69 festivals happening in July 2016

1) ATP Iceland
July 1-3
KeflavÌk, Iceland
Price: 120€
John Carpenter performing his film scores on a desolate former NATO base in steamy old Iceland? That, folks, is what you call immersive performance. Also making the half-hour drive from Reykjavík are Sleep, Tortoise and Stewart Lee.
www.atpfestival.com

2) Barn on the Farm
July 1-3
Over Farm Market, Glos
Price: £105 w/e
Won Best Independent Festival a couple of years back, thanks in no small part to its barn-centric performance space. Musically speaking, Jack Garratt returns for a third consecutive year, altogether higher of profile than in appearances past.
www.barnonthefarm.co.uk 

3) Blissfields
July 1-2
Winchester, Hants
Price: £105.45
As the whimsical name suggests, this is one of the new breed of boutique festivals. Moreover, one of the new breed thinking that fests require a theme: this year, House Party. Without wishing to imply there’s such a thing as a comfortable number, expect an uncomfortably large number of Noel Edmonds impersonators, a craft area, Angel Gardens Family Area and, lawdelpus, a ‘Blisscotheque’. Music-wise, attendees include Dizzee Rascal, Everything Everything, and Roni Size.
www.blissfields.co.uk 

4) Boogie Woogie Festival
July 1-3
Sturminster Newton, Dorset
Price: £65 approx.
In which the good people of Sturminster Newton are inundated by a wealth of folk sturdy of left hand, dextrous of right. One ticket buys entry to nine venues to see performers congregate from as far afield as France, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the US. Plenty of gratis street action, too.
www.ukboogiewoogiefestival.co.uk

5) Cheltenham Music Festival
July 1-17
Cheltenham
Price: various, lots fee
When it comes to classical music and accessibility, there’s nothing to touch Cheltenham Music Fest. Amid a shinding boasting over 60 events and 650 performers, there’s an excellent strand of kid-centric events, regular guided walks around town – including Oz Clarke’s Musical Wine Tour, and a Keyboard Inventions Trail to mark the 150th birthday of French composer/pianist Erik Satie – plus films, workshops, and talks. And, of course, a connoisseur-pleasing music programme. We particularly like the look of percussionist extraordinaire, Evelyn Glennie, teaming up with Swedish composer and – honestly, not a euphemism – trombone virtuoso, Christian Lindberg, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra rendering work from Elgar, Korngold and Rachmaninov, in the company of violin ace, and West Kilbride’s finest, Nicola Benedetti. Other attendees include the Carducci Quartet, James Gilchrist, Anna Tilbrook, Guy Johnston, Julian Bliss, Stephen Johnson, the John Wilson Orchestra, Leonard Elschenbroich, Alexei Grynyuk, Nicola Benedetti, Vasily Petrenko, the Orchestra of St John’s, John Lubbock, Avi Avital, Davina Clarke, Barokksolistene, and Bjarte Eike.
www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/music 

6) Frome Festival
July 1-10
Frome, Somerset
Price: various, lots free
Punching well above its weight, around 30,000 people descend on the lovely, occasionally smug market town, with around about 200 events there for the choosing. The line-up remains TBA, but fair to expect open artist studios, tons of talks, loads of kids’ stuff, and the usual annual food feast curtain-raiser.
www.fromefestival.co.uk 

7) Keynsham Music Festival
July 1-3
Keynsham, Somerset
Price: free
A much more comprehensive affair than your average town-based free fest, comprising a welter of tents and stages, and – still TBC – performers right across the arts field. Generally draws a crowd of around 20,000, all of whom we’d like to think throw a few coins in the donation buckets. Anyone else still lamenting the demise of Ashton Court will presumably agree.
www.keynshammusicfestival.co.uk 

8) SouthCider
July 1-3
Dorset
Price: £40
The brand-new intimate SouthCider festival blends food, music and, of course, cider over the course of three days on the Jurassic Coast. Bring your tent and coins for the shower and relax in the friendly atmosphere of the South with over twenty original musical acts. Come for the Dub Pistols, Buster Shuffle and King Porter Stomp and more, stay for a festival-goer huddle around the campfire.
www.southciderfestival.com

9) Nibley Festival
July 1-2
Nibley, Glos
Price: £47 w/e
Friendly fest in a stunning Cotswolds location, this year switching to a larger site over the road from the usual. Alice in Wonderland is the 2016 theme, Scouting For Girls and Reverend & the Makers the music headliners.
www.nibleyfestival.co.uk 

