Preview: BoomTown Fair Returns

All the fun of the fair...

Over the past eight years BoomTown Fair has been stretching its eccentric tentacles into increasingly ambitious forms. Festival season is now a UK summer mainstay and our options for picking a four day weekend away have evolved so dramatically, the line-up alone rarely sways our final choice. The site, its decorations, hand-picked food vendors, the beers on tap, the traders, what was once on the periphery is now an integral part of each festival’s identity and if there’s one festival that’s managed to carve an identity like no other, it’s BoomTown Fair.

Sprawled across Winchester’s Matterly Bowl, BoomTown’s pop-up dystopian fantasy playground pushes immersive festival culture to the next level. Stages are connected by makeshift town paths, crumbling shop windows displaying mutant goods, sprayed with anarchic, beautiful graffiti works calling for unity and condemning corporate greed.

Split into nine themed districts, each repping their own sub-culture’s sound and vision, the UK’s fastest ever growing festival is set to welcome 50,000 revellers on site this year from August 11-16th 2016, setting up Chapter 8 as BoomTown Fair’s biggest and most ambitious production yet.

Headliners Damian ‘Jr Gong’ Marley, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Parov Stelar, Madness, Leftfield and Fun Lovin’ Criminals top a bill of over 500 artists performing across over 100 stages, from the UK’s largest reggae stage The Lion’s Den, to the Psychedelic Forest, the suspended (actual) pirate ship The Jolly Dodger, dedicated gabba, jungletek, raggatek den the Scrapyard, plus new house and techno venue for 2016, Vamos – which will see sets from MJ Cole, Jackmaster, Skream, B-Traits and Chicago house legend Derrick Carter.

Spanning ska, folk, bluegrass, punk, reggae, world, disco, electro-swing, hardcore, hip-hop, jungle, house, techno, grime and more, further highlights include the intricate, genre-pushing folk of Lau, Foreign Beggars, Pharaohe Monch (Live), JFB and Reeps One – all playing the festival’s bass heavy Latin quarter, Barrio Loco. Plus dedicated Garage, Grime and Dubstep district Sector 6, with Om Unit, DJ Zinc, Newham Generals and a Deep Medi Takeover.

Take a look at the official 2016 trailer below:

Words: Kim Hillyard

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