A huge thanks to everybody who filled out our Big Debate Survey, after Shambala 2024. Your feedback enables us to improve year on year, and give you more of what you want – it’s your party after all!
Without further ado… here’s what you thought!
So many of you said Shambala 2025 was the ‘BEST EVER!’
High praise indeed, considering just how many of you have been with us for decades!
“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.”
Hello to old friends, and new faces!
This year, a whopping 36% of you had been to Shambala at least 5 times before – but nearly 30% of you joined us for the first time!
“Some youngsters round the fire said it was their first Shambala and asked how long we have been coming, it’s our 13th I think! They then asked ‘does it ever get old’ and it made me well up because, no, it never gets old!”
“It was my first festival ever and honestly it was a 15 out of 10 – my expectations got exceeded by a long way with all the attention to detail and all the amazing activities throughout the day.”
“This was my 5th Shambala and honestly nothing compares to it, my boyfriend and his friends are also hooked now!”
“Had heard very positive things so wanted to see what it was all about. My expectations were absolutely blown away.”
What Keeps You Coming Back: The ‘vibe’, our independence & our sustainable credentials!
As ever, the thing you lot value most of all (by a long shot!) is ‘The sense of community, friendly vibe and atmosphere.’
We couldn’t agree more! So thank YOU, for bringing the vibes – we know just how lucky we are, to have such an incredible community of cheerful oddballs, that treat each other with such kindness.
“I can go to any festival for the music but I go to Shambala because of the culture it has curated and the type of people it attracts.”
“It’s just such an incredible bubble. I’ve been telling all my friends about it for years because I haven’t been to a similar festival anywhere in the world. The amount of kindness and goodness is wonderful.”
“You create a space for everyone to feel welcome, and I come away from every weekend feeling replenished, rejuvenated and inspired. How do you attract the most sparkly, soulful and inspiring people every year?! It just gets better and better!”
“The community, the like minded people and the cleanliness and care for environment keep me coming back. I’ve done many festivals over the years and have never found one with the same vibe as Shambala.”
A lot of love for Shambala’s independence…
We know we bang on about this a lot – but independent festivals are an increasingly rare breed (especially those that not only have no corporate ownership, but also have no brand sponsors or commercial partnerships), so it really does mean an awful lot to read that you both notice this, and value it!
“There is no other festival I know of that is so authentic and non-commercialised – PLEASE NEVER CHANGE!”
“The independence! It’s so nice walking around and not seeing brands and being forced to drink rubbish beers and ciders because that’s all that’s on offer.”
“A weekend of freedom from corporate bullsh*ttery and knowing I’m with other freedom lovers who appreciate the same.”
Sustainability
Sustainability is baked into Shambala’s DNA – we don’t cut corners on this – and it’s wonderful to hear this is noticed and valued by you lovely people.
“The focus on being environmentally friendly is the main reason we chose Shambala Festival over others this year, and I was so impressed.”
“Love the cleanliness of the site and the vibe of everyone onsite who works to keep it that way. I saw so many people picking up the odd bit of litter that was dropped.”
“So impressed how clean and tidy everything was and no plastic waste or litter around the site.”
HOWEVER – we will say that for the first time in several years, A TENT WAS LEFT BEHIND. Just the one, but still. FOR SHAME.
Our 2024 musical line up…
HUGE props to the mighty Bob Vylan, who you lot voted your favourite act of the festival. (SLAY!)
Special mentions must also go to Moonchild Sanelly, and HENGE, who got a LOT of love.
“Seeing Bob Vylan bring Bee on stage and her absolutely smashing the set, with Bob giving her the best space to do so – was really special.”
“Bob Vylan absolutely killed it!”
“Bob Vylan were on fire!!”
“I loved discovering some amazing music such as Moonchild Sanelly who put on an amazing performance!”
“I think Moonchild reflected everything I love about Shambala – she was cute, original and also fierce!”
“HENGE obliterated our minds.”
“Absolutely loved HENGE, they fit so perfectly with Shambala.”
Our music bookers work very hard to give you a line of artists that you might not find elsewhere.
We try and prioritise platforming emerging artists, with a sprinkling of wicked, heritage acts. We’ve never been about the huge mainstream names and we love that so many of you appreciate this.
