To keep your drinks cold at a festival, chill everything at home before you leave, pack your cool box tightly with frozen water bottles or ice packs, keep it shut and in the shade, and top it up with fresh ice each day if there’s an on-site shop selling it. Nobody wants a warm cider.
This article contains products that were gifted by Mountain Warehouse.
There’s nothing like that moment when your tent is up, your wristband is on and you crack open your first can… only to find it’s warm. A tent in the sun heats up fast, and a cool box only works if you give it a fighting chance. Here’s what actually helps.
Choosing a Cool Box or Cool Bag
The first decision is hard box or soft bag.
- Hard cool boxes have thicker insulated walls, so they hold the cold for longer and they’re tougher. The downside is that they’re heavy, bulky and awkward to carry, and they don’t fold away.
- Soft or semi-structured cool bags are lighter, easier to carry on a shoulder strap and collapse down once they’re empty. They don’t insulate as well as a good hard box, so they need more help from ice.
Think about the walk. At big festivals, the car park can be a long way from where you’ll camp, and you’ll be carrying your tent, bags and drinks too. A huge cool box full of cans and ice is very heavy. If you’re set on a hard box, a folding festival trolley makes the trek far easier.
Size matters too. A smaller box packed full stays cold for longer than a big one that’s half empty, because there’s less warm air inside. Buy one that fits what you’ll actually bring.
Pre-Chill Everything, Including the Box
Ice spent cooling down warm cans is ice you don’t have later. So start cold:
- Put your drinks in the fridge a day or two before you leave. Don’t freeze cans or fizzy drinks, as they can split or burst as they freeze.
- Freeze your ice packs and some water bottles the night before, or longer. Use plastic bottles of still water and leave a little space at the top, because water expands as it freezes.
- Chill the cool box itself. Keep it indoors rather than in a hot car or shed, and put a couple of frozen packs in it the night before to cool the inside down.
- Pack it last, just before you set off, and keep it out of the sun in the car.
Ice vs Ice Packs
You’ll probably want a mix of both.
- Frozen water bottles are my favourite trick. They work like ice packs, and as they thaw you’ve got cold drinking water.
- Ice packs are sealed, so they don’t leak, which makes them good for soft bags and for sitting next to food. Once they’ve thawed, though, you can’t usually refreeze them on site.
- Block ice lasts longer than cubes, because there’s less surface for it to melt from. Cubes or crushed ice are better at filling the gaps between cans, which chills them faster.
How to Pack It
Put a layer of ice or packs in the bottom, stand your drinks on it, then fill the gaps with more ice and put some on top as well. Cold air sinks, so ice on top cools everything underneath. The tighter it’s packed, the better: every gap is warm air.
Should You Drain the Meltwater?
Not straight away. Ice-cold meltwater is still very cold, and cans sitting in it stay chilled. The problem is that it turns labels, cardboard and anything not sealed into a soggy mess. Keep food in sealed tubs or bags, keep shop-bought ice in its bag if you’re using a soft cool bag (so it doesn’t leak), and tip the water out once it’s no longer cold or it’s soaking things.
About the product box below: it links to Amazon, and it’s an affiliate link. If you buy through it, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It was in stock when we checked in November 2026.
Best for: Ice packs for a cool bag or box
KEPLIN Freezer Ice Blocks (6 Pack) (opens in a new tab)
Six large, flat blocks are enough to line a cool bag and slot between cans, and they're heat-sealed, so there's no meltwater to soak your food.
- Pack of six blocks, each 15.5 x 8.5 x 2.5cm
- Leak-proof, heat-sealed, BPA-free plastic
- Reusable: refreeze overnight at home
- You can't refreeze them on site, so you'll still want bagged ice for a long weekend
Where to Keep Your Cool Box
Shade is everything. A tent in direct sun gets hot quickly, so the inside of your tent isn’t the cool spot it seems.
- Find the shadiest spot in or around your tent, such as the porch on the shaded side, and move the box as the sun moves round.
- Cover it with something light-coloured, like a towel, a spare sleeping bag or a foil emergency blanket, to keep the sun off and add a layer of insulation.
- Don’t leave it sitting on ground that’s been baking in the sun. Shaded grass is fine.
Open It As Little As Possible
Every time you open the lid, cold air spills out and warm air gets in. A few habits help:
- Know what you’re getting before you open it, and grab everything you need in one go.
- If you’ve got room, use two: one for drinks, which gets opened all the time, and one for food, which stays shut.
- Close it properly every time. A lid left ajar in the sun undoes a lot of good packing.
A Note on Food
Warm drinks are disappointing, but warm food can make you ill. The Food Standards Agency’s advice for hot weather is to use a separate cool bag for food and keep it closed until you eat, use frozen ice packs, keep food and bags out of direct sunlight, and throw away perishables that have been out of the fridge for more than two hours in hotter-than-usual weather.
Even well packed, a cool bag won’t keep fresh meat, milk or other chilled food safe for a whole weekend in June. Eat chilled food early in the festival, buy perishables as you need them if there’s a shop on site, and bring long-life food for the rest. There’s more on this in my guide to cooking your own food at a festival.
Buying Ice at the Festival
Even the best cool box won’t stay cold for a five-day festival on what you brought from home. If your cool box is well packed, it should keep things cold for around a day or two, so plan on topping it up.
Some festivals have an on-site supermarket that sells bags of ice. At Glastonbury, it’s been the Co-op, and Download has had a Co-op too. In 2022, a large bag of ice at the Glastonbury Co-op cost £4. Ice is popular, so it can sell out on hot days before it’s restocked, and the bars don’t usually sell it by the bag. Read more about buying ice at Glastonbury.
Topping up with a bag or two of ice each day keeps the rest of your drinks cold. Go early, before it gets busy, and don’t count on a shop or ice at every festival: check before you go.
My Mountain Warehouse Cool Bag Test at Glastonbury 2023
Mountain Warehouse gifted me a semi-structured cooler bag (their large structured cool bag), and I took it to Glastonbury 2023, which had soaring hot temperatures. Our drinks stayed icy cold the whole time, with a little help from daily ice runs to the on-site Co-op.
It wasn’t difficult to carry either, as the strap was very comfortable. And because the bag collapses down, I didn’t have to carry a bulky box home afterwards.
I can’t find that exact bag on sale any more, but if you’re choosing one, look for the same things: a sturdy shape that holds cans upright, a comfortable shoulder strap and a bag that folds flat when it’s empty.
A Low-Tech Trick for Dry, Hot Days
On a hot, dry, breezy day, drape a damp towel over your cool box or wrap one round a bottle, and keep it in the shade. As the water evaporates, it draws heat away. It works best when the air is dry and there’s a breeze, and much less well on a muggy day, so think of it as a bonus rather than a replacement for ice.
For everything else to pack, see my festival packing list.
