15 Awesome Ways to Sneak Alcohol into Festivals to Save Money in 2026
Here’s how to hide alcohol to help you bring the costs of festivals, cruises and events down. If you can work out how to sneak alcohol into festivals, successfully, you can save A LOT.
Most of the weekend camping festivals let you take your own booze into the camping area, but you’re still stuck paying a fortune for a pint in the main arena.
This is where getting a little sneaky becomes a necessity. I’ve been going to festivals for over 20 years – always on a budget – so I’ve become an expert at sneaking a drink in. Trust me!
1. Sunscreen lotion bottle
If you want to hide alcohol, simply empty a tube or bottle of lotion and refill with booze. Or if you want to be really crafty, and probably safer, put your booze in a food bag and push to the bottom of the bottle. That way if they open it up and sniff it or look at it, there will still be sunscreen on the top to throw them off the scent.
You could adapt your own sunscreen bottle, or buy these specially-created-for-smuggling bottles from Amazon for the easier option.
2. In the Pringles tube
Same idea, different smuggling vessel. Just add a food bag filled with booze in the bottom – weighs less than bottles – and stack a few Pringles on top.
Sneaky, and you get to eat some tasty Pringles too.
3. Wine bags to sneak alcohol into festivals
Buy the boxed wine – which I like to call ‘cardboardeaux’ – and take the bag out. Then just put it down your trousers as a voluptuous bum, or in your top as a squidgy belly.
Dress discreetly and accordingly.
Or buy these Boobie Bags where you don’t even need to bother binning the box, they come ready bagged and waiting to be filled with a helpful straw for sucking.
This is my favoured way of getting the booze in, as you can divide and conquer and just have bags of booze in all your possessions and pockets, bras and pants. We did this for Victorious a few years ago, and if anything, it was a little too successful.
Sneak alcohol on a cruise
You’re normally only allowed one bottle of alcohol on a cruise. Get round this by putting the alcohol in cruise drink bags, or tightened tetra packs.
4. Mini bottles in the wellies
Just turn your wellies into a mini bar. Watch how you walk and you’ll be the most popular kid in the field. In all my years of festivals I’ve never had my wellies frisked so either buy some miniatures, or be cheap and make your own with these 50ml bottles from Amazon.
Then, when you’re out of sight, you can enjoy your stash of alcohol to your heart’s consent.
5. Secret Umbrella Flask
You can sneak alcohol into any event with the Secret Umbrella Flask. Saves on money and on queueing at busy bars. It’s easy and obvious to use just take the top (handle) off, and you can use the umbrella like a bottle. It holds just under half a litre of your favourite alcohol!
6. Secret tampon flasks
A tampon flask? Errrrm, sounds a bit weird?
Well, it is. But, it also helps you save money on festivals by hiding your favourite spirits away in the form of a tampon no security guard would ever even think to check.
These undetectable hidden tampon flasks hold five shots of your favourite tipple – saving you money, and time in queueing at the bar. They’re perfect for festivals, sports events, and any night out – no one will suspect a thing. And that includes your friends, if you want to keep a private stash to yourself!
Makes for a great present for any event. Prefill for an even better one!
7. Shampoo flasks
These secret shampoo and conditioner flasks let you smuggle in over litre of liquid.
Made from high-quality food-grade materials, these would be perfect for sneaking alcohol onto cruises – helping you to drink that little bit cheaper!
They also come with seals, perfect for discretion.
8. Cans in the hood to sneak alcohol into festivals
I’ve smuggled booze in before by just putting a few G+T cans in my hood. I was all casual as I wandered in – sometimes just being totally casual and blatant is the best way.
You could also try under your hat.
9. The Boozey Bladder
This hidden flask is basically a wearable drinks pouch that sits discreetly under your clothes and holds up to 33oz (around a litre) of your chosen tipple. That’s enough for around 20 drinks. The Boozey Bladder is reusable, lightweight and could genuinely save you a fortune over a weekend festival.