“I love that the music isn’t so commercial, so you can get to know new music and genres.”
“Amazing – best year for music so far!”
“Really fun acts love the majority of acts being kinda unknown was really cool.”
“THE MUSIC WAS INCREDIBLE THIS YEAR – I love that the headliners are never too well known as it keeps the crowd amazing.”
”I really enjoyed the fact that I didn’t know them so was exposed to new music. I liked that it was less mainstream music than other festivals.”
“Loved the inclusion of more house/techno. Felt like the late night offering was more diverse this year which was great we don’t all love dnb!”
“I really appreciated the Palestinian artists being there! “
That said, we have clocked some of you asking for one or two more bigger hitters or well known names – we’ll see what we can do!
“Would love one or two slightly bigger names.”
“My kids are getting to the age where they’d like to see a few more acts they know.”
“I think it might be worth having one more mainstream tent with mainstream acts.”
We asked what sort of music you wanted more or less of…
…as usual, the answers were amusingly polarised...
“PLEASE less drum and bass – and more punk/rock!”
“Could do with less heavy rock and punk. Where was all the drum and bass!?”
“All sorts. More techno and less house at night would be welcome though!”
“MORE HOUSE MUSIC!!!”
It was quite hard to pick up any trends, as answers were all so varied – but Ska and Jazz did come up pretty regularly…
2024’s best venue was… SOLASTA!
We are absolutely DELIGHTED to see our brand new second stage, SOLASTA, blast into first place when we asked you to vote for your favourite venue – no mean feat, considering The Enchanted Woods win this every bloody year.
“What an insanely beautiful stage. It brings a new beating heart to the festival site. It was a frequent meeting place and the headliners were all amazing. At no other festival have I seen a stage stay so buzzing all evening with amazing music which hypes up the acts.”
“It looked beautiful, sounded great, and my fave moments were all in that big, gorgeous tent!”
“I was nervous about the venue changes but Solasta was gorgeous! Covered, open, big and really beautiful.”
“Frickin’ laser beams!!”
“Loved the openness of it, great energy and decor – a totally brilliant addition to the festival.“
Special mention to The Enchanted Woods though, who came in strong, in second place.
“WOW – the artwork in the Enchanted Woods! I lost count of the number of people I talked to who said they’d never been to anywhere as magical as Shambala and the Enchanted Woodland was a primary factor.”
“Just absolutely gorgeous – both the art installations and the tree house music stage. Genuinely felt like I was in a separate festival. Gorgeous, huge, fun and interesting!”
“The Woods are just beautiful! You manage to change it up each year & we’re just so fascinated by it!”
We asked if you felt anything was missing from our content…
By far the most popular response was for more comedy – as well as calls for a ‘late night’ cosy snuggle space… leave it with us!
‘Flamboyant Friday’ was a serious hit…
This year we introduced ‘Flamboyant Friday’ – a day where everyone was encouraged to dress to the nines, in one colour (which you voted for). You lot did NOT disappoint, turning the whole of Shambala bright pink – and (almost*) all of you bloomin’ loved it..
“SO GOOD! So simple, meaning everyone was able to participate with very little effort. I loved looking around and feeling that we were all part of something.”
“I actually had a little cry at how gorgeous people playing together was on pink day!”
“The colour theme on Friday! I LOVED that – the sense of community and individuality of so many people dressing in their own way in a shared colour.”
“…turning around on Friday afternoon to see a sea of pink across the festival was incredible. A brilliant addition.”
“I thought the turn out on the pink day was emblematic of just how much comradery and team spirit there is at Shambala”
“Everyone wearing pink on Friday. Brilliant. Let’s continue the colour themed Fridays. It worked so well!”
(…we did say *almost all of you…!)
“I really hated the costume themes and people wearing the same colour clothes.”
Our 2024 non-musical line up…
Shambolympics take the gold as your top non-musical activity!
This year, you lot named Shambolympics as your top activity! Big shout out to The Village Circus crew for smashing it out of the park year after year.
“Shambolympics of course -pure unadulterated silliness.”
“So funny and weird.”
“The most entertainment you can have sat down.”
