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Nov 02, 2023

Where to get a flagpole for festivals

Taking a flag to a festival isn’t just a chance to show off your sense of humour

Taking a flag to a festival isn't just a chance to show off your sense of humour or your favourite football team. If someone in your group has a flag with them, it’ll be loads easier to find your tents at the end of the day or to find your friends in the middle of a massive crowd at Glastonbury. Once you’ve found yourself a flag, all you need is a flagpole tall enough to keep your flag visible from the other side of a field.

What you need is a ‘telescopic flagpole’, which means a flagpole that collapses in on itself so it's easy to store and transport. The most popular telescoping flagpoles range from 2.7 metres to a staggering 10 metres in height when fully extended but collapse down to as little as 41cm. Pretty important whether you’re travelling by public transport or by car.

You’ll want to make sure your festival flagpoles comes with a pair of ‘flag bungies’, for attaching your flag to the pole, and a ground stake, so you can root it into the ground to mark your campsite. It's also worth checking the list of prohibited items at whichever festival you’re going to. The masses of flags waving around in front of the stages are an iconic part of Glastonbury, and while most festivals allow flagpoles in the campsites, only a few allow flagpoles to be taken to the stages.

Watch out for products sold as ‘windsock poles’. While it's usually possible to fly a flag from these, a flag will place more stress on the pole than the windsocks they’re designed for. Many windsock poles require extra parts for attaching a flag and will warn customers not to fly flags at the full height of the pole because of the extra strains.

Flagpoles can be a bit tricky to find online as many retailers just can't be bothered dealing with their unconventional shape and size. We’ve found some of the best deals on high-quality telescopic flagpoles currently available ahead of the 2022 festival season.

The easiest place to buy a flagpole is probably from Amazon. Because of the dimensions, they’re rarely available with Prime delivery but instead come directly from Marketplace sellers (so you’ll get free delivery without needing a subscription!). Most are sold by the manufacturers themselves or trusted suppliers of outdoor equipment. All the prices below include delivery within about 2 to 5 days.

All of the flagpoles listed below include a ground spike and with the exception of the massive 8-metre flagpole, they all collapse down to just over 1 metre in length so they’ll be super easy to transport to, from and around your next festival. They’re made from something called ‘glass-reinforced plastic’, so they’re really strong and robust while being super-lightweight.

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Funky Leisure sells a wide range of high-quality telescopic flagpoles with most also made from super strong and lightweight glass-reinforced plastic.

Most of their flagpoles collapse down to 1.15 metres but they also offer a special ‘pocket flagpole, which collapses down to a minuscule 51cm despite being a full 4.1 metres when fully extended.

The prices displayed include a ground spike but make sure you select the option to include one at checkout, as by default they’re supplied without. Delivery costs either £3.99 or £6.99, though it's free if you spend over £75.

All the flagpoles on this page come with a pair of bungees; small elastic loops held together by a plastic ball (You can buy them here for other poles or to attach more than one flat at a time).Hold one bungee's elastic loop together and push it through one of the eyelets on your flag, then do the same with the other bungee and the other eyelet. You can then pull the remaining elastic over and around your flagpole, and with the plastic ball on the opposite side of the flag to the pole, they’ll keep your flag securely attached. If you’re attaching a flag to a thin bit of the pole you might need to loop the elastic through the eyelet twice before attaching.

You can try to tie a flagpole to your tent, but it's not a great idea and at best, it's only a temporary solution for a very short flagpole. Your tent isn't sturdy enough to keep a flagpole steady and you could find the flagpole pulls your tent down and snaps some of your tent's poles in the process. You don't want your tent to break on the first day of Glastonbury so don't forget your ground spike!

This one's really easy! Just grab some battery or solar-powered fairy lights – widely available online or in shops like Poundland, Home Bargains and Wilko – and wrap them around your flagpole. You’ll need something to keep them in place, like some rubber bands or duct tape, and you’ll have to take most of them off to collapse your flagpole.

Yes! The best way is with a ‘drive-on wheel stand‘. These are metal plates with a sturdy flagpole mount at one end. Place it next to one of your van's wheels then carefully move the van so one of its tyres is on top of the metal plate.

Probably as big as you can afford. Most of the telescopic flagpoles listed on this page collapse to the same size as each other and you can use them at lower heights if you ever need to, so a smaller flagpole isn't saving you much but a tiny bit of weight to carry around.