose your friends during Glasto, it’s a given. Find My Friends allows you to find each other during the madness, though you can always turn off the GPS location on the app for those underground moments.
The digital bank: Monzo
If you’re not one of Monzo’s two million UK customers yet, now is your chance. Though the fintech now has a fully-fledged banking license you can still use the card as a secondary account, handy for when you’re off to a festival and worried about losing your primary bank card.
With instant money transfers (i.e. the ability to pay friends back in seconds), Google and Apple Pay integration, it’s a handy one to have around during festival season.
Alternative: Revolut
For those who only want to dip their toes into the challenger bank world, then go for a Revolut card. It provides instant top-ups in the app, as well as the fast payments for other Revolut users too.
Camera: Instax Mini Liplay
Festival crowds can be ruined by all those smartphones lined up so go sort-of old school with an instant camera. The new Instax Mini Liplay is a hybrid instant/digital camera – it takes photos like the classic Instax cameras but it also boosts a screen at the back so you can select the best version to print.
Thanks to its Bluetooth capability, you can even transfer images on your smartphone to the camera to be printed out too.
Alternative: Kodak Fun Flash
For the ultimate vintage festival experience, snag a Kodak disposable camera. You only get 39 shots to make sure every picture counts.
Subscribe to Women Tech Charge, a new podcast from the Evening Standard.
From fashion to finance, technology is revolutionising our lives. Meet the extraordinary women who are leading the charge.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
