Festival camping statistics show how much infrastructure, waste and travel sit behind a live music weekend. The figures range from five nights of camping included with a Glastonbury general-admission ticket to 1,128 tonnes of measured CO2e in Shambala’s 2024 footprint. They also show a mixed picture on camping waste: some festivals report tent take-home rates above 98%, while older industry research recorded substantial abandonment.
Contents
- Festival camping participation and accommodation
- Water, toilets and campsite waste systems
- Tent take-home rates and waste reduction
- What surveys say about camper behaviour
- Travel modes and carbon measurements
- UK festival environmental benchmarks
Festival camping participation and accommodation
Camping is built into the experience at some large UK festivals. Glastonbury’s 2027 general-admission ticket information includes five nights of camping. The festival lists two official pre-erected campsites, Worthy View and Sticklinch. Its tipi accommodation can hold up to six adults, with a listed hire price of £2,000 excluding festival tickets. Standard campervan or caravan pitches are listed at £225, while a large pitch is £350. These are accommodation prices and formats for the 2027 festival information, not attendance averages.
The scale of the camping audience is clearer in Glastonbury’s 2023 local-impact figures. More than 140,000 ticket-holders attended across five days. An estimated 4,000 attendees stayed in privately run off-site campsites adjoining the festival site, spending about £6.5 million. Around 900 attendees stayed in local hotels and B&Bs, spending approximately £450,000 locally. The off-site camping and hotel figures are estimates for 2023 and should not be treated as a complete accommodation census.
These figures illustrate why camping statistics need to distinguish between on-site camping, hired accommodation, campervan pitches and nearby commercial lodging. A festival can have a large camping footprint even when some attendees sleep outside the main site, and ticketed attendance alone does not identify where people stay.
The principal source for these figures is Glastonbury Festival - Info. Its pages combine 2027 ticket and accommodation information, 2023 local-impact measurements, and current operational information accessed in 2026, so the measurement period varies by statistic.
Water, toilets and campsite waste systems
Large camping festivals require substantial basic infrastructure. Glastonbury says it provides more than 800 free water-refill points across its site, more than 700 metres of urinals, 2,000 long-drop toilets and 1,200 compost toilets. Its 1,300-person recycling-volunteer team supports clean-up and recycling operations. The festival also says waste is collected through 15,000 bins and hand-separated for processing.
The toilet figures describe provision, not per-camper usage or service quality. Likewise, the number of refill points does not establish how much water was dispensed. They are useful indicators of the physical scale of a camping operation, but they should not be converted into unsupported per-person ratios because the relevant attendance and operating period are not supplied for the current infrastructure figures.
Organic waste provides more directly measured examples. Glastonbury turned 149 tonnes of food waste into compost in 2019 and converted 14,000 litres of cooking oil into biofuel that year. The festival says its 1,200 compost toilets produce tonnes of horticultural compost each year. The 2019 quantities are historical records; the current infrastructure description was accessed in 2026.
Shambala reported a separate 2024 food-waste result: campsite caddies collected nearly 10 tonnes of food waste for compost. This is a campsite-caddy measurement, not a total festival food-waste figure, so it is not directly comparable with Glastonbury’s 149 tonnes of food waste processed in 2019.
Tent take-home rates and waste reduction
Tent take-home rates are among the clearest camping-waste indicators. Glastonbury reports that more than 98% of tents have been taken home after each festival since 2019. Kendal Calling reported a 98.93% tent take-home rate in 2024, with its campaign illustration counting 284 fans who left tents behind. Kendal Calling also reported zero waste sent to landfill in its 2024 key results and 45,000 kilograms of CO2 saved through its reusable-cup scheme.
The take-home rates are percentages reported by individual festivals and cannot be generalized to every camping event. They also measure tent removal, not whether tents were reused, repaired or discarded later. The 284 people counted by Kendal Calling are a campaign-reporting figure for 2024, while the 98.93% rate is the festival’s reported result for the same year.
Festival Republic says eco-campsites have operated at Reading and Leeds since 2022. In 2025, it described The Meadow as one of four new themed campsites and reported that more than 10,000 attendees booked into The Meadow. Festival Republic also said it rewarded 10,000 Reading and Leeds festival-goers for carrying their tents home in 2025. Booking numbers and rewards are participation measures; they do not establish the proportion of all campers who used the scheme.