10) British Summer Time
July 2-9
London
Price: from £59.50
Series of standalone concerts, with a rum old mixture of acts. First up, good luck to Florence and the Machine having to follow the mighty Kendrick Lamar. Also up on that date, Jamie xx, Cat Power, Todd Terje and The Olsens, Blood Orange and Kamasi Washington. Second date lines up with Mumford & Sons, Alabama Shakes, Wolf Alice, Mystery Jets, Nick Mulvey, Baaba Maal, The Very Best, BØRNS, Beatenberg and Baio. Last and almost certainly least, Take That, Olly Murs, Ella Eyre, Jamie Lawson, and Nathan Sykes. A few names remain TBC at press time.
www.bst-hydepark.com 

11) Grillstock
July 2-3
Bristol
Price: £45 w/e
Vegfest’s nemesis, offering a welter of BBQ’d food, hotdog eating contests, craft beer and so on. Little news on the acts playing the two music stages as we go to press, though The Stranglers have been confirmed as festival closers on the Sunday.
www.grillstock.co.uk/bristol-festival

12) New Forest Folk Festival
July 6-10
Nr Romsey, Hants
Price: £80
Expect folk aficionados to be waving their inflated pig bladders with particular gusto on Friday night, for the headline act is a rare treat: Fotheringay, the short lived country-folk group founded by Sandy Denny when she left Fairport Convention. No Denny, of course, but the other founding members are here. Consolidating that high-value ticket price for a four-day event, the other main headliners are Albert Hall-filling Show Of Hands on Saturday, and Feast of Fiddles on Sunday. All told, this is a proper charmer of a festival, held on a farm – at the suggestion of folk veteran Richard Digance – that’s been in the same family for six generations. The site is surrounded by trees (guided stroll through the woods is available), a stream runs through it and, for its size, is about as homespun as it gets: handbuilt/self-designed stage, home-cooked food in the cafe, family members running the merch stand, etc.
www.newforestfolkfestival.co.uk

13) Bilbao BBK
July 7-9
Bilbao, Spain
Price: from £77
Splendid mountain-surrounded hilltop location for a properly heavyweight affair. Among those almost guaranteed a sunny old time come Pixies, Foals, Arcade Fire, New Order, M83, Hot Chip, Jose Gonzalez, Courtney Barnett, Father John Misty, Wolf Alice, Tame Impala, Grimes, Chvrches, Slaves and Jagwar Ma.
www.bilbaobbklive.com

14) Exit
July 7-10
Novi Sad, Serbia
Price: £107 w/e
We don’t generally acknowledge overseas fests in parochial old Britain but, like Roskilde, this one is beginning to establish a bit of a name for itself; being held in an 18th-century fort looking down from on high onto the blue Danube will do that for an event. Ellie Goulding, Bastille, Wiz Khalifa and Hurts are among those making some noise.
www.exitfest.org

15) NOS Alive
July 7-9
Lisbon, Portugal
Price: €119
Camping-free metropolitan affair, with the bill unsurprisingly overlapping a fair old amount with the Bilbao shindig listed above. Noise makers include Radiohead, Pixies, Arcade Fire, Robert Plant, Chemical Brothers and Courtney Barnett.
www.nosalive.com 

16) 2000Trees
July 7-9
Upcote Farm, Glos
Price: £95 w/e
Tenth outing for a festival featuring 90 bands on a 5,000 capacity site, headlined by Twin Atlantic and Refused. Other ents include comedy and a silent disco.
www.twothousandtreesfestival.co.uk 

17) Boondocks
July 8-9
Malmesbury, Wilts
Price: £55 w/e
Second time out for another local festie, with a kid-centric ethos neatly summed-up thusly: “we’ve all got ’em and we know that we’re never fully happy until they are”. Perhaps that’s partly why it’s swiftly engendered some real loyalty – in November a Kickstarter fundraiser reached its £30k target in just 10 days. The music line-up remains TBA as we go to press, but we’re promised “Everything from blues, folk and rock, to funk, R&B and Americana”.
www.theboondocksfestival.co.uk

18) Cornbury Music Festival
July 8-10
Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire
Price: £170 w/e
A festival in Chipping Norton headlined by Jamie Cullum, Bryan Ferry and Seal? You could be forgiven for thinking the line-up was compiled on the executive order of the PM. There are some proper treats further down the bill, including the newly reformed All Saints and the immortal Wilko Johnson. Which is all well and good, but it still means hanging around a place that unabashedly calls itself “a homespun melting pot where music-lovers share pies and a glass of champagne with superstars, toffs, rockers, crooners, morris dancers, farmers, urbanites, and fashionistas.”
www.cornburyfestival.com

