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Get tooled-up for this year’s festivals

James Thornton

James Thornton

  • Updated:

Glastonbury festivalIt’s that time of year again where party lovers everywhere flee to the countryside or the beach to party the weekend away at one of the many music festivals. If you’re planning on raving this summer then it’s important to go prepared. Besides remembering to pack your spare underwear, carrier bags, torches, (and, of course, beer) you may want to download a few programs to help make sure the party goes off in style. Although it doesn’t sound very ‘outdoorsy,’ running a few simple programs on your PC or mobile phone should actually ensure you spend less time fussing around and more time having it large. Here’s our guide to the essential raver’s toolkit:

Weather Watcher – Festivals are in the summer, which means it will be sunny, right? Um, no actually, and speaking from personal experience, there’s nothing worse than rocking up to an event in shorts and flip-flops only to be confronted with torrential downpours and the muddy carnage that ensues. Ensure that you pack appropriately for the weather with this powerful forecasting system.

Easy-To-Do – It’s all too easy to miss your favourite acts at a festival if you’re not clued up on exactly when and where they’re all playing. Make things easier for yourself by installing Easy-To-Do, which lets you set an unlimited number of events and schedule a time and date for them. If you know the running order, you can organize the rough times and stages that your must-see bands are playing then print it out and stick it in your backpack.

Professional Bartender – Of course, no festival is complete without copious amounts of alcohol (of course, we at insideTonic advise you to ‘drink responsibly’). Instead of paying a fortune for watered-down beer this year, why not serve delicious drinks from the comfort of your tent? This fun app contains over 1,000 cocktail recipe to try out, along with the ability to import even more from the developer’s website.

Guitar Guru – You can almost guarantee that after a hard night’s rocking there will be dozens of hapless hippies sat about around the tent village murdering Radiohead’s back catalogue on beaten-up guitars. Ensure that your after-party entertainment goes with a swing by using this impressive free guitar tutor to learn how to play your favourite songs properly.

ALON MP3 Dictaphone – There are plenty of mobile phone applications around that will make your festival more enjoyable, but few can be as useful as this one. Besides allowing you to record live music you, it also features a brilliant audio player for you to listen to your favourite tunes while the stages are empty. The program even lets you record phone calls!

SMartComGPS – Getting lost is almost like a ritual at a music festival, whether it’s driving road endless country roads looking for the site or losing your mates and wandering around a maze of tents all night. Thanks to the wonders of GPS technology you can ensure that you know exactly where you are at all times. SMartComGPS is designed for GPS-enabled phones and lets you plan routes and track where you are via satellite. You can even use it to ‘tag’ the location of your tent and plot a course back to it.

SplashBlog – If you really want to show off to those who couldn’t make it to the festival then SplashBlog is perfect. The Symbian application allows you to instantly publish photos from your camera phone to an online photo blog to share with others. It has the added bonus of acting as a repository for all your festival memories for when the big event is over.

James Thornton

James Thornton

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