Boomtown 2026: 77,000 people, one very different festival

Boomtown went big on the reset button this year.

The Hampshire festival brought 77,000 people to Matterley Estate for its 17th edition, tearing up its usual layout for Chapter Five: Radical Redesign — and bringing back one of its most missed stages in the process.

The Lion’s Den returned to Temple Valley for the first time in a decade, while a new 20,000-capacity electronic stage, HYDRO XL, became the centrepiece of the festival’s push towards alternative energy.

And then there was Skrillex.

Closing HYDRO XL on Sunday night, the US producer brought out Flowdan before surprising the crowd with Chase & Status. The three joined forces live for the first time, debuting unreleased material and giving the festival one of its biggest moments of the weekend.

Elsewhere, Boomtown leaned hard into the anything-goes spirit of its line-up. Madness opened the revived Lion’s Den, followed by sets from Kneecap, Shaggy, Scooter, Faithless, Vengaboys and Eve. Over at Grand Central, Kae Tempest, Sampa The Great, Princess Nokia, Ashnikko, Peaches, Skindred and others kept things moving between hip hop, punk, electronic music and alternative sounds.

It wasn't just about the music, either.

HYDRO XL was powered entirely by green hydrogen fuel-cell technology, with the festival presenting the stage as a working test of how large-scale events could rethink their energy use. Elsewhere, the Repairium gave festival-goers the chance to fix camping gear and clothing rather than bin it.

Boomtown also turned itself into something of a research project.

The Observatory brought researchers into the festival to study everything from belonging and collective behaviour to creativity and people's relationship with the environment. Meanwhile, the Changemaker Cards experiment tracked acts of kindness as they passed between strangers around the site.

The festival's enormous storyline was running alongside all of this. Across six districts, performers and characters pulled festival-goers into a fictional battle involving the mysterious BBXL™ and its plan to leave Earth behind for Mars.

Naturally, Boomtown ended with a rocket.

A closing drone show saw BBXL™ launch its space programme above HYDRO XL, bringing Radical Redesign to a suitably ridiculous conclusion — while setting up whatever comes next.

That next chapter is already confirmed: Boomtown returns to Matterley Estate from 11–15 August 2027 for Chapter Six: Wild Style.

After rebuilding the city this year, the question now is what Boomtown does with it.