19) Electric Beach Festival
July 8-9
Newquay, Cornwall
Price: £35 early bird w/e
Fifth anniversary for the seaside fest, where the wide variety of ticket options see some including entrance to after parties. No word at press time on what much of this might actually entail, with only two acts confirmed: the Levellers and De La Soul. For reference, previous years have seen shows from the likes of The Nextmen, Soul II Soul, Grandmaster Flash and Zion Train.
www.electricbeachfestival.co.uk 

20) Kew The Music
July 8-12
London
Price: from £47
Outdoor picnic concerts held annually at Kew Gardens, with a line-up seemingly inspired by the discs found in the CD boot changer of a secondhand Audi: Simply Red, Jools Holland, Will Young, The Corrs and Gipsy Kings.
www.kew.org/visit-kew-gardens/whats-on/kew-the-music

21) NASS
July 8-10
Royal Bath & West Showground,
Shepton Mallet
Price: £109 w/e
Aka the National Action Sports Show, wherein grown-ups play around on kids’ toys to a world-class standard. Like, seriously: the BMX World Championships will be there, the first time that’s happened in the UK for 28 years. Besides the BMX-ing, skateboarding, and associated what-have-you, there’s plenty of opportunity for the young ’uns to reclaim playtime, and a music bill including Andy C, Stormzy, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, and Jurassic 5. Keep an eye out for the BMX World Amateur  Champs – you might get a glimpse of the next big name in extreme sports. Or grab a pic with a current pro, like Mat Hoffman, Mark Webb or Coco Zurita.
www.nassfestival.com

22) Priddy Folk Festival
July 8-10
Priddy, Somerset
Price: £70 w/e
25th anniversary for a properly friendly festival on our collective doorstep, based in and around the lovely, dry stone wall-ensconced village of Priddy. While roughly 150 people showed up back in 1991, today the figure is closer to 2,000. It’s a proper-job folk affair, offering demonstrations of the type of trades from which so much of the original songs drew their narrative thread, such as coracle-making and blacksmithery. There’s an oft-sells-out archaeological walk around Priddy’s Nine Barrows, too, plus children’s festival offering juggling, storytelling, puppetry and so forth. Music-wise, the line-up includes Lady Maisery, Belshazzar’s Feast, the splendid Beth Porter and the Availables, and the genuinely singular Rory McLeod.
www.priddyfolk.org

23) Ruisrock
July 8-10
Ruissalo, Finland
Price: 135€
One of Europe’s oldest rock fests, held on an exquisitely beautiful Finnish island. Lots of homegrown acts on a bill headed by Skrillex and Diplo’s collaboration, Jack Ü.
www.ruisrock.fi

24) Swanage Jazz Festival
July 8-10
Swanage, Dorset
Price: £85 w/e
Majoring on old school New Orleans/Dixie fare, but unafraid to venture into rather more adventurous territory, this year including Arun Ghosh, Tim Garland and the Glow Quartet.
www.swanagejazz.org 

25) T in the Park
July 8-10
Strathallan Castle, Perthshire
Price: £205 w/e
Looking to put last year’s massed brawling, traffic gridlocked event behind it, Scotland’s biggest musical gathering is pretty much all about the bill. Acts slated to appear this time around include the Stone Roses, Disclosure, Courteeners, Calvin Harris, Bastille, The 1975, The Last Shadow Puppets, LCD Soundsystem and John Grant.
www.tinthepark.com

26) Bristol Pride Day
July 9
Bristol
Price: free
With a record 30,000 gathering cramming into Castle Park for last year’s event, it’s good news indeed that one of the city’s most colourful days in the calendar has bagged itself an altogether roomier spot on the harbourside. “We want Pride to be the best it can be whilst remaining a vital and visible community event,” says Bristol Pride director, Daryn Carter. “This move will help us to accommodate the numbers now attending Pride, but also to offer dedicated spaces for our family and dance and performances areas in Millennium Square, with thanks to At-Bristol.” Rounding off 10 days of Pride-related goings on, the big day will be chock full of live music, cabaret, dancers, family activities and stalls. Acts confirmed at press time include Everybody’s Free hit-maker Rozalla, X Factor alumnus Lucy Spraggan, DeltAmour, splendid local aces Wildflowers, and Elton John collaborator Bright Light Bright Light.
www.pridebristol.co.uk/day

