Shambala is a 25 year old, family friendly, completely independent music and arts festival, which takes place every August Bank Holiday on a secret, countryside estate near Market Harborough (exact directions are sent out with your tickets).
Tickets for Shambala 2025 are available here.
What to Expect…
This isn’t the sort of festival where you park your bum in front of the main stage all day, to be entertained by mainstream act after mainstream act. Nothing wrong with that – but that’s never what Shambala has been about. Here, you’ll find around 40 venues, covering all manner of art forms – from big musical stages, to dozens of microvenues, nooks and crannies, covering everything from techno to dancehall to folk, to DIY punk.
We’ve got venues dedicated to poetry, puppetry, politics, permaculture, circus, an enchanted woodland packed with art installations and surprises, one of the best kid’s fields on the festival circuit, a gorgeous healing meadow with free yoga and meditation classes running all day, dance workshops, a legendary fancy dress carnival, and even our very own (shambolic) Olympic Games.
Dig into 2024’s venues here, to get an idea of what to expect.
Musically, we platform incredible, emerging grassroots artists, alongside show-stopping heritage acts. You won’t find the identikit touring line ups you find at a lot of corporate events here. In fact, an independent study by MixMag/Pirate found we were the best small festival in the UK for booking new music.
Our 2025 line up is yet to be announced, but again, to get a flavour, check out the amazing artists who performed at Shambala 2024, here.
…and check out our 2024 aftermovie, to get a better idea of what to expect from Shambala.
What Sets Shambala Apart…
We do things a bit differently here… for example:
- The music goes on late – til about 5am, even on the Sunday night.
- Our community look after the site (and eachother) – there are no tents left behind here.
- We’re family friendly – and yet still, somehow, a PROPER party.
- We don’t charge you to keep yourself clean. There are hot shower blocks all around the site which are completely free to use.
- You can take your own booze and food into the ‘main arena’ – once you’re in the festival, you’re in, we’re not confiscating your snacks or drinks at any check points etc. (That said, our bars are wicked and stocked with a range of amazing, ethical, locally sourced tipples, so please do support them – as an independent event, they’re a key income stream!)
But that’s not the half of it…
We’re a Fully Independent Festival…
Shambala is one of the UK’s few remaining fully independent events. This means:
- We don’t have any corporate backing whatsoever (in fact, we’re still owned by the same group of mates that started it all, out of a record store in Birmingham, quarter of a century ago – you can read more about our history, here)
- More unusually, even for an independently owned event, we don’t have any brand sponsors. This means that you fine folk don’t have to put up with any tacky brand activations, data harvesting or any of that creepy nonsense. We firmly believe festivals should be an escape from normal life and it’s relentless marketing!
- We don’t have any beer or bar sponsors – which is great, because it means you get to drink decent, varied, ethical booze, rather than crappy corporate lager. Cheers. More on our bars here.
- Our complete independence also means we can be bold, political when needed, and back the causes we believe in.. which is nice.
Sustainability is in our DNA…
Shambala is well known as a pioneering, and award winning sustainable festival . Here’s just a little of what we’ve achieved – but you can dig into all of this in SO much more detail, right here:
- We’ve been meat & fish free since 2016 – yes, you can bring your own if you really can’t go without – but we don’t sell it.
- We’ve been 100% renewably powered for… as long as we can remember
- We’ve reduced our carbon footprint by about 90%
- We banned plastic bottles back in 2013
- We pioneered the reusable cup scheme at our bars, many years ago, which is now standard practice across the industry
- We operate a ‘bring a mug’ scheme, to avoid sending thousands of coffee cups to landfill each year
- About a third of our audience arrive on public transport (and save £50 on their entry tickets, for doing so!)
But never mind what we have to say about ourselves, here’s what our community think:
Feedback quotes from Shambala 2024:
“The BEST!! Blown away by the line up, the kindness of the crowd as always and the seamless organisation!”
“Shambala blows every other festival I’ve been to (in the last 29 years) out of the water!”
“It was the best festival I’ve ever been to!”
“A place of freedom, exploration and escapism like no other”
“I’ve never experienced such acceptance and love. This festival is built towards expanding our minds and letting love in… with a side of silly!”
“It is the only festival I don’t work at because I want to be enjoying it to the full the whole time. It’s like my Christmas!”
“A complete otherworldly getaway to see things never seen before. Fully and completely immersive and unmatched in vibes and dancing at every hour of the day.”
…And some lovely nuggets from the press
“A truly individual festival in a sea of mediocrity. Long may it reign.” – Telegraph
“Completely lacking in pretension and media hype” – International Orange
“Bundling together environmental and social justice with dodgeball, cocktails, fireworks and hedonistic freedom creates a kind of collective conscience that vibrates to a joyful degree. Basically, it’s the highest order of vibes” – Bristol 24/7
“A baby dressed as a Frenchman is held aloft to a crowd of sequinned revellers while it conducts a pink brass band with a toilet brush. Where else could this be but Shambala Festival?” – Northamptonshire Chronicle
“One of the golden few that have mastered the perfect combination of debauchery and pure loving wholesomeness” – TheFestivals
“Shambala is the best family festival in the world” – FestivalKidz
“Shambala might just be the best festival ever…” – ThatFestivalLife