“Shambolympics is worth the ticket price alone. So much silliness. It embodies the spirit of Shambala.”
The Closing Ceremony came a close second…
This year, some pesky high winds meant our usual Sunday Closing Ceremony had to be hastily rebranded as a Saturday night ‘Half Time Show’ – and blimey, it did not disappoint! We have been blown away by the incredible feedback on the drone display, fireworks and soundtrack.
The majority of you seem to adore the firework display – but there are some amongst you who aren’t fans of the big whizz-bangs – perhaps this is something we’ll put to a public vote in the near future…
“Bloody outstanding! Never seen anything like it.”
“Beautifully done – best closing ceremony I’ve seen at Shambala to date.”
“AMAZING! I cried. I cried re watching it. I cried thinking about it. I am pre-menstrual to be fair but it was still amazing.”
“It was phenomenal. One of the best ones yet and I didn’t think that was possible. I’ve been to over 10 Shambala’s!”
“It was amazing – the best firework display I’ve ever seen. When the words “Shambala” came out – I couldn’t believe it! Simply incredible.”
“WOAH! Honestly, I’ve never experienced a visual spectacle like that. I was speechless for about half an hour. I whooped, I laughed, I cried!”
It’s a family affair!
A particularly wicked year for families, with a whopping 95% of parents reporting there was more than enough for their kids to do this year.
A further 97% felt that families are well catered for at Shambala.
93% of families reported sleeping well without being disturbed by noise from the arena which is a GREAT statistic, *our apologies to the 7% who were kept up though!*
One thing that makes our hearts sing, is how many of you that DON’T have kids, made a point of letting us know how much you love having families around!
“We came for the first time this year with our kids aged 4 and 2.. It was a magical weekend for our children and special time for us to spend with them in absolute joy, community spirit, incredible activities and beautiful setting!”
“Honestly you knocked it out of the park with the family offering – just high quality and thought out and gorgeous. Gold stars all round!”
“I don’t have kids, or plan on having them but I genuinely think being a child-friendly fest is what makes Shambala extra special and kind.”
The Shambala App & Printed Programme
The Shambala App!
A whopping 93% of you used the Shambala phone app this year – which is a bloomin’ brilliant statistic – and over 85% of you rated the app as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. Lush.
The Printed Programme...
Those of you who purchased a printed programme rated it very highly, and the majority of you would like to still see a printed option offered alongside the phone app – either because it’s a lush souvenir to keep, or because you prefer the festival to be a screen-free escape – we hear you!
We have seen quite a few of you asking if the programme could be made a little smaller, so you can carry it around in your pocket. It’s a good shout and we’ll make this happen for you in 2025.
Value for Money & Ticket Prices…
Let’s talk ticket prices: Time for a little transparency – the cost of festival production is continuing to spiral, and it’s becoming harder and harder to make complex, highly creative and fully independent events like Shambala stack up.
We know there are cheaper events out there. We know we don’t book huge A-list acts that you might get at the big boy corporate festivals. But we hope that you know that what we do doesn’t come cheap.
Hundreds of bands and DJs, 40-odd venues, zero brand sponsors, tacky brand activations or corporate overlords, no bans on bringing-your-own-booze into the main arena, entertainment running til 5am, 99% of workshops and activities included in your ticket price, and all the little things you don’t get at many festivals, like free showers in every campsite, pints under £6 and zero corners cut in the name of sustainability.
With this in mind, we hope you can see done everything we can, this year, to keep things as affordable as possible, for you, our amazing community. We reckon it’s pretty good value, compared to an evening with Liam and Noel, or Taylor…
Monthly Instalment Plans: Ask and ye shall recieve!
Ticket buying behaviour is changing, with more and more people leaving it quite late to buy tickets. Unsurprisingly, this isn’t great for event organisers! We asked you what we could do, to encourage you lot to book earlier – and one suggestion came up over, and over, and over again – monthly instalment plans.
So, every adult ticket at every tier, is now available as a Monthly Instalment Plan – allowing you to secure your tickets for between £20-30+booking fee, and pay off the rest in monthly chunks. You have into midnight on November 6th to book onto a monthly instalment plan so don’t hang about – secure your spot HERE!
