Shambala Festival is a UK festival success story. At least in all the obvious usual metrics.
This yearly weekender represents the truly diverse nature of what can be built in a field for just three-ish days. It’s a place where artists from across the continents share stages with the folklorish musics and traditions here in the UK. For one weekend a year, the green space they call home blooms with colour, creativity and lots of kids running around in face paint. On the business side, it’s a guaranteed yearly sell-out that enjoys a dedicated fanbase who return year, on year, on year, which is always reassuring when faced with the reality of needing to balance the books.
So, then, it would be safe to assume that Shambala could easily rest on its laurels, safe in the knowledge that if they build it they will come. But that’s not the case.
As an independent festival from its very beginning in 2000, Shambala by default is owed to its audience. It’s a festival powered by 100% renewable electricity, offers a veggie and vegan menu only and obviously, there’s zero single use plastics. And as the winner of the UK Festival Awards‘ Sarah Nulty Community Impact award for 2025, continues to support the local people and places it calls home.
But why? Big money sponsorships aren’t new in the festival market, and brands are still pining to enter a market that predominantly attracts guests in the 18-30 range. In that, the temptation to secure a big cash injection to fund your festival expansion must be strong. Still, Shambala’s version of ‘expansion’ is not through commercial gains but through community impact.
Here, we speak with Sarah Mason, Senior Production Manager at Shambala and Kambe events, to learn why sticking to your guns means more than money.
“We are the sum of our parts” – Sarah Mason
Festival Insights: What’s the role of festivals as a platform in 2026? And how important to Shambala is that?
“We always have a tagline when we talk to our crew, and that is ‘we are the sum of our parts.’ It started with lots of people giving their time for free and contributing to create something amazing.
We’ve got over 30 stages which are all run by different groups of people from all over the country. Some of those we’ve worked with for a long time, other people are fresh and they bring new and various ideas. My job is to coordinate these teams so they can deliver for the festival while showcasing their ideas.
That’s a massive process that includes funding and supporting them to realise their creative ideas. That creativity is the making of the festival.“
Festival Insights: The word community can be banded around quite easily, but how do you ensure Shambala can have a meaningful impact both at the festival and outside of it?
“We’ve been at our location for a really long time, so it’s important that we get to know our neighbours. We’re really conscious of the land that we’re using, and we even see nature as our partner in this. We want to treat the land well and make sure that it’s a vibrant place.
We work very locally, from food traders who use amazing local produce to working with our local parishes to find volunteers so those people can experience a festival that’s on their doorstep. This year, we’ll also be running a grassroots music project across six local postcodes to help people develop a performance over a six month period which they will bring to Shambala.
This approach has worked brilliantly for us, not just because it provides a line of funding back to those councils which they can spend however they want, whether it’s investment in the local churches, community halls or for local youth projects.
For us, it’s important to reach out to local communities in as many ways we can, embed ourselves in those spaces and bring some enrichment to those communities. It ensures we’re not just taking from them by us rolling into town once a year.”
Festival Insights: It’s important to have these personal relationships, but how do you balance that with the very real financial side of hosting a festival?
“We want to be good neighbours and we want to stay on that land, so it’s in our interest to make sure that people want to work with us. But it’s also massively important for us to have these relationships from an environmental perspective.
When it comes to food production, the environmental impact of importing ingredients like garlic from China has a lot of impact whether you realise it or not. That’s the way the food system is set up. We can’t roll this out in full to traders, but we can try source everything from within a certain kilometre range in our canteens.”
Festival Insights: When it comes to using Shambala as a platform for wider impact beyond just the weekend, how can festivals – Shambala or otherwise – have an impact on creating meaningful change?
“We do have this amazing opportunity to have a voice and capture people’s attention for the period that they’re with us. And we work hard to have an impact on people.
When we went meat and fish free [in 2016], it created a lot of press coverage and there was quite a lot of resistance. But what we found is that the food quality went up, people’s enjoyment of the food went up and it had a lasting impact on our audience because they wanted us to continue it. For us, we’re just trying to live by our ideals and and use this voice we have for good.”
Festival Insights: What are some of the challenges in staying true to your ethos in 2026?
“We’ve been pioneering environmental issues for years now. We’ve picked off all the low hanging fruit of running a low impact event – recycling our fuel, for example – but the challenge now is finding where can we make the most impact. We ask ourself how we can get into the nitty gritty where you’re making improvements that aren’t simply heading catching.“
Festival Insights: When festival costs are rising for both punters and the festival themselves, is it sometimes difficult to resist the temptation of perhaps accepting some funds from places that may not be aligned with your ethos? How do you get around that?
“When costs really started going up dramatically after lockdown, one of the ways we could have funded ourselves as an independent festival would be by raising ticket prices. But of course, you’re acutely aware that would change those who could access the event, and greater accessibility and inclusion at the event is to the benefit of everyone.
Through that however, is where the drive for our Pay It Forward scheme came from. We started it in 2022, and it’s a scheme that allows more people to access Shambala. This includes working with our suppliers to provide tents to buying a drink for a stranger.
We’re really aware that when we offer a ticket for someone to come it still doesn’t mean they can still afford to be there. Food is expensive and camping materials are expensive, but we work with some really great people who simply ask us ‘how can we help?’
It comes back to our tagline; we are the sum of our parts. It can be challenging, and you can always do more if you have more money, more space and more time. You have to make decisions, but generally, if you’re good people to work with people will want to work with you.“
Shambala Festival takes place 27-30 August 2026. Tickets are available now.
