Research by Green Music Australia has found one in every three tents taken to a music festival is left behind.
Holy crap. That would never occur to me - to leave a tent behind. I can't even
this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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wtf are they made of money?
Tents are cheap: https://www.aussiedisposals.com.au/camping/tents/dome-tents.html
$40. And these tents likely won't survive multiple uses anyway.
They are still grubs for leaving them behind.
ban single use gear
What if we just move the tents outside the environment?
It's one of those rare occasions where it would be better for the environment if "festival tents" were made out of "cardboard" or "cardboard derivatives..."
Eh, that still wastes the energy used to process the material, so still unideal. But probably better?
Could change the model so that the festival provides the tents for $0 (or some tiny fee), but with a $500 bond. Trash the tent, lose $500, look after it and it gets re-used next festival.
@CameronDev
Sure!
Cardboard isn't a perfect solution... nor was I suggesting it was any kid of solution.
Edit: I forgot it was you who'd already referenced the sketch! Sorry!
I was just making a joke referencing this sketch, featuring Senator Collins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm%5C_JqM
3 minutes. Take a look!
I’ve had a dome tent for nearly a decade and it still works fine. It’s not my go to tent but it is easy to use.
It probably cost $50 new.
I too have a tent I bought for 40$, lasted me 8 treks, 36 nights, still going strong. Although I haven't trekked in 3 years due to life. But the tent is still fine last I checked a year ago.
A festival is a much different environment.
I took a $60 tent to festivals and camping for 10+ years until I wore through the floor. Probably slept in that thing 200+ nights. Lived out of it for six weeks at one point.
Yep and not all festival goers are like you either. I’ve taken the same stuff to a few and it’s held up.
At the same time several others trashed their brand new stuff in hours. Some of those tried to leave it as well or throw it in the bins. Some festivals I went to had someone with a Polaris et al collecting it.
Never seen this at bush campsites, even ones like Mackenzie on K’gari.
It’s a different environment and I should add we’re all different too.
The equivalent tent nowadays would be $600-$1200
The bottom end is taken over by crap that I wouldn’t let my dog sleep in and the top end are for prosumer/competitive cross country hikers.
Mid range pricing is either cheap crap (rebranded by scammers) or last years model or expensive product.
This relates to camping equipment and also hardware and electronics.
I'm guessing (given you have at least 2 tents) you're treating it properly and taking care of it though, which inebriated festival goers probably aren't.
And $50 a decade ago bought you a much better tent than today, there is some absolute garbage out there now.
Yeah, these are usually rich kids who can afford to just dump the tents and stuff when they're done.
It's not just that.
Average people are buying cheap junk that's essentially single use, and they may not have anywhere to store it even if it's still usable after a 3-4 day festival.
Rich people are 100% not doing normal parking either, they're in the VP or at least RV.
affluenza.
The old adage “Take only Photos, Leave only footprints” has not been drummed into kids these days.
If the tent came back missing a single peg, we would get a hiding.
If our campsite has anything but leaves and twigs after we left, we would be sent back the next weekend to do an Emu bob.
We also cleaned up after each other because of the story about Everybody, Somebody, Nobody and Anybody.
I feel really old!
We have the same problem here in the US. Camping areas have blown up on Tik Tok, and people leave whole tents and other massive garbage. There's not enough park rangers to staunch the flow of waste and illegal camping. It's damaging lakes when people toss their camping gear into it.
Where does this happen? I'll go take all the free shit.
Western US. You don't want it, though. It's all the crappy $40 tents and stuff.
All the organisers need to do is setup a Camping Exhibition straight after the Summer Festival, advertising free giveaways. First come, first served!
Come on, people!
Or organisers need to just put up their own tents. Charge people who destroy them.
It's the same in Germany; people are just too drunk and/or tired to care. I get it, but ffs take some fucking responsibility...
You can probably make a good living out of returning all the bottles that are left behind, too.
Time for the Bethselamin protocol