Price Drops & Freezes…
We have also dropped the cost of all our Sustainable Travel Options by £50 at each tier, introduced a new discounted Young Adult Ticket type (for 18-25 year olds) -which were snapped up super swiftly! – and enacted a price freeze on all other adult ticket types – we hope this helps!
On-Site Services
Compost Loos!
Not the most glamorous of topics admittedly, but 2024 was a good year for toilets(!) with 45% of you rating them ‘excellent’ and 40% rating them ‘good’.
“There is always clean toilets with reams of toilet paper and hand gel!”
“Toilets were incredible this year, well done all involved. Generally just the best run festival in terms of services and facilities, of any I’ve been to.”
However, some of the toilets did not have working lights in, which is absolutely a pain when it’s dark and you’re trying to wiggle out of a costume or catsuit! Rest assured, we will ensure all our loos are well lit in 2025 and beyond!
& SO much love for Peequal’s Squatting Urinals!
“The squatting toilets are such a big win!!! Made a huge difference to my festival experience not having to queue for ages simply because I’m female and stops people weeing everywhere.”
“Not seen squatting urinals at any other festival and they are the best innovation ever!”
Free hot showers!
Shambala is very unusual in that we have hot showers across the site, which are totally free to use. Unlike most festivals, we don’t charge you to keep yourself clean.
However, at peak times, there will be queues – which some of you found frustrating – we get it, but in all honesty, it’s not financially viable for us to add heaps more showers – but, top tip, shower late at night!
The vast majority of you that did use the showers rated them excellent – which is great!
Water points!
These were also rated really highly – but we’ve heard your calls for more pallets around the water points, to stop things getting swampy, and for better, high-up signage, so you can spot all the water points. On it!
Bars & Booze!
Our bars were super highly related across the board – from the variety of drinks on offer, to the service from our bar staff and the affordability of the drinks.
A small minority of you felt the pints were too expensive – we do understand that – but please note we work super hard to keep the prices of our pints at £5.90 and beneath the £6 mark (which, in our hometown of Bristol, is pretty standard even in a ‘regular’ pub that hasn’t been transported to the middle of a field!). We do know that our bar prices are very competitive compared to many other festivals, where you can often pay more than £6 for a 330ml tinnie, rather than a full pint.
You all seem to really appreciate the fact that, at Shambala, there is no arena system, so you can bring your own food and drink along with you to watch the acts. We couldn’t agree more – but a little reminder to please support the bars as much as you can – as an independent event, they are a key income stream!
Last year, you asked for more gluten free beers, and no-alcohol beers – and we were pleased to see such lovely feedback on this, in 2024.
Capacity & Queues
Always a hot topic! This year, 62% of you thought we’d got capacity just right this year. A further 16% of you felt it would be okay with a few more people – but for the record, we aren’t growing – we like it as is.
“It’s the perfect size- very manageable.”
“I loved the new layout and venues – I think it really helped with the queueing issues there seemed to be the previous year – things felt more spread out.”
“Small but perfectly formed – you can pop back to the tent if you forget something, but not feel crowded.”
There were very few gripes about queues at all this year – which is ACE. However, there are a couple of venues that are becoming more and more popular year on year, and would benefit from a better queuing system, to ensure you don’t get all the way to the front, to find you’re not getting in – in particular, Windy Van Hootens Circus and The Puppet Parlour. We have some plans afoot to fix this for you.
The Sensory Space
We love and value the fact that the Shambala audience (…and our crew!) are significantly more neuro-spicy than the UK population at large – hence us introducing dedicated Sensory Spaces this year – we’re pleased to report these were really well received.
“Shout out for the sensory space that my daughter needed to use one evening, incredible space run by helpful, supportive crew.”
“The sensory room really helped me when I was having a bad time briefly and needed a safe space to calm down and regroup. Thanks so much to the staff who looked after me and made me feel safe without judgement when I was scared and overwhelmed.”
Food, Glorious Food!
As usual, nearly 75% of you wish to keep Shambala both meat and fish free. The remaining 25% are pretty split between those of you who want to bring back meat and fish, and those of you who want to go fully vegan.
85% of you reported not missing meat or fish at all, this year.