27) Larmer Tree
July 13-17
Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset
Price: £225 for 5 days
Strutting peacocks shake a tailfeather all year round in the festival’s beauteous site, with Jamie Cullum, Clean Bandit, Caro Emerald and Calexico among those set to do the same from the stage. The bill also includes a goodly smattering of From Round These Parts talent, including This is the Kit, Rozi Plain and Gabrielle Aplin. Plenty more than just music here, mind, including John Cooper Clarke headlining the spoken word stage, CBeebies’ Mr Bloom for the kids, a goodly number of talks and lots more besides.
www.larmertreefestival.co.uk

28) Fib
July 14-17
Benicassim, Spain
Price: 147.50€
Beach-side festival boasting a pretty darn high-profile music line-up, including Kendrick Lamar, Muse, Massive Attack, the Chemical Brothers and Bloc Party.
www.fiberfib.com/en

29) Latitude
July 14-17
Southwold, Suffolk
Price: £205.50 w/e
Wide-ranging, brilliantly programmed festival, and so youngster-friendly that the family areas are split into two sections: a kids’ area featuring all the usual hoopla, and inbetweeners’ area for the over-12s promising “a world of music, media, technology, wildlife survival skills and assault courses suspended in the trees”. With an invitation to go swimming in the lake, too, this is relaxedly fine fare indeed. Lengthy, decidedly 6 Music-redolent music line-up, too: The Maccabees, The National, New Order, Beirut, Chvrches, M83, Father John Misty, John Grant, Courtney Barnett, Daughter, British Sea Power, Squeeze, Laura Mvula and plenty more.
www.latitudefestival.com

30) Beat-Herder
July 15-17
Ribble Valley, Lancashire
Price: £137.50 w/e
An old school dancey, vaguely hippified affair, hence a musical line-up featuring the likes of Primal Scream, Donovan and Utah Saints.
www.beatherder.co.uk

31) Bristol Americana Festival
July 15-17
Bristol
Price: various
Back for a second helping after last year’s splendid inaugural event. No word on line-up at press time, but hope/expect St George’s and the Colston Hall to be graced by acts the calibre of 2015: Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Larkin Poe, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, etc.
www.colstonhall.org

32) Bristol Harbour Festival
July 15-17
Bristol
Price: free
While Bristol has way more than its fair share of festivals, nothing brings the city together quite like harbour fest, packed with people from the inner suburbs, the outer fringes, and all points in-between. That means a properly thronging atmosphere, with a quarter of a million pairs of feet working their way around the phalanx of stages, markets, water-based displays, and so forth. Organisers have been increasingly keen in recent times for attendees to promenade the whole harbour, with events stretching from the Pump House right down to Castle Park. Queen Square is generally the hottest hot spot, the masses lazing to waves of world-flavoured music from the fest’s biggest stage, while Bristol’s Cirque Bijou will return to its natural home in Castle Park to host a programme of acrobatics, comedy, aerial performance, dance, street theatre and games. Beyond that you’ve got huge flotillas of boats, including trips out on all of the M Shed-moored heritage fleet, displays of rescue dogs scarcely able to believe that their foolish handler has fallen in again, loads more music stages (don’t forget the fringe events in Thekla, Louisiana, Grain Barge, etc), wondrous food markets, etc.
www.bristolharbourfestival.co.uk

33) Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival
July 15-24
Edinburgh
Price: various
Since 1978, this is the time of year during which Bath-on-Leith pulls together all manner of jazz- and blues-leaning acts from across the globe. Scant line-up details at press time, save for confirmed appearances from homegrown funkateers the Average White Band and, presumably by statute, Jools Holland.
www.edinburghjazzfestival.com

34) Glas-Denbury
July 15-17
Nr Newton Abbott, Devon
Price: £40 w/e
Painfully punsome, properly family-centric affair, with ents including ‘top TV ventriloquist’ Jimmy Tamley, Uncle Tacko’s Imaginarium, storyteller Isabella Necessity, circus stuff, and a climbing tower. Dr and The Medics head things up on the music side.
www.glas-denbury.co.uk 

35) Lovebox Weekender
July 15-16
Victoria Park, London
Price: £85 w/e
Originally back in the early millennium by Groove Armada, the line-up is broader than its dance-centric early days, if still pretty beats-oriented. So, headlining we find Major Lazer, Run the Jewels, LCD Soundsystem and Jungle.
www.loveboxfestival.com

