Gluten-Free at a Music Festival: The Email That Gets You Through the Gate

Festival season with coeliac disease doesn’t have to mean a day of chips-you-hope-are-fine and a bag search that confiscates your lunch. There’s a quiet, repeatable mechanism that works at festival after festival: one short email to the accessibility team, sent before you go. Here’s exactly how it works — with a copy-paste template in English and German.

The trick is realising that, for a festival, coeliac disease isn’t a catering question — it’s an accessibility question. Festivals are used to bag-policy exceptions for medical needs; they handle them every day for insulin, allergies and medication. Coeliac disease belongs on that list, and the accessibility inbox is where the people with the authority to say “yes, bring your own food” actually sit. The food vendors can’t make that call. The gate staff can’t either — unless someone above them already has, in writing, on your phone.

The mechanism, step by step

1. Find the festival’s accessibility contact. Look for “Accessibility”, “Access”, “Barrierefreiheit” or “Inclusion” in the site footer or FAQ. Most major festivals publish a dedicated email address; if not, the general info address will forward you.
2. Email early and ask specifically about coeliac accommodation. Two or three weeks ahead is comfortable; even a few days usually works. Name the medical condition, say what you need (to bring your own food), and ask what their procedure is. Short and friendly beats long and legalistic — the template below is all you need.
3. Expect a yes, with a procedure attached. The typical outcome: permission to bring your own sealed food in via the accessibility entrance, sometimes with a note that a small gluten-free selection exists on site. Some festivals ask you to show the email at a specific gate, some issue a wristband or pass — follow whatever they specify.
4. Keep the reply on your phone — screenshot it, star it, save it offline. The person at the gate wasn’t on that email thread; the reply is your pass. A doctor’s note or your national coeliac society membership card makes a solid backup if questions go further, but in practice the email nearly always settles it on the spot.
5. At shared food stalls, ask about preparation before ordering. If you do buy on site, the festival’s permission email says nothing about the fryer. Ask how the food is prepared before you order: a fryer or grill that also handles breaded or floured items is a real cross-contact route, and “the fries are just potatoes” doesn’t answer the question that matters. Naturally gluten-free, simply prepared items — and stalls that can answer your questions without flinching — are the better bet.

A real example: Lollapalooza Berlin

This isn’t theory. Lollapalooza Berlin’s accessibility team (barrierefrei@lollapaloozade.com) confirmed exactly this arrangement to an attendee who asked about coeliac accommodation: bring your own food, come through the accessibility entrance, and there’s a small gluten-free selection on site as well. (Source: attendee report shared in the Zöliakie Berlin Facebook group, July 2026; last verified 15 July 2026.)

One email, one reply, and the biggest festival stress of the year — “will they even let my food in?” — was solved before the lineup posters were up.

The email template (English)

Subject: Coeliac disease — bringing my own food to [festival name]

Hello,

I’ll be attending [festival name] on [date(s)] and I have coeliac disease, a medical condition that requires a strictly gluten-free diet. Because reliable gluten-free options are hard to guarantee at food stalls, I’d like to ask:

1. May I bring my own (sealed) gluten-free food and drink for medical reasons?
2. Is there a specific entrance or procedure I should use — for example, the accessibility entrance?
3. Will any dedicated gluten-free options be available on site?

I’m happy to provide a doctor’s note or my coeliac society membership card if helpful. Thank you very much — I’m really looking forward to the festival.

Best regards,
[Name]

The email template (German)

Betreff: Zöliakie — Mitnahme eigener Lebensmittel zum [Festivalname]

Hallo,

ich besuche am [Datum] das [Festivalname] und habe Zöliakie — eine Erkrankung, die eine streng glutenfreie Ernährung medizinisch notwendig macht. Da glutenfreie Optionen an Essensständen nicht zuverlässig verfügbar sind, möchte ich fragen:

1. Darf ich aus medizinischen Gründen eigene (versiegelte) glutenfreie Lebensmittel und Getränke mitbringen?
2. Gibt es dafür einen bestimmten Eingang oder Ablauf — zum Beispiel den barrierefreien Eingang?
3. Wird es vor Ort glutenfreie Optionen geben?

Ein ärztliches Attest oder meinen DZG-Ausweis kann ich gern vorlegen. Vielen Dank im Voraus — ich freue mich sehr auf das Festival.

Viele Grüße
[Name]

What to pack once the yes is in

• Sealed, labelled food — unopened packaging with a visible gluten-free label makes the gate check effortless.
• The reply, offline — festival-site mobile coverage is famously bad exactly when you need it.
• Your backup documents — doctor’s note or coeliac society card, tucked behind your ticket.
• More than you think you need — festival days are long, and your on-site options may be one lonely stall at the other end of the grounds.

Find the gluten-free-friendly events first

Some events make all of this easier by design — dedicated gluten-free festivals, markets and expos where the whole point is that you don’t have to negotiate. We track them, with sources and dates, in our gluten-free events calendar — and if you know one we’ve missed, you can submit it here. For the venues around the festival grounds, the HTGF Atlas shows what’s nearby and how much we know about each place.

One email. That’s the whole mechanism. Send it, screenshot the reply, and spend the day thinking about the music instead of the menu.

HTGF provides travel intelligence, not medical advice. For medical questions, please talk to your doctor, dietitian or national coeliac society. Festival procedures vary and change — always follow the instructions in your own reply from the organiser. Last verified 15 July 2026.