With that in mind, we’ll be sticking with meat and fish free, in 2025.
“I loved it all – I’m not veggie or vegan, and wondered how it would feel being meat free, but honestly, didn’t miss it and easily some of the best festival food I’ve eaten.”
“I think Shambala has the best food, compared to other festivals.”
“The best food at any festival I go to. I don’t even bring fridge raiders anymore to tide me over.”
Your Favourite Trader: Dosa Deli
Our food traders were very highly related across the board, for variety, affordability, quality of food and choice for dietary needs. Nice one.
For seemingly the billionth year in a row, you lot named Dosa Deli your favourite trader – there’s a LOT of love for those ginormous golden dosas and their big-as-your-head bhajis.
Special mentions must also go to The Big Arancini, the Mac & Cheese stands and Ceylon and Beyond too!
Improving our food offering…
We’ve seen quite a few requests for the humble jacket potato – leave that with us – as well as more kid-friendly basics!
You’d also like to see more gluten-free options, and would like the £7 affordable meal options to be better communicated – and in some cases, for these portions to be bigger – we’ve passed this on to our Traders team, as a key improvement for 2025.
Sustainable Travel Options
Shout out to the thousands of you that travelled to Shambala by coach, train or bike tour, as part of our discounted sustainable travel options.
(Whilst we’re on the topic – remember – we’ve slashed the prices of our Sustainable Travel Options for 2025, meaning they’re £50 cheaper than general entry at every tier – bag one here, while you can!)
So, how was your experience of our Sustainable Travel Options in 2024?
Coach Traveller feedback
A lot of love for our coach offering overall – with repeated comments about how lovely the staff were and how quick and easy the journey to the festival was in particular.
“Really easy, well organised, left on time, easiest way to get to Shambala and you get pick of the campsites!”
“The coach was great! I like that there were no stops on the way there, so we arrived at a good time and had the whole afternoon and could grab a fab camping spot!”
“Coach was fun and easy. Got picked up in Sheffield and the staff and vibes were great”
“The coach was really easy, queued for about 15 mins and the people sorting tickets were friendly, no issues, one of my best festival coach experiences.”
However, there’s room for improvement on the journey home, with some of you waiting too long for your coaches back. Apologies to those affected – rest assured this is a total priority for us in 2025 – it will not happen again!
“Loved the ease of travelling by coach and was perfect on the way up but delayed on the way back so arrived home later than expected. Not a big deal at all, just my only slight issue with it!”
“It was good on the way there! But on the way back we were an hour delayed waiting for other coaches to clear first.”
“All good, apart from slightly chaotic return.”
Rail Traveller feedback
2024 was our second year of running rail-and-shuttle-bus options, in an attempt to tempt more of you to ditch the cars and travel more sustainably. These options have proven super popular, and got lots of lovely feedback this year.
“Really good experience. The shuttle was really well run, the Shambala team managed it really well despite the chaos of lots of camping gear etc. Would travel this way again.”
“Train travel is always easy from Sheffield, and the shuttle bus picked us up as soon as we came off the train. No complaints!”
“SO EASY! Will be doing this again next year.”
The only issue some of you had, was queues for the shuttle bus at the train stations, at some busy peak times on the Thursday – leave it with us!
“Had to wait for over an hour for the shuttle bus. The people behind us had to wait longer. The return travel was quick and efficient though!”
Red Fox Cyclist feedback
Those of you who get the Red Fox cycling tours are adamant there is no better way to get to Shambala. This year, guided bike rides will run from Bristol and London, so if you’ve been considering giving it a go, let this be a sign!
“The Red Fox trip was absolutely amazing as always.”
“Red fox cycle was an absolute highlight, can’t recommend it enough!”
Also.. can we just take a moment to celebrate this incredible human?!
“I booked the cycle tour because I needed to learn how to ride a bike. Because of Shambala, I learned to ride a bike at 36!”
A huge thanks to everybody who came along and joined the fun in Shambala 2024 – it was without doubt one of the most special years in memory, for us as organisers. Absolutely the dose of escapism, joy and silliness we needed, to remind us why we continue to do what we do, in this increasingly ridiculous industry and climate! Shambala forever.
We love you and we’ll see you next year. x