 36) Nailsea & Backwell Beer & Cider Festival
July 15-17
Nailsea & Backwell RFC
Price: £8 adv day tickets
The number of beers and ciders on offer runs into three figures at this big-hearted fest – a not-for-profit event, last year’s fest raised over £11,200 for Penny Brohn Cancer Care. Near-infinite routes to sozzlement apart, expect live music, craft activities, games and bouncy castles.
www.applefest.co.uk

 37) Rock Oyster Festival
July 15-16
Nr Wadebridge, Cornwall
Price: £24
Big old array of fine looking cuisine (oysters, fish curries, pulled pork, St Moritz mussels, pigeon breast, gourmet bangers, artisan breads), a Food Academy teaching the ways of fishing, foraging, etc, a big old programme for kids, music, and an assortment of ‘Kernow Springs’ – hot tubs to you and me.
www.rockoysterfestival.co.uk 

38) Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival
July 15-17
Tolpuddle, Dorset
Price: £30 w/e
Honouring a time when “We’re all in this together” meant more than a Bullingdon Club group photo, this is a commemoration/celebration of the six Tolpuddle farm workers transported to Australia for having the audacity to form a (perfectly legal) union. Expect a colourful mix of banner processions, political discussions, wreath laying, music, poetry, kids’ stuff with the Woodcraft folk, a Methodist service and, almost certainly, Billy Bragg.
www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk

 39) Truck Festival
July 15-17
Steventon, Oxfordshire
Price: £86.50
Best Small Festival awards finalist last time out, and not altogether surprising: you wouldn’t generally expect to find acts with the profile of Manic Street Preachers at an event with a daily capacity of 3,000. Young Fathers, Jack Savoretti, Everything Everything and the ubiquitous Catfish and the Bottlemen also feature.
www.truckfestival.com

40) The Godney Gathering
July 16
Garslade Farm, Glastonbury, Somerset
Price: £20
75+ acts across six stages makes this a rather larger affair than your regular one-day gathering, with musical headliners including Scouting for Girls, Beans on Toast, and Chainska Brassika. For the younger members of your brood there’s a kids’ stage, and ents including old school Punch and Judy, magic shows, balloon modelling, and so forth.
www.thegodneygathering.com

41) Once Upon a Time in the West Festival
July 16-19
West Ashton, Nr Trowbridge, Wilts
Price: £65 w/e
Spinal Tappian ethos – have a good time, all the time – from a team with plenty of previous, having worked the likes of Endorse It, Bath Fringe and Glastonbury. Expect a properly partying atmosphere with bands to match, among them the Destroyers, the Urban Voodoo Machine, Frenzy, First Degree Burns and Pronghorn.
www.outwestfestival.co.uk

42) Folk on the Lawn
July 21-24
Tintern, Wales
Price: free
Acoustic/roots gathering in the shadow of glorious Tintern Abbey, promising to be a relaxed old affair. Worth a trip over the bridge simply to catch the aural splendour that is Incredible String Band co-founder and yarnsome harpist, Robin Williamson, gigging with his sweet-voiced spouse, Bina.
www.folkonthelawn.com

43) Secret Garden Party
July 21-24
Abbots Ripon Estate Cambridgeshire
Price: £180 w/e
This is quite the event. Set in a 220-acre landscaped garden, bordering a river and lake, it’s a full-on party of every conceivable hue: 15 live music stages and six DJ stages are the hub around which you’ll find astronaut training (naturally), mermaid school, guerilla science, paint fights, laser wars, 24-hour woodland parties, boating lake and bathing, campfire, mud wrestling, kids’ area, and so very much more besides. The music line-up is no small affair in its own right, this year bringing forth the likes of Air, Caribou, Primal Scream, Rae Morris, Band Of Skulls, Beardyman and C Duncan. On the downside, for what it’s worth, Secret Garden Party is also the clear winner – amidst some pretty stiff competition – of the 2016 Most Smugly Annoying Festival Website Landing Page award.
www.secretgardenparty.com

