21 May 2026 10 min read

Field Day’s out, these festivals are in

The best festivals to go to this weekend, and who actually owns them.

Credit: Jake Tucker

The late May bank holiday is one of the few weekends in Britain where the entire country seems to collectively decide that sleeping is optional. The second the temperature nudges above 20 degrees, every park fills up, every pub garden becomes impossible to navigate, and half of London suddenly remembers it owns sunglasses.

It also marks the unofficial beginning of festival season. A point in the calendar where group chats become logistics nightmares, people convince themselves they can still function after four consecutive days on little more than warm lager and serotonin depletion, and thousands descend on fields, warehouses and industrial estates in search of something that feels a little more alive than normal life has lately. It's perfect for me, after a few weeks of intense travel and work, I'm looking forward to enjoying the sunshine and catching up with some friends.

This year, though, there’s an extra layer hanging over at least one of the capital’s biggest events. For a lot of people, the conversation around festivals has shifted beyond line-ups and into ownership, investment, and where exactly your money ends up once you’ve scanned your ticket at the gate.

So, rather than tell you what to do with your bank holiday weekend, we thought we’d do something more useful: suggest a few day festivals that might deserve your attention this year instead.

The Mix

Writing this week's newsletter was an absolute pig and I'm not sure I'd have made it without this techno set from Inda Flo, which kept me powering through on Sunday evening until everything was done. Inda Flo is one of my favourite techno DJs based in the city, and this set perfectly uncapsulates why.

Forget Field Day, here's where to go instead

There comes a point every summer where you have to decide how much cognitive dissonance you’re willing to tolerate for a big sound system and an overpriced pint.

This weekend, a bank holiday that’s somehow threatening to hit 30 degrees, feels like the point where a lot of people will be weighing up whether their convictions are stronger than their desire to get sunburnt and slightly wonky with some good music playing.

This isn’t a sermon, and despite the headline, I’m not telling you not to go to Field Day. You’re an adult. Make your own call. But it is worth acknowledging that there’s an active boycott from BDS, one that led to several major artists pulling out last year, and that the festival’s response to an open letter from SISU Crew — later backed by several other artists — left a pretty sour taste in a lot of people’s mouths, mine included.

One thing I’ve heard repeatedly from people this year is that they bought tickets because they genuinely didn’t know what else was on. So, if you’re looking for somewhere else to spend a sunny day this weekend, here are your options.

For most of these festivals, Ticketswap in the run-up to the event is your best bet.

Gala

When? May 22-24
Who owns it? Gala is owned by its co-founders, Jonathan Edwards and Giles Napier, under their parent company Moments.

If you’re weighing up where to spend your bank holiday, Gala in Peckham is one of those rare London festivals that still feels like it belongs to the people actually dancing at it.

Set in the unlikely but perfect backdrop of Peckham Rye Park, it's a no-frills festival that focuses on a few good names. No giant gimmick stages. No “immersive journeys”. Just sound systems and a friendly crowd coming together in South London

Across the weekend, you’ll find everything from deep house and disco-adjacent selectors to proper heads-down techno. GALA has emerged over the last decade as the festival your mates are more likely going to. This year, I have a huge group of friends going on the Sunday, with a lot of my friends in rave retirement coming together to shake off the rust and have a dance.

City Splash

When? Monday May 25
Who owns it? Ben Ryan, City Splash's founder, owns it. On Instagram last month, he posted on Instagram: "6th edition. Still 100% independent. Feeling grateful 🫶🏽"

Returning to Brockwell Park this bank holiday weekend, City Splash is a mix of reggae, dancehall, dub, jungle, garage and afrobeats. While I haven't attended myself, friends who have gone a few times have praised the food, music and atmosphere. I don't usually think about the food on offer when I'm eying up an event, but I would kill for Jerk Chicken at the best of times, so think it'd hit pretty hard after a few hours of dancing.

If your ideal bank holiday involves sunshine and bass pressure, this could be the perfect way to wrap your weekend up on the weekend.

High Lights

When? May 22-24
Who owns it? Percolate, the independent promoter behind the Queen's Yard Summer Party and Body Movements.

If you’re willing to trek all the way out to Barking, High Lights has one of the stronger bank holiday line-ups in London. The festival’s become best known for its huge high-tech stage production, and Saturday is centred around the debut of Armin van Buuren Presents The Orb, described as “an immersive, open-air live show designed as a multi-sensory journey.”

Spooky. Still, it’s apparently Van Buuren’s only London festival appearance of the summer, so if you’re in the mood for trance, lasers, and finding out what exactly “The Orb” is supposed to be, there are worse ways to spend a sunny Saturday.

Friday also feels quite strong with Lane 8, Dusky, Township Rebellion and Mees Salomé all playing across the day. There's less giant conceptual sphere, sure, but still some very good electronic music.

Eastern Electrics presents: Argy vs Artbat

When? Sunday 24 May
Who owns it? Founder Rob Star holds the keys. Star also owns The Star of Bethnal Green and The Star of Kings.

