The 13 best festivals to book now

Music festivals have become a glorious mainstay of summer. And even though the number in the UK has decreased in recent years – before the pandemic there were nearly 1,000, while last year, according to the Association of Independent Festivals, there were 592 – the scene still feels overwhelming, with endless lineups to trawl through and tough decisions to make.

It’s made trickier by the speed at which some sell out: beloved indie stalwarts Green Man, which takes place in Bannau Brycheiniog (AKA the Brecon Beacons), and End of the Road, on the Dorset-Wiltshire border, are long since fully booked. Meanwhile, other more mainstream events quickly become uninspiring, with the same cycle of tired headliners appearing on repeat.

So, in this fallow year for Glastonbury, which weekenders should you be corralling your group chat to attend? Here is The Observer’s pick of this summer’s best festivals that still have tickets available.

Best for families

DEER SHED

North Yorkshire, 24-26 July

Billed as a “wonderland of creativity”, Deer Shed has gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2010. Set in North Yorkshire parkland beside the River Swale, it prides itself on being a fully integrated family event. Instead of paying lip service to parents with a single measly tent for children, here youngsters can enjoy everything from sonic experimentation to skateboarding. Not that all the entertainment is PG-rated: Sleaford Mods top the music bill – joined by the similarly sweary Getdown Services, plus Say She She and Everything Everything – and Stewart Lee heads the comedy lineup. There are also literary talks, wild swimming, cinema screenings and a 2,500 sq metre (27,000 sq ft) interactive maze to get lost in. Jamie Healy

Best for grassroots venues

EVERYWHERE AT ONCE

Across the UK, 26-28 June

Scheduled to fill the Glastonbury gap in 2026, this is less a traditional festival – with all the minging portable toilets and overpriced chips the term implies – than a massive beach umbrella erected over a variety of acts playing an array of venues. Under the aegis of the Music Venues Trust, a charity desperately trying to save the UK’s grassroots music pipeline, EAO is showcasing known quantities – Fatboy Slim, Rizzle Kicks, Tinie Tempah – alongside a plethora of lesser-known artists in bijou local venues all over the country. Top tips: up-and-coming indie band Westside Cowboy at Manchester’s Low Four Studio, and Scottish soul siren Brooke Combe at the Purple Orange Arts venue in Bathgate, West Lothian. KE

Best for joining in

SIDMOUTH FOLK

East Devon, 31 July-7 August

The first iteration of the Sidmouth Folk festival was held in 1955, when “English morris, sword and country dance displays” were the order of the day. An annual musical gathering has taken place in the East Devon seaside town ever since then, and today it is a highlight of the folk calendar, offering ceilidhs, folk dance workshops and open-mic sessions. Learning about and passing down such traditions is what folk is all about, but if you can only handle so much participation, there is plenty of first-class music to sit back and enjoy too, including Kate Rusby and Martin Simpson, as well as Peter’s Field, an epic chronicle in which Sean Cooney, Eliza Carthy and Sam Carter commemorate the 1819 Peterloo massacre. EPH

Best for soul and R&B

LOVE SUPREME

East Sussex, 3-5 July

This is a tremendously civilised jazz festival whose definition of the genre is both loose and funky. Coaches run daily from London, returning after the last band finishes, and camping is also popular and family-friendly. Alongside every other cuisine imaginable, there’s an Ottolenghi on site, plus saunas, hot tubs and yoga on tap. The eclectic musical lineup, meanwhile, offers everyone from the multi-award-winning Ezra Collective to veteran “daisy age” rappers De La Soul. Lower down the bill are hot names, including young soul man Jalen Ngonda and gospel family band Annie and the Caldwells, as well as DJs of every stripe. Kitty Empire

Best for avoiding camping

PSYCH FEST

Brighton, 4 September; Manchester, 5 September; Edinburgh, 6 September

If you prefer not to end your day on a slowly deflating airbed, check out Psych Fest. Taking place across three cities on three consecutive days, it utilises local venues and attracts an international roster of guitar bands at the noisier end of BBC 6 Music listening. Stereolab headline the 40-band bill for the first Brighton show and are joined by Ty Segall and the hyped Canadian duo Angine de Poitrine on the remaining two dates. Shame are among the recent additions to the Edinburgh lineup, while the Beta Band co-headline Manchester’s event. More for fans of VU than UV, it’s the perfect way to explore city venues large and small, with the added bonus of a decent night’s sleep at the end. JH

Best for all-nighters

FIELD MANEUVERS

Norfolk, 21-23 August

Almost all good festivals begin as a marriage of sound systems and mates’ parties on usable land. Field Maneuvers started as a rave in an Oxfordshire field in 2013 (three stages, zero frills) before heading east to Norfolk, and has been especially successful in maintaining its indie, anti-corporate spirit while becoming a boutique late-night festival. The event’s greatest prowess is curation. Its impressive rosters of electronic dance music tastemakers and producers include Daniel Avery, Jana Rush and Paranoid London, who are dedicated to getting your trainers dirty. This summer’s 13th edition has more live acts than ever, plus the infamous on-site pub the Packet Inn. Damien Morris

