• 111festivals tracked, dates confirmed on their own sites
• 13on the busiest weekend (30 July - 1 August 2027)
• 52%start in July or August 2027
• 84%independent (not owned by a big promoter group)

GigXchange festival calendar, frozen 31 October 2026. Shares are of the 111 festivals we track, not of every UK festival.

Of the 111 UK music festivals we track, 13 run over 30 July - 1 August 2027 - the busiest weekend in our calendar. 52% of the festivals start in July or August, and 67% between June and August. The season we track opens on 3 November 2026 and closes on 23 October 2027.

Every festival, with its dates, town and genre, is on our UK festival calendar, which stays current through the season. This report is the fixed snapshot behind it: it does not change once published.

Why this table: the month a festival opens shows the shape of the season - when demand for acts, crews and kit builds, and when it falls away.

Counts and shares: the chart counts festivals; the table adds each month's share of the 111 we track, the figure to quote. Each festival counts once, so the shares add to 100% (give or take rounding).

The takeaway: 52% start in July or August, and July 2027 alone is 31%, more than May and June together. Outside the summer it thins fast: 16 start between November 2026 and April 2027, and 7 in September and October 2027.

Why this table: months hide clashes. Two festivals in the same month may never meet, but two on the same weekend compete for the same audience, acts and crews. A festival counts on a weekend when it runs on that Saturday or Sunday.

The takeaway: the pressure is on a handful of dates. 30 July - 1 August 2027 stands out with 13 festivals, and the late May bank holiday weekend is next with 11. In all, 11 weekends have five or more of the festivals we track running at once - so a fan choosing between two favourites, or an act hoping to play both, is most likely to hit a clash on one of these.

Why this table: length decides what a festival asks of you - a day ticket and a train home, or a tent, time off work and a bigger budget. It also tells performers and crews how long a booking ties them up. Length is the published span of the event, including any arrival or warm-up day the festival lists as part of it.

Belsonic is left out of this table: it is a run of separate show nights, not one continuous festival, so it has no single length.

The takeaway: the long weekend is the format of the festivals we track. 75% of those with a single span run three to five days, and only 17 run one or two. Read the short end with care: it reflects which events had confirmed their 2027 dates by the freeze date as much as the season itself.

Why this table: genre is how most fans choose a festival, and how acts judge where they fit a bill. We tag each festival with up to two genres from its own description, so one can count under two.

The takeaway: folk leads clearly, with 42 festivals, while indie, rock and pop each sit between 16% and 22%. Read the mix as the shape of what we track, not of the whole UK festival market: the calendar only lists festivals whose 2027 dates are already confirmed.

Why this table: where a festival is decides who can get there easily, and how far an act or crew travels to work it. We group festivals by UK nation and English region.

The takeaway: the South West leads with 20, ahead of Scotland and the South East, while London has only 5 in our calendar. These shares describe our coverage as much as the map, and a region with few entries may have festivals we have not yet confirmed. The calendar grows as dates are published.

The rule: a festival is "major" when a large promoter group owns it (for example Live Nation and its Festival Republic, Superstruct or CTS Eventim); every other festival, including charities, councils and family-run events, is independent.

Ownership is not always clear-cut, and we marked 4 with low confidence. Boomtown counts as independent: Live Nation, Gaiety and SJM bought a 45% stake in 2022 and the founders kept the majority (Pollstar). Camp Bestival, Y Not and Love Supreme count as major, though sources disagree on how much control their founders kept. Ownership changes hands often, so this is the position at the freeze date.

Why this table: fans and acts plan around last year's dates, so the useful question is which festivals moved. We compare each festival with its own last edition, not the season as a whole.

The takeaway: most festivals are creatures of habit - 79% of those we could compare kept their weekend, and 90 kept their length. A festival keeps its weekend when it plays a weekend its last edition played, 52 weeks on, even if it gained or lost a day. About half of the 17 that moved a week later (8) follow the late May bank holiday, which falls on 25 May in 2026 and 31 May in 2027; that weekend is the second busiest in our calendar.

One festival returns in 2027 after taking 2026 off: Glastonbury, after its planned fallow year.

This compares the same festivals with their own last edition. It cannot say whether the season grew or shrank, because a list of festivals still running leaves out those that stopped. We do not compare ticket prices: price tiers and what a ticket includes change from year to year.

• Who is in it: UK music festivals we found through listings and news, kept only once their dates were read on the festival's own website. That makes it a tracked calendar, not a census of every UK festival.
• Freeze date: 31 October 2026. 106 festivals start in 2027 and 5 open the season in November and December 2026.
• Counting rules: a festival is counted once, in the month it starts; on a weekend when it runs on the Saturday or Sunday, so a programme that runs for several weeks counts on every weekend it spans; length counts the first and last day. Belsonic is a run of separate show nights, so it counts only on the weekends it plays and has no single length.
• What counts as a music festival: an event that calls itself a festival and puts live music at its centre, including a few mixed-arts and community festivals with a strong music programme.
• Last edition: read from an archived copy of the festival's own website (Internet Archive), never a listing site. It counts as last year's edition when it started 330 to 400 days before this one. A festival keeps its weekend when it plays a weekend its last edition played, 52 weeks on; one that spans two weekends keeps it if either matches. Otherwise a week earlier or later means a weekend 51 or 53 weeks on, and anything else is a bigger move. Left out of the comparison: festivals with no archived record (11), with incomplete dates (1), whose last edition was two separate legs (1) and returning from a year off (1).
• No pay figures: our GX Index does not yet hold enough festival fees to publish one. For what other gigs pay, see the live GX Index.
• Version: calculation version 2. Corrections, if any, are listed with their date on the report's web page, gigxchange.app/rates/reports/uk-festival-season-2027; the PDF is kept as issued.