10. Specially adapted bra
Again fill food bags (probably want to double bag them) half way and stuff into your bra like chicken fillets. Bear in mind that the booze will be lovely (bleugh) and warm when you get them out, but at least you’ll have saved money on a drink.
Or, if you can get your hands on one of these ‘Wineracks’ (£35), you’re laughin’.
Buy me one if you do.
TOP TIP: Try to smuggle more alcohol into the festival / concert / club / cruise than you need. Get your friends involved. That way you don’t put all your eggs in one basket and at least one of you will get it in, if not all. The price of alcohol on the outside is way cheaper than the inside, so invest! Even if it gets taken off you, it won’t break the bank. But if you get it through – woo!
11. Camelbak
Something like this Hydrobak 1.5 Litre Camelbak is perfect for smuggling alcohol in under your jumper. Secure it to your back with tape to prevent the security guards from feeling the gap between your back and the bag.
I reckon you’d need to not fill it to the top so it could feel a bit more like a fat belly, rather than an overloaded bag, but could be a goer.
12. More novelty shaped hip flasks
These Iggi hip flask binoculars are really cool and I want them, and this lipstick-shaped hip flask could come in handy too. Not sure if trying to take a pair of binoculars into a festival is more obvious than a welly mini bar, but it’s another option.
You could also try the paddle brush secret hip flask, or even one shaped like a digital camera.
You could also buy sneaky fake sunglasses, or a banana hip flask that fits 5oz / 150ml of liquid. Three shots!
TOP TIP: If you get told off trying to conceal the alcohol, and get it in, just go with it. Let them be annoyed and give it up. There is no way you want to risk your ticket for the sake of a few drinks!
13. Inject vodka into oranges
Or any fruit.
Just get yourself a syringe and you can make most innocent of foods super alcoholic.
If you do resort to this, have a little word with yourself to check everything’s ok and life is heading the way you want it.
14. Double use colostomy bag
If you can get your hands on a colostomy bag and tube you can fill it with whisky and lemonade so it looks like wee on the way in, and then get your doctor mate to fix it up to use it properly when you’re watching the bands and it’ll save you some time there too…
Once you’ve passed security don’t whip out your contraband out straight away. Just keep walking and wait until you are in a bit of a crowd to get your alcohol stash out.
15. Bury it at the festival
There’s a festival where I live, in Portsmouth, called Victorious. And I know of people who will go down there the day before and bury their booze in the bushes, so they can retrieve in when they’re in there.
Although, one of my friends’ husbands did this and then celebrated a bit too hard when he found it again and got it taken off him when the security guard saw his jubilation. Gutted!
You left out Smuggle Mug’s products. Umbrella Flask is the best.
Water bottles don’t work anymore 🙁 I steamed off the caps and refilled water bottles with vodka for my Sasquatch trip, but they shake the bottles now and know from the bubbles whether or not it’s alcohol. They tossed 22 ounces of my rather expensive vodka,don’t let yours go to waste!
Ah noooo! Trouble is, I guess they can read this article too. They’re getting craftier. We must win the fight!
Thanks for the advise guys I know what to look for and tell my colleagues what to look out for come festival season
Security!
Every year for a tech festival I bury some booze under a tree and then uncover it during the event. If you know the venue well enough and enough people to cover you while you dig you’re golden
Ha, good one! Surprised they didn’t take that off you. Which festival was that?
In Canada many festivals allow you to bring whatever you want to the campsite (including a car) so there are minimal space/weight issues. They only restrict what you can bring into the festival grounds which may be a 1 or 2 km walk. The standard rules are that you can bring in an EMPTY bottle for water but no other fluids. What we usually do is use those soft plastic collapsable water bottles that you normally use for canoing or hiking. You put in 4 oz of hard liquor and push all the air out so it looks empty. Then fill it with tap water which most decent festivals provide for free.
That gives you a bit of juice to keep you going between refueling stops at the campsite. Not very classy but it works.