44) Chagstock
July 22-23
Whiddon Down, Devon
Price: £85 w/e
Seth Lakeman was impressed: “Definitely one of the most beautiful festivals I’ve ever played at. It’s set right in the heart of Dartmoor, so the fact that the stage is set in the midst of the sweeping wilderness is genuinely unlike anything you’ll see at any other festivals. It’s really evocative.” So were the people behind the Kidz Awards, placing Chagstock runner-up in the small festival category. Throw in the fact that all profits are pushed in the direction of the Devon Air Ambulance and Water Aid, and you know you’re onto a winner even before you see the music line-up convened for the festival’s 10th anniversary outing. Check out the splendid likes of the Stranglers, Donovan, and – almost unbeatable as a festival treat – the Blockheads.
www.chagstock.info

45) Deershed Festival
July 22-24
Topcliffe, North Yorks
Price: £125 w/e
Another leading light in festivals’ welcome tendency to become ever more child-thoughtful, this one includes a science tent, invitation to help make a movie, storytelling, and so forth. Decent musical bill, too, including Richard Hawley, Beth Orton, Steve Mason, Anna Calvi, C Duncan, and Andy Kershaw’s African, Caribbean and Latin dance night.
www.deershedfestival.com

46) Nozstock
July 22-24
Hidden Valley, Herefordshire
Price: £109 w/e
Initially begun as a meeting of family and friends, today Nozstock’s rural site hosts something altogether larger. Music-wise, confirmed acts include Jurassic 5, Gentleman’s Dub Club, Foreign Beggars, the Hot 8 Brass Band, and Bristol’s own, mighty, Split Prophets.
www.nozstock.com

47) Other Art Fair
July 22-24
Bristol
Price: £5.50 per day
Details TBA for the event’s second outing, but expect similar to an inaugural affair that saw the Other Art Fair leaves the capital for the first time, offering Bristol three days of affordable art, talks, immersive theatre, the launch of two Tracey Emin prints, etc.
www.bristol.theotherartfair.com

48) Tramlines
July 22-24
Sheffield
Price: £42 w/e
Absolutely tons of bands across a plethora of venues and outdoor stages, plus street theatre, dancers, workshops, etc. Acts include Dizzee Rascal, Kelis, Catfish and The Bottlemen, Jurassic 5, Dawn Penn, Field Music, Goldie and Hinds.
www.tramlines.org.uk

49) Village Pump Festival
July 22-24
Westbury, Wiltshire
Price: £109 w/e
Family friendly. No getting around the fact that the Westbury location could never hope to match this festival’s previous riverside, castle-overlooked site at Farleigh Hungerford, but it’s still prettier than most and the event remains a properly big player on the folk circuit. This year’s line-up includes the Proclaimers, Neville Staple Band, Martin Simpson and Dom Flemens, the Phil Beer Band, O’Hooley and Tidow, Andy Kershaw, and Mark Radcliffe’s Galleon Blast.
www.villagepumpfolkfestival.co.uk

50) Ramblin’ Man
July 23-24
Maidstone,Kent
Price: £130
If you take your riffage chunky, your lyrics girl-/goblin-centric, and your drum solos gratuitously lengthy, then this Classic Rock magazine-founded event is for you. Fair to say the bill is an uneven affair – Europe, anyone? Thunder? – but has a lot of proper-job marvellousness, too, including the Zombies and Hawkwind. Main headliners are Whitesnake, Black Stone Cherry and Thin Lizzy.
www.ramblinmanfair.com

51) Upfest
July 23-25
Bristol
Price: free
What began as 50ish artists painting on an October afternoon at the Tobacco Factory has grown remarkably swiftly into Europe’s largest street art and graffiti festival, with 300 spray can virtuosi from across the globe pulling more than 30,000 graffing aficionados and curious onlookers into Bedminster and Southville. “When Upfest started we had to approach shop owners to paint on their buildings, and they probably said ‘no’,” recalls the event’s founder, Steve Hayles. “Then they saw neighbours’ walls or shutters, and today they’re emailing to offer us space.” For a primer of what to expect, newcomers are encouraged to visit the Upfest gallery on North Street, where the sale of street art helps keep the July bash free for all. Besides local streets enjoying their spectacular annual makeover, expect plenty of live music, beauteous street food, and the singular sense of wellbeing that comes from walking freely on main roads normally overrun with traffic.
www.upfest.co.uk