Leyton Jubilee Park is going to be a good place to be on Sunday, just look at that lineup. Artbat B2B Argy, Jan Blomqvist, Korolova... if you're into melodic techno this is hands down the best lineup all weekend, and it's here I'd be if I wasn't going to Gala.

There isn't a community aspect to this; it's not about coming together to be part of something bigger. It's just a lot of big dance acts and a huge sound system instead of subtlety. And when your lineup is this good, that's pretty valid, I think.

I'm not really certain this counts as a festival, if I'm being honest, but I think if you're there you won't be thinking about the distinction.

In defence of bangers

There’s a particular kind of magic that happens when a DJ drops a genuine classic at exactly the right moment. Not ironically. Not as a wink to the crowd. Not buried inside three layers of edits designed to prove they’re still cool enough to play it. Just a proper, full-hearted, arms-in-the-air banger landing in a room that’s completely ready for it.

Because for all dance music’s obsession with the new, the obscure, and the algorithmically unearthed, some tracks never lose their ability to hit. In fact, sometimes they hit harder precisely because you weren’t expecting them.

Take The Bells. You can hear that opening rhythm a hundred times in your life and it still does something physical to a room. Or Bonkers, which somehow retains the exact same chaotic joy it had the first time you heard it, probably in the passenger seat of your mate's car on your way to the beach during one of those teenage summers that felt like it was going to last forever. These are records that bypass overthinking entirely. The second they arrive, people just feel good.

There’s a tendency in dance music to talk about classics like they’ve somehow become exhausted through familiarity, but the reality inside actual clubs is usually the opposite. The best club classics don’t feel tired. They feel communal. They create those rare moments where an entire dancefloor suddenly snaps into alignment that has strangers grinning at each other, phones forgotten, everyone singing or stomping or throwing themselves into the same moment together.

Timing is everything. I've seen Armand Van Helden drop Bonkers at Koko for a room of shirtless 20somethings and watched as it did nothing more than encourage them to pull their phones out, but then I saw Daria Kolosova drop it at Colour Factory one night and the crowd was so keyed up and ready that I felt like I was in the middle of mass hysteria as the entire room jumped as one big sweaty mass.

A club classic isn’t powerful because it’s famous. It’s powerful because the right DJ understands when a dancefloor needs release. When people are ready for euphoria instead of restraint. A great selector can make an old anthem feel brand new simply by knowing exactly when to let it loose.

That’s why these moments stay with people. Nobody leaves a night talking exclusively about BPMs or flawless transitions. They remember how a track made the room feel. The eruption when the opening notes landed. The collective singalong. The sudden sense that everybody present was sharing the exact same emotion for four perfect minutes.

That feeling is surprisingly difficult to manufacture.

When I used to work at NME we had a bit of an unofficial motto: "there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure, just a pleasure" and I've applied it liberally to every area of my life since. I'm happy to eat fast food because it lights up the right part of my brain, I'm happy to watch action movies where Scott Adkins kicks a man in the head and I'm hyped to hear a filthy techno edit of a pop hit.

Dance music can sometimes take itself very seriously, but the best club moments are often rooted in this pure pleasure. Joy doesn’t become less meaningful just because it’s familiar. If anything, there’s something comforting about certain records remaining universally capable of turning a room inside out.

So this is a defence of bangers. Not guilty pleasures. Not ironic throwbacks. Proper club classics, played with confidence and love. If you’ve got one that still detonates a dancefloor every single time, we want to hear it. Get in touch with your favourites, maybe we'll make a playlist.

The Briefing

It's a bank holiday weekend so there's a ton of stuff on, but the absolute pick of the bunch is MASS, an event organised by Inda Flo, who you should have just seen above.

Expect high-energy techno that'll wrap up in time for you to get the last train back. Sets will be 2 hours long, drinks are apparently very cheap, and there's a little bonfire on the outside too. Did I mention there's an opera singer? It promises to be something really special and also have some phenomenal techno. Why not go along? Did I mention the drinks prices are obscenely cheap?

None of the festivals I've mentioned above are listed here, and I've deliberately gone for some smaller nights this week, so if you're not at one of the big festivals, swing by one of these smaller events and show them some support?

Other stuff

On Thursday Not Bad For A Girl is running a panel on male allyship in dance music, with Daniel Avery as a panellist. I've been to a few Not Bad For A Girl events and they're usually a good time. This promises to be that and helpful for men who want to try and even things up in dance music.
I look at a lot more event listings these days, so this instagram post on what the hell people are writing in their event captions makes me chuckle.

What else?

A tease from Emma Marshall (the founder of Movement is Medicine) seems to hint at dancing being genuinely good for your mental wellbeing, and it's all down to heart rate variability. I need to talk to someone smarter than me to fully understand this, but the full information will come out Friday anyway, so it's giving me time to swot up for next week.
Big Freedia is releasing an EP co-produced by late electronic artist and producer SOPHIE, which was originally recorded all the way back in 2016. SOPHIE passed away in 2021.
A note on FrontLeft's event curation policy. I've not included cool looking events because they have generative AI posters.

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