I didn’t think the day would come where we’d be doing a story on the rapid advancements in tent and camping technologies, but here we are, talking about some genuinely interesting technological developments that promise to make upcoming festivals a lot easier for punters.

First up is the new solar powered tent from British telecommunications giant Orange. Launched in conjunction with this year’s Glastonbury festival (which is getting underway as we type!) the tent is outfitted with solar threads to absorb the suns rays during the day. Once charged up, the tent would then provide heating, lighting, recharging and also some communications that possibly includes Wi-Fi capabilities. Pretty nifty, eh? Did I just say nifty?

Anyway, it gets even better as the tent comes equipped with easy access for campers, who, upon returning from a day of hard music, can send an SMS to the tent (!) causing it glow bright orange and be easily found, no matter how weary/intoxicated the punter might be. The main problem we see is with the miserable drizzle that Britain’s famous for, what chance do the tents have of getting enough sun for a decent charge?

Another clever tool for festival patrons comes in the form of the new TentFinder application for iPhone users. An ingenious move for those who know they might be a little worse-for-wear by the day’s end, TentFinder records the longitude and latitude of your tent upon pitching and swiftly directs you back there when the time’s right.

Despite the potential hazards to punters’ precious iPhones, we reckon it’s a pretty solid idea and might make some Splendour experiences a little easier!

Check out the video tutorial below for a closer look and head to our festival page for all the festival updates.