52) Starry Skies
July 27-31
Monnow Valley, Welsh Borders
Price: £149 w/e
“Where the kids run free,” goes the festival’s tagline. And they’ve certainly got some rather fine exploration options: the site is bounded by ancient woodland and meadows, contained a ruined mill to explore, streams to dam, and a working farm to, erm, work. Ents of a more organised nature come in the form of an all-ages Forest School, offering drama, dance, fancy dress and a family sports day. That, and extra-curricular fun such as canoeing, orienteering, giant sandpit, talent show, woodland playground, yoga, arts and crafts, storytelling, live music, etc. Basically, if you imagine St Werburghs picking itself up and heading off into the middle of nowhere for the weekend, you’ve pretty much got the picture. And what parent wouldn’t thrill to a festival that says: “We want Starry Skies to be the place that parents finally get some ‘me-time’; time to relax, unwind and rejuvenate. Or even better do nothing, pour yourself a drink, close the zip of your tent and get stuck into that book that’s been gathering dust on your bedside table.”
www.starry-skies.net

53) Cambridge Folk Festival
July 28-31
Cambridge
Price: £159
The event the other folk festivals refer to as “Daddy”. Inaugurated at the height of the British folk boom in 1965, it manages to combine big scale with real intimacy, and this year welcomes a musical line-up including the likes of Christy Moore, Gogol Bordello, Imelda May, This is the Kit, Afro Celt Sound System, Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy and The Wayward Band, Jon Boden and Mary Chapin Carpenter.
www.cambridgefolkfestival.co.uk

54) Camp Bestival
July 28-31
Lulworth Castle, Dorset
Price: £197.50 w/e
Beauteous Lulworth Castle is the setting for the festival founded by Rob Da Bank. Designed as a determinedly family affair, right down to the old school British holiday camp atmosphere, it’s set to host a bill featuring Jess Glynne, Fatboy Slim, Tears for Fears, Katy B, KT Tunstall, Squeeze, Arrested Development, Seun Kuti and Fela’s Egypt 80, Bananarama, Brand New Heavies and Dawn Penn.
www.campbestival.net

55) Kendal Calling
July 28-31
Kendal, Cumbria
£135 w/e
Tenth year for a swift-growing event offering a broad old festival experience, from walkabout performers to comedians, authors to filmmakers. Far as the music goes, you’re looking at a bill slated to feature Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Rudimental, Madness, The Charlatans, Kelis, Maximo Park, Donovan and Teleman.
www.kendalcalling.co.uk

56) MTV Crashes Plymouth
July 28-29
Plymouth Hoe
Price: £12.50
Toothpaste of grin and weirdly orange of hue, the good folk of MTV descend on Plymouth to present it with a list of headliners that almost works as a sentence in its own right: Rudimental, Example, Tough Love, Jess Glynne.
www.mtv.co.uk

57) Port Eliot Festival
July 28-31
Port Eliot, St Germans, Cornwall
Price: £165 w/e
A wonderful seaside estate hosts this multi-faceted gem of a festival. The programme remains under wraps as the guide goes to press, but you can bank on a line-up of authors, musicians, foodies, etc, that offers at least as much nourishing brain fodder as it does rather decadent delights.
www.porteliotfestival.com

58) WOMAD
July 28-31
Malmesbury, Wilts
Price: £175
Strip back the vast majority of festival music to its bare bones, and its essentially a variation on the same thing. WOMAD is a thrillsomely honourable exception, a must-visit port of call for anyone with even the slightest curiosity or desire to find new sounds. Truly, it is a planet of sound. While there remain a few aficionados who bang on about “authentic” music – essentially desiring native folk styles to be frozen in aspic, despite the impossibility of finding anything other than an arbitrary point at which to do so – one of WOMAD’s many joys is a true celebration of the fact that music evolves. So, for every group of wizened old men playing tunes and styles handed down for generations (a delight in itself, we’ll make clear), there are plenty more taking inspiration from an ever-more accessible global soup of sound to produce work of quite the most beguiling freshness. The first wave of booking confirmations reveals such sure-fire treats as funkmaster general George Clinton, elder statesman of Senegalese music Baaba Maal, French-Lebanese jazz-flavoured trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, former Western Saharan refugee Aziza Brahim, and rapper/poet Baloji – he’s from DR Congo, for the last decade or so – think Konono No 1, Staff Benda Bilili, etc – one of the most musically fertile places on the planet. Throw in a gracious arboretum in which to relax, an olde tyme steam fairground, tons for kids to do, workshops in musical styles you’ve yet to hear, the magnificent Taste the World stage (musicians interviewed while cooking up traditional recipes, before passing the fruits of their labour into the crowd), a genuinely friendly atmosphere, and you’ve got, for our money, the most exhilarating, soul-firing festival on the circuit.
www.womad.co.uk

