Situated in the South Downs National Park with more heavy hitters than are feasible to visit in five days, Boomtown Fair brought the bass in 2025.
By and large, Boomtown Fair was a well-run, five-day-long, choose-your-own-adventure story, unlike any festival I’ve attended.
The second biggest festival in the UK, it brought 66,000 ravers to the old capital of Winchester in Southern England to explore 1,250 acres, eight districts, and over 50 stages. The festival is well known for how its bass-heavy lineup highlights the best from Bristol to Brighton, with nearly all five days this year offering fun in the sun.
The effort put into the Story of Boomtown can be found throughout the festival site with actors, clowns, and ne’er-do-wells committed to the bit of telling it. Participation in the storyline is optional and can be tracked in the app. There is a newspaper, the Daily Rag, published each day to keep all citizens informed. As a casual observer, I found it worth looking into for the social commentary.
Music of nearly all genres could be found across Boomtown’s myriad stages. It was a challenge to catch every vibe on the sprawling festival grounds, with hills, valleys, and forests separating them.
This writer was able to spend six days behind the scenes before the festival, helping in the creation of the Copperwood and Thrutopia stages. It was impressive what the team was able to create with metric tons of scaffolding, plywood, grit, and paint.
The two main stages — Grand Central and particularly Lion’s Gate — were absolutely massive. A giant portal rotating at the top of the latter proved essential to the story. Headliners Overmono, Nia Archives, and Rudimental blasted their audience with DnB all weekend while Grand Central hosted classic acts such as the Wailers, Boney M, Sean Paul, and Oakland rap all-stars Souls of Mischief, as well as some bass courtesy of Goldie and Hybrid Minds.
With such a massive festival site, it was easy to maneuver right up to the front speakers and back out again. It was only difficult in choke points along some of the smaller stages when bigger acts came on.
The festival boasted three stages nestled deep in the woods around the property: Tangled Roots, Hidden Woods, and Anara Forest. Each provided relief from the heat of the day with sand poured over the ground to give them a beach vibe.
Tangled Roots was pumping out reggae and dub all week long, venturing into heavier bass in the evenings. Hidden Woods was equally eclectic, billing bigger acts such as the legendary junglist Congo Natty and DnB godfather LTJ Bukem. Meanwhile, Anara Forest highlighted a full 360-degree sound system and a younger generation of heavy bass from Interplanetary Criminal, Flowdan, and Taiki Nulight.
If this writer were to cover every stage, this article would be three times as long. All throughout the bowl were at least another dozen side stages built into the facade of the cityscape, my personal favorite of which was the Postal Posse, where you could write a letter home to mum and nan to let them know you were alright.
Area 404 boasted the Spectrum 360 Stage, which used to be hosted by Boiler Room, Hangar 161 for live punk and metal, Acid Leak and Nachtlicker for acid house and techno, a queer and women’s only stage called Femmegedon, plus the demented Wrong Side of the Tracks, which looked like it was built out of shipping containers and old carnival rides. Early in the week, several art cars and renegade sound systems were utilized before all stages opened. I found myself missing them once the weekend got started.
The Engine House was a haven for live music, platforming brass bands center stage and featuring Alien Ant Farm as a headliner. Up the hill in Old Town, my favorite surprise stage was Fool’s Leap, which hosted folk music, fiddles, and one of the zaniest electro-horn sections I have ever seen.
Finally, the Hydro stage brought in some of the biggest acts in house music with The Blessed Madonna, Chris Stussy, and I Hate Models, the latter of whom had to deal with a stage jumper interrupting his set. They definitely sped up the BPMs to keep up with the rest of the stages, which I appreciated for a little slow down.
With bass and particularly DnB being the main draw of the festival, this writer was exuberant to ride the bass lines all weekend long, and the distance between Lion’s Gate and Anara Forest made it particularly difficult to choose how to take in my medicine. Luckily, one could wander into any of the numerous side stages and find the sound systems pulsating to the beats of amazing, underground artists. As I learned throughout the festival, there is a particularity with Bristol DnB that mixes in techno, which blew me away.
The rolling hills and valleys of the park made for a stunning backdrop as waves of raver Brits bounced between all the various stages and participated in the storyline. The narrative was a cheeky nod to the realities of the festival industry, namely, how all festivals face the need to expand and change to attract more talent and boost ticket sales.
When it was the largest independent festival in the UK in 2022, a 45% stake in Boomtown was sold, including 18% to Live Nation UK. It is incredible when you realize the festival now occupies a smaller footprint than it did during its halcyon days of renegade sound systems — but by many accounts, it hasn’t lost its charm in the way that Glastonbury seems to have.
The passion for the project was evident in how this year’s theatrical closing of Lion’s Gate and Grand Central resolved the story and announced next year’s theme, “Radical Redesign.” At this point, I’m fully invested in the outcome. I cannot wait to see what they have in store.
As for food and drinks, they were standard festival prices for mushy peas, mash, sausies, burgers, burritos, BBQ, and the like. My personal favorites were the jerk chicken at the Caribbean stand and a fantastic pad thai.
Everything was served with compostable containers and bamboo utensils. Pints of beer and alcoholic beverages of all varieties could be found at the many bars, and I was disappointed I did not find that they were serving Guinness at the Shamrock in Old Town sooner — but that’s on me for not exploring more thoroughly.
It was not difficult not to believe that you were in an alternate reality as festival infrastructure rose out of the landscape, with the bass bumping everywhere you went. It was among the best festival experiences of my life, and the Brits set the standard for immersive play, acting, and dedication to sound. Some of my favorite moments were Wednesday and Thursday, as reggae and dub blasted me with high vibrations.
Though it sold out months ago, it rarely felt overcrowded, and the best moment of my weekend was riding the rail for Overmono and Nia Archives surrounded by a sea of ravers pulsating to DnB. I hope to return and see how they fill out that massive landscape.
I’ve never been to an EDC or Tomorrowland, and that’s okay. If this is the closest I come, then I have found my home here. I got to hang with circus folk, caravan travelers, and build teams. There was a little something for everyone, a safe environment where all could participate. Despite the logistics and terrain, ADA participants were taken care of and provided transportation that I found lacking at other festivals with a smaller footprint.
All in all, Boomtown is a staple of the UK festival scene and an example of what is possible when music, civic responsibility, kindness, and sustainable development are brought together to create not just a festival, but a movement. In a rapidly changing world and industry, we are fortunate that such a scene still exists.
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