Sziget’s 2023 sustainability report describes a different approach. Charities collected about 60% to 70% of camping waste left on the festival ground. Sziget also increased its number of pre-built accommodations by 60% to 70% as a camping-waste reduction measure. Its total-waste breakdown was 27.5% to landfill, 30% incinerated and 42.5% recycled. A 20-person nightly crew collected PET and aluminium waste.
| Reported camping-waste measure | Festival and period | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Tents taken home | Glastonbury, since 2019 | More than 98% |
| Tents taken home | Kendal Calling, 2024 | 98.93% |
| Camping waste collected by charities | Sziget, 2023 | About 60%–70% |
| Total waste sent to landfill | Sziget, 2023 | 27.5% |
| Total waste recycled | Sziget, 2023 | 42.5% |
The source labels for these figures are Sustainability - Kendal Calling, Festival Republic | Green and Sziget Sustainability Report 2023. Their definitions differ: tent take-home rates, collected camping waste and all-festival waste destinations are separate measurements.
What surveys say about camper behaviour
The More Than Music Report 2022 surveyed 100 UK music festivals. It found that 43 offered on-site camping and 57 did not. Among the same 100 festivals, 34% were limiting single-use tents, 25% offered hired tents and 14% partnered with charities collecting tents from campsites. The report also cited almost 250,000 tents being cleaned up on festival Monday mornings.
These results describe festival policies and a cited clean-up estimate, not a national count of all tents used in a single year. They nevertheless show that camping provision was not universal across the surveyed festivals and that hired-tent and charity collection systems were present at a minority of events in the 2022 report.
Older research gives further context. Festival Republic research cited in the 2015 Show Must Go On report said 30% of Reading Festival attendees left their tents and camping equipment. The same research estimated that approximately 45,000 tents were brought to Reading Festival annually, implying approximately 13,500 tents abandoned annually. Among attendees who left tents or equipment, 79% cited being too tired after the festival, while 59% viewed tents and camping equipment as cheap and easily replaceable.
An Association of Independent Festivals audience survey found that nearly 7% of campers admitted leaving their tent behind in 2013. That survey estimate equated to about 18,000 abandoned tents among its 2013 festival-goer base. These are legacy findings from 2013 and research cited in a 2015 report; they should not be presented as current abandonment rates or as independently verified measurements for 2026.
Travel modes and carbon measurements
Shambala’s 2024 impact report provides a detailed camping-festival travel snapshot. One in three attendees used public transport instead of driving, saving 136 tonnes of CO2e. Private audience transport generated 340 tonnes of CO2e, compared with 99 tonnes from crew travel, 30 tonnes from artist travel and 113 tonnes from supplier travel.
The reported audience travel split was 54% car, 11% campervan, 19% festival coach, 15% rail plus entry and 1% cycle ride. Shambala reported 1,128 tonnes of total CO2e across its measured 2024 footprint. Its footprint was 9.20 kilograms of CO2e per person per day including travel and other measured impacts, while the site-build-only footprint was 0.42 kilograms of CO2e per person per day.
| Shambala 2024 measure | Reported result |
|---|---|
| Audience transport using public transport | 1 in 3 attendees |
| Audience travel split: car | 54% |
| Audience travel split: campervan | 11% |
| Audience travel split: festival coach | 19% |
| Audience travel split: rail plus entry | 15% |
| Audience travel split: cycle ride | 1% |
| Total measured footprint | 1,128 tonnes CO2e |
| Footprint including travel and other measured impacts | 9.20 kg CO2e per person per day |
| Site-build-only footprint | 0.42 kg CO2e per person per day |
Shambala also sourced 55% of its big-tent infrastructure from within 100 miles in 2024 and sourced its large machinery from within five miles of the site. It reported balancing 100% of audience car and camper travel emissions through community-benefit restoration projects. Balancing is reported separately from the travel emissions generated, so it does not mean those journeys produced no emissions.
The travel figures and definitions come from Interactive Reporting Platform 2024 - Shambala. The report’s measured footprint includes travel and other impacts, while the site-build-only figure isolates a narrower part of the event’s activity.
UK festival environmental benchmarks
The 2015 Show Must Go On Report estimated 20 kilotonnes of annual onsite CO2e for the UK festival industry. When audience travel was included, it estimated 100 kilotonnes of annual festival-related CO2e. The report also estimated 23,500 tonnes of annual festival-industry waste and 5 million litres of annual diesel consumption.
These are industry estimates for the period of the report, not current totals. They are useful as historical benchmarks because they separate onsite emissions from the broader festival-related figure that includes audience travel. The same source also contains the older Reading camping research cited above, so its dates and scope should remain explicit when comparing those figures with 2024 or current festival reports.
The source for these benchmarks is The Show Must Go On Report. For a broader festival sample from 2022, the relevant source is More Than Music Report 2022. Together, the reports show why festival camping statistics need labels for geography, measurement year, estimate status and the boundary of what was counted.