Best for city ravers

MAIDEN VOYAGE

London, 8 August

The capital’s day-festival circuit has experienced troubles in recent years, with Wide Awake on hold for 2026 (after last year’s challenge by local residents over the Brockwell Park venue), and the Victoria Park-based Lido having to be rescheduled from June to August because of ground conditions. One event that has clung on to its spot is Maiden Voyage, now based in south London’s Burgess Park and offering up some of the hottest names in underground rave and club music, including Helena Hauff, HAAi and D Tiffany. Come for a good dance; stay for the people-watching opportunities as some of the city’s best-dressed ravers descend on Camberwell. EPH

Best for female headliners

FORWARDS

Bristol, 29-30 August

Now in its fifth year, Bristol’s Forwards has earned its reputation for being a festival with its finger on the musical pulse. The lineup for 2026 is impressively female-led – not something to be sniffed at in a world still dominated by men – with headliners Little Simz, Wet Leg, Tems and Amyl and the Sniffers appealing across genres, while the male names are no slouches either, with homeboy Tricky rubbing shoulders with Dijon and Jim Legxacy. And if two nights of great music aren’t enough, you can start early: Lorde is playing the same venue, Clifton Downs, on 28 August. KE

Best for alternative activities

ROCK N ROLL CIRCUS

Norwich, 20-23 August; Sheffield, 27-30 August

If the average live band set doesn’t provide enough spectacle for you – or you fancy using your summer to learn some new tricks – try Rock N Roll Circus, which takes place in Norwich’s Earlham Park and Sheffield’s Don Valley Bowl across successive weekends. The range of circus performers on offer is nothing short of dazzling: expect aerialists, high-wire artists, fire-breathers, stilt-walkers, hood artists and trapeze acts. And if that’s not enough, there’s also the rock; in Norwich, James, Razorlight, the Vaccines and Madness top the bill, while in Sheffield, the lineup includes the Kooks, the Streets, Wunderhorse and Richard Ashcroft. EPH

Best for hearing something new

KRANKENHAUS

Cumbria, 28-30 August

In the wild west of the Lake District at the end of the summer, the nature-loving indie band Sea Power run a micro-festival in the gorgeous grounds of Muncaster Castle. It includes bands galore, book talks, fell walks and endless quirky delights, including “kosmik bingo”, a fancy dress dog contest and a children’s “barbaric battle”. This year’s lineup offers big names, among them Stereolab, Stewart Lee and Charlotte Church’s End Times Pop Dungeon, as well as plenty of experimental shows such as a set from composer and recorder player Laura Cannell and an improvisation workshop from the Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra. Late-night DJs and light shows seal the festival’s psychedelic magic. Jude Rogers

Best for electronica

DEKMANTEL

Amsterdam 29 July-2 Aug

Dekmantel takes dance music seriously. That means very good sound, very good DJs, a woodland setting that feels removed from the outside world, and a crowd who knows what they have come for. The festival has been doing all this for more than a decade now, and the formula shows no sign of wearing thin. This year’s edition is the largest yet, with at least 160 acts spanning techno, house, ambient, bass and electro. Ben UFO and Sherelle represent the UK contingent, California’s Skrillex comes paired with the São Paulo-based producer RHR, and you have Detroit stars Underground Resistance and Jeff Mills to top things off. Georgia Evans

Best for jazz

MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL

Lake Geneva, Switzerland, 3-18 July

Montreux has a towering history that includes performances by greats such as Miles Davis and Nina Simone , but you don’t need to be an aficionado to enjoy it. The town is perched majestically beside Lake Geneva and the festival has evolved since it began in the late 1960s to embrace other genres, while remaining synonymous with excellent musical taste. It is stretched across two weeks in July, with 2026’s lineup featuring Nick Cave and Van Morrison, an exciting run of breakthrough garage and R&B artists such as PinkPantheress and Tyla, plus Gregory Porter for the jazz purists. This year also sees a full-circle moment as Deep Purple – whose 1972 song Smoke on the Water was inspired by a famous fire at the festival – take to the stage. Olivia Ovenden

Best for pop and rock

WAY OUT WEST

Gothenburg, Sweden, 13-15 August

For a lineup that will appeal to all of your friends – from indie rock heads to alt-pop fanatics – a Scandinavian soiree may be in order. Way Out West takes place in Slottsskogen, a lush park in the centre of Sweden’s second city, and every year the acts speak for themselves. This August, the festival welcomes so many big hitters that it’s difficult to imagine they will play over just three days – Lorde, Gorillaz, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Zara Larsson, the Cure, Blood Orange, Four Tet and Lily Allen – while the undercard, including indie rocker Freak Slug, rapper Jane Remover and DJ and producer Ninajirachi, is not to be missed either. After dark, the party continues in club events around the city, which are included in the ticket price. EPH

Subscribers to The Observer can enjoy ticket offers and discounts on festivals – including many of those featured above – as part of our Culture Club. Find out more here

Photographs by Maria Jefferis/Getty Images, Mike Massaro/PINE Agency,Chester McKee/Dazed,