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How to find your friends at Pohoda

to find your friends at Pohoda, agree which tent town and which gate you're using, pick a named meeting point and a regroup time before the first set, and send short texts instead of calls when you're split up. add a backup spot at your tents. and carry one way of finding each other that needs no signal.

Pohoda is a multi-genre festival in Slovakia, held at Trenčín Airport since 2004. in 2026 its 30,000-visitor capacity sold out faster than ever, and the organisers raised it by 10%. the next edition runs 8–10 July 2027, and the festival director said in July 2026 that it will stay at the airport. this guide covers why crews split up on the airfield, what the network can and can't do, where to meet, what to do when you lose someone, and the tools that work with no signal.

Why is it easy to lose your friends at Pohoda?

Pohoda is easy to get lost at because it spreads a large crowd across a working airport with several stages, two campsites and two entrances, and runs for long days and nights. the festival's own history page describes two open-air stages, an open-air arena and multiple tents, so on any evening your crew has more good options than it can see together. then there's the geography of sleeping. the 2026 camping notice says the standard tent towns of Biskupice and Opatovce are free for all festival attendees, and that Comfort Camp sits at the edge of the Opatovce tent town, close to the Orange Stage. the festival's newcomer guide describes two gates: Gate B on the Biskupice side for people on foot or by bike, and Gate O on the Opatovce side for the car and caravan parking. a crew where half arrives by train and half by car can end up camping on opposite sides of the site without anyone deciding it.

none of that is a reason to stay glued together. it's a reason to agree the rules before you need them. our complete guide to finding friends at a festival has the general version; the rest of this page applies it to Pohoda.

Does your phone work at Pohoda?

your phone works at Pohoda, but don't build your crew plan on it. for 2026, Orange, the festival's telecom partner, said visitors could rely on boosted 4G and 5G coverage and free Wi-Fi across the grounds, with a solar-powered charging station in the Orange Zone. extra capacity helps, but around 30,000 people still reach for their phones at the same moments: when a headliner ends, when rain starts, when everyone heads back to the tents. that's when messages arrive late and live-location dots go stale.

two details most guides miss. first, the same announcement offered an extra 30 GB of data to Orange customers only; friends on other Slovak networks, or visiting from abroad, don't get it. second, Slovakia is in the EU, so EU visitors pay home prices for calls and data under the EU's roam like at home rules, which also cover Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Moldova and Ukraine. other countries aren't covered, so a friend with a UK or US SIM should check with their provider before relying on data. our guide to meeting up abroad without data has a plan for crew members who keep data off all weekend.

Where should you meet at Pohoda?

the best Pohoda meeting point is a fixed, named spot on the festival map that isn't in front of a main stage, plus a second spot near your tents. a good spot passes three tests:

1. it doesn't move. a named stage side, a signposted building or a fixed structure, never "by the food trucks".
2. it isn't in a crowd flow. stage fronts, the gates and the paths to the tent towns fill up at exactly the moments you'll need to regroup.
3. everyone can find it alone. if one person can't explain how to walk there from their own tent, pick something else.

then add a regroup time nobody needs a phone to remember, such as the top of every hour or the end of each set, and screenshot the festival map with both spots circled so everyone has it offline. the festival website has a Maps section; check it each year, because Pohoda moves things around. for 2025, for example, the organisers moved a 14-metre domed stage towards the village of Biskupice. a meeting point that worked last summer may not be there next summer.

the night spot matters more at Pohoda than at most festivals. with two tent towns, "back at the tents" is not a place. name the tent town, the row or landmark nearest your pitch, and the gate you'll walk through to get there.

A Pohoda crew plan, from the gate to the last set

this plan takes ten minutes to set up and covers the moments crews most often split up:

1. before you go: share everyone's phone number on paper and in the group chat. note whose SIM works at home prices in Slovakia and whose doesn't.
2. on arrival: agree the tent town, the gate, the day meeting point, the night meeting point and the regroup time. take a photo of each person's outfit and of your tents with a landmark behind them.
3. at each stage change: say out loud where you're going next. anyone who leaves the group names a return time.
4. before the headliner ends: decide where you'll wait and for how long. don't meet at the gate when the whole site is walking through it.
5. back at the tents: nobody goes to sleep until every crew member is accounted for, by text or in person.

keep phones alive so step 1 still works on day three. in 2026, Joos ran a powerbank rental tent open 24/7, with no app or registration needed, and staff carrying powerbanks around the grounds. for heat, rain and what to do when someone needs help rather than directions, see our festival safety guide.

What happens to your crew plan if the festival closes early?

if the festival closes early, the stages and the main grounds shut, so any meeting point in front of a stage stops existing. that's what happened in 2024. the organisers cancelled Pohoda on 13 July 2024 after extreme weather, because inspecting all the structures could not be completed in under 24 hours. the festival centre stayed closed, people with tents could stay in the camping area until noon the next day with food and drinks available there, and the car park stayed open until 4 PM. the festival's practical information that weekend set departure buses in front of the main stage and the Urpiner stage, and phone charging in the tent towns ran until Saturday noon.

the lesson for any crew: your plan needs a fallback that doesn't depend on the stages. agree that if the grounds close, everyone goes to the night meeting point at the tents and waits, and that whoever has signal texts the rest once with the time. it also helps to charge phones fully before the evening, since the hour after an announcement is the busiest for the network and for the charging stations.

What to do if you lose your friends at Pohoda

if you lose your friends at Pohoda, stop walking and follow the plan. searching at random across an airfield is how two people keep passing each other.

1. text once, with the time and place. "22:15, lost you, going to the meeting point." then stop; repeat messages clog a busy network.
2. go to the meeting point at the next regroup time and wait there.
3. after the last set, go to the night meeting point in your tent town, not the gate.
4. if someone is still missing, tell a steward or a security guard, and keep someone from the crew waiting at the meeting point.
5. if your phone is lost or dead, go to the meeting point anyway, then ask festival staff about lost property. after the 2024 festival, found items were kept in Trenčín until 31 July and claims went to info@pohodafestival.sk.
6. if you're worried about someone's safety, find a steward, a security guard or a paramedic point. in an emergency, call 112, the European emergency number, free from fixed and mobile phones across the EU.

stage names, info points and services change from year to year, so check them in the current festival app when you arrive.

Which tools find your friends at Pohoda without signal?

the tools that find your friends at Pohoda without signal are a plan, walkie-talkies and offline friend finders: small devices, one per person, that show where your friends are with no network at all. they solve different parts of the problem. competitor figures below come from each maker's own website, as of October 2026:

walkie-talkies are the only voice option that works with no network; in Europe, buy licence-free PMR446 models. for every category in more depth, see our festival friend finder comparison.

Where aura vibe fits, honestly

aura vibe is a crew-finder wearable from We are Aura s. r. o., an EU company based in Slovakia. the light ring points the way and the display counts down the metres, down to 10 cm at close range, so you go from "somewhere near the main stage" to standing next to your friend in the dark. it reaches up to 10 km in open terrain and up to 2.5 km in dense city blocks with no internet, works with zero phone signal and no roaming in every European country except Belarus and Russia, and every extra aura vibe in a crew extends everyone's range. it runs 24 hours per charge and recharges over USB-C in 2.5 hours, so there are no batteries to buy for a weekend on the airfield.

the limits, plainly: crews top out at 5 people, and everyone needs their own aura vibe. Totem Compass and Crowd Compass are on sale now and take bigger groups, and Crowd Compass adds messaging. aura vibe's first batch ships early 2027. pre-orders are fully refundable until shipping, with a 14-day return window after delivery and a 2-year warranty. see how aura vibe works for the full spec.

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