Ah that’s pretty good. I really want to go to Osheaga – is that the same? Loving the festival hacks here!
I’ve never been to Osheaga (or any outdoor festival in Québec for that matter).
It’s next week… now you have me thinking.
Darn sold out “non-transferable” tickets put an end to that dream quickly.
The liquor laws are very different province to province so I wouldn’t know what to expect.
My experience is just in Ontario and New York State (where they take security seriously).
You seem extremely resourceful and I am sure you could figure it out. Vivre le rève, Thanks for the tips.
Buy a case of soda, remove all of the soda cans except for the ones that appear in the handle holes, and replace them with cans of beer. Glue the flaps back shut, so it looks unopened .
Saw Manson/Pumpkins tonight. A combination of the above worked! 3 beers in a big italian loaf of bread. https://scontent-atl1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t34.0-12/11733518_10155725691195705_1979682949_n.jpg
For wine, I put half a bottle of Cabernet into a pomegranate Vitamin Water Bottle, but then threw in extra orange and mango Vitwater bottles to blend it in. Threw in the sandwiches..then naughty me got 2 tubes of pringles, filled each with 2 beers with pringles ontop. glued/resealed. Got it all through check..but my friends and I almost puked out when we ate the pringles because I sealed them with shoeglue. lol, but it worked. I’d be careful with italian loaf of bread thing, its a heavy loaf..so you must leverage it in a bag by throwing in bottles of water, sandwiches, other stuff to explain the “extra weight” of your bag, and then they may not notice. Other tip, pick the right line. Some bag checkers are more “on it” than others, and you can easily tell by how they deal with people. Look at their faces. If they smile at attenders, those are the lines you want, not the asshole types.
Amazing, thanks for the advice Warner B! Love that you resealed the Pringles. I managed to sneak a bottle of rum into Bilbao BBK Live this weekend by confidently walking up to the bag checkers and letting them look in my carrier bag I was holding, which just had a sleeping bag for a friend in it, and then storming on so he didn’t look in my rucksack. Just gotta act confident!
Amazing! I shall be trying out the some of these for Leeds Fest this year 😀
The most ingenius one I’ve heard of sofar (and will try next month) is carving out a big loaf of italian bread. insert bottle of wine. bag it over. hehee..now if security notices it’s heavy, you just say “it’s the REAL Italian bread.”
Ha, brilliant idea! Let me know how you get on with that. I’m planning on trying a few more of these this summer. 🙂
Any word on false bottomed coolers? I want to sneak beer into an even that allows coolers but not alcohol. I was thinking of one that has a low false bottom and holds 12 or so beers. Is there anything like that?
Ooo that’s a good idea – gap in the market?! I reckon 12 beers is quite a lot though!
In Oz we often sneak bottles of booze in to events in a loaf of bread.
Inside a watermelon was another way but people cottoned onto that (and they’re dangerous throwing implements, supposedly)
Ha, they don’t think it’s weird you want a whole load of bread? The trouble is, in England they’ve started to not let food in either. So annoying. Yeah, a watermelon would be pretty tough to take!
Thanks for sharing this awesome idea for carry favorite alcohol secretly. The idea of sunscreen bottle is really nice. I had no idea about hidden flask before. Two months before one of my friends bought Bev-Bag Secret Handbag Flask from Binocktails. It can hold over 28 oz. It has a hidden flask built into its base. This is a very nice product for ladies who want to enjoy their favorite drinks.
Bookmarked for next year for sure!
Great post. Really made me laugh and had some great ideas!
Thanks Karen!
This is awesome. Thank you so much to share it. The idea of sunscreen bottle is really nice. I also know a secret flask about the Bev-Bag is a FULLY FUNCTIONAL secret handbag flask for women that holds over 28 Oz. The Bev-Bag has a hidden flask built into its base.
Haha, love them!
Got a few of these ready for Bestival tomorrow – wish me luck!