The dust has settled on Glastonbury 2025, even if the hangovers probably still persist. And that’s it for another year. Well, given 2026 will be a fallow year for Glastonbury Festival, that’s it for another two. In true Glastonbury fashion, this year’s festival had no shortage of iconic moments, surprise guests, and created more than a few headlines. The likes of Lewis Capaldi, HAIM, Lorde and Pulp all popped up unannounced, even if rumours of their appearance had been rife for the past few months. Charli XCX, Lola Young and CMAT pulled some of the weekend’s biggest crowds. So too…
Author: Jack Needham
Jack Needham
Festival Insights | Head of Content
The past few summers have been defined by massive cultural shifts, mostly into the mainstream. 2024 saw the major breakthroughs of Charli XCX, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter. Pop’s Powerpuff Girls had already been grinding it out for years, but last year marked a planetary alignment in making them global phenomenons. Barbenheimer dominated 2023, where millions of cinema-goers exchanged their regular outfits for hot pink cowboy boots and even more extravagant cowboy hats. Although Oppenheimer didn’t exactly produce any stand-out bangers – sorry, Ludwig Göransson – the Barbie soundtrack dominated the airwaves. Dua Lipa dance the night away, Nicki Minaj and…
Reading & Leeds Festival has announced more acts for its 2025 outing. Leigh-Anne, formerly of UK pop act Little Mix, brings her solo show to Reading & Leeds, and joins singer-songwriter Skye Newman and indie acts Bartees Strange. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Reading & Leeds Festival (@officialrandl) Houston trio Waterparks and North London R&B act Demae have also been added to the Main Stage. On the Chevron Stage, dance producer Charlotte Plank, US-songwriter Still Woozy, and Nottingham act LYVIA will join the stage headliners AJ Tracey, Becky Hill and Sammy Virj. The newly…
Glastonbury 2025 is nearly here. Arguably the world’s biggest festival opens its doors on Wednesday 25 June, welcoming over 200,000 people to a small pocket of Somerset. The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo will all headline the Pyramid Stage across the three-day event. Other highlights throughout the weekend include the likes of Charli XCX, Sir Rod Stewart, Loyle Carner, Raye and more than a few rumoured secret acts. Where to watch Glastonbury 2025 But if you’re amongst the many thousands, potentially millions of people who missed out on tickets this year then don’t fret. Much of the weekend’s coverage…
Notting Hill Carnival’s future may be in jeopardy if “urgent” government funding isn’t raised. As first reported by the BBC, Notting Hill Carnival chair Ian Comfort has written to Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary, in an effort to raise funding which he stated was “essential to safeguarding the future and public safety of this iconic event”. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has stated it will “respond to the letter in due course”. The request comes after a recent review of the festival identified “critical public safety concerns” that required greater funding to address. In response, the Mayor of London Sir…
Few major festivals have come from such humble beginnings as Budapest’s Sziget Festival. What started as a student event in 1993 now, quite literally, takes over an entire island on the Danube river, Hungary. Over the years, they’ve welcomed everyone from R.E.M, Oasis and The Cure to then up-and-coming acts Dua Lipa and Lewis Capaldi. This year’s six day edition sees Charli XCX, Post Malone, Chappell Roan, Shawn Mendes, A$AP Rocky and Anyma as headline acts. It’s a festival line-up that represents changing music tastes for modern, increasingly more demanding music fans. But while Sziget Festival has been partying for…
If Download Festival 2025 is to be believed, this is a summer of unseriousness. At this past weekend’s Download Festival [13-15 June], we saw 90s icons Vengaboys pumping ‘We Like To Party’ to a crowd of enthusiastic metalheads. McFly played a mix of Metallica and incredibly feel good, pre-watershed pop to a main stage Friday night crowd. Instead of this being an incredibly regrettable decision from the band, the British foursome were officially welcomed by the Download faithful with a circle pit of approval. Festivals such as Mighty Hoopla, who recently brought a mix of noughties stalwarts and Eurovision icons…
Serbia’s EXIT Festival has announced that this summer’s edition will be its last in Serbia. The decision, says the festival, comes after EXIT publicly aligned with the country’s student-led anti-corruption protests, which occurred after the Novi Sad station collapse in November 2024. The tragedy claimed 15 lives. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Studenti FTN-a (@ftn_se_budi) Since showing support for the protests, EXIT says that after it “publicly stood with the students of Serbia in their fight for a freer and more just society,” the festival has “been subjected to immense financial and political pressures…
Jonathan Mayers, the co-founder of US music festival Bonnaroo, has died aged 51. Mayers is also the co-founder of Superfly Entertainment alongside Rick Farman, Richard Goodstone and Kerry Black. In 1996, Mayers and the Superfly team launched the first Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, in Manchester, Tennessee. The festival has since grown to be a 70,000 capacity festival, and is a major event on the US festival market. “Our hearts are extremely heavy.” This year’s festival, set to take place 12-15 June, hosts headline appearances from Tyler, The Creator, Olivia Rodrigo and Hozier, alongside performances from Avril Lavigne, Justice, John…
Glasgow’s iconic dance music establishment Sub Club has announced its line-up for the Southside Weekender. The event will take place over two days (2-3 August) at Glasgow’s Queen’s Park Arena, and will host DJs such as Ron Trent, Detroit icon Moodymann, Derrick Carter, and Sub Club residents Harri & Domenic. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sub Club est. 1987 (@subclub87) More information and tickets can be found here.