59) Bimble Bandana
July 29-31
Brighton
Price: £70 w/e
Is it just your guide writer, or does anyone else wonder exactly what is to be gained by festivals declaring their site ‘secret location’? Contrary to its purpose, it engenders not so much an air of mystery as a feeling of tired antipathy. Anyway, all that being said, somewhere near Brighton there’s a 100% solar-powered festival offering yurt and tipi hire, healing area, hot tubs, piano sunlodge, and so forth.
www.bimblebandada.com

60) Farmfestival
July 29-30
Bruton, Somerset
Price: £67 w/e
Small-scale, downhome and proud of it: “Pretty much everything you will see at Farmfest will have been handmade, re-appropriated, designed, painted, built by one of the team,  a collaborator, or one of our many volunteers.” Staged in an idyllic organic farm, this year’s event hosts a music programme including the likes of Young Fathers, Hot 8 Brass Band, Gilles Peterson and Gogo Penguin. Chill out, switch off and grab some hearty country food and enjoy the entertainment and abmiance at Gilcombe Farm. No, there isn’t any entertainment on Sunday, but yes, you can stay and hang out at the campground with the cool kids until 3pm.
www.farmfestival.co.uk

61) Indietracks
July 29-31
Ripley, Derbyshire
Price: £79 w/e
Splendidly located fest, hosted as it is by the Midland Railway Centre. So, steam rides aplenty, to back up the more usual fare: and craft workshops, real ales, and so forth. Not too many names confirmed music-wise as we go to print, but what there is is altogether treatworthy: Saint Etienne. Always a determinedly indie-popping affair, so expect more acts along the line of previous appearees Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura and the Go! Team.
www.indietracks.co.uk

62) July 29-31
Kozfest
Uffculme, Devon
Price: £85 w/e
Full name: Kozmik Ken’s Psychedelic Dream Festival. Thus, a music bill featuring the likes of Hawklords and Gong, a community bonfire, ‘sacred space’ and so on.
www.deviantamps.com

63) Bristol Summer Series
Lloyds Amphitheatre, Harbourside, Bristol
Confirmed as happening, but line-up/date under wraps.
www.bristolsummerseries.com

64) Leopallooza
July 29-31
Bude, Cornwall
Price: £95 w/e
From a farm in the heart of a lush North Cornwall, a festival returning from a year off to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a bill headlined by Crystal Fighters and Kodaline.
www.leopallooza.com

65) Sidmouth Folk Week
July 29-Aug 5
Sidmouth, Devon
Price: £128 w/e, £204 week
Family friendly. One of the titans of the folk world, and a fixture in the calendar since 1955. You’ll have to pay to see the big names – Seth Lakeman, Show of Hands, Sharon Shannon, Martin Simpson and Dom Flemons, Shooglenifty, etc – but this is a festival that takes over the entire town, ticketed areas and otherwise. So, come to town in Folk Week and you can swiftly expect to see morris sides doing their thing up and down the promenade, some proper-job finger-in-the-ear singarounds in local hostelries, and so on.
www.sidmouthfolkweek.co.uk

66) Standon Calling
July 29-31
Standon, Herts
Price: £127 w/e
It’s not every festival that offers an ‘underwater dance area’. Or any kind of swimming pool, come to that. This hip affair also promises interactive theatre, art installations and music from a goodly number of acts, including Suede, the ubiquitous Jess Glynne, Kelis, Ghostpoet, Anna Calvi, Thurston Moore Band, Adam Green and Teleman.
www.standon-calling.com

67) Y-Not Festival
July 29-31
Matlock, Derbyshire
Price: £99.50 w/e
Set in the glorious gorgeous Peak District, boasting all your regular glamping options, and song purveyance from Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Madness, Catfish and The Bottlemen, The Hives, The Cribs, Everything Everything, Circa Waves, Rat Boy and plenty more.
www.ynotfestivals.co.uk

68) Alnwick International Music Festival
July 30-Aug 6
Alnwick, Northumberland
Price: free
Since 1976, a fixture in the folk-dance world, drawing a magnificent range of colour, sounds and movement from across the world.
www.alnwickmusicfestival.com

69) Brisfest
July 30
Bristol
Price: TBC
The return of the ace local weekend fest celebrating the best of the south-west. Experience Bristol’s most exciting new talent at multiple venues around the city. Edgy new DJs and bands represent Bristol’s laid back and innovative music scene. The area’s top artists, cabaret shows and comedy acts will also come out to play. Support local.
www.brisfest.co.uk