From iconic camping festivals to city-wide showcases and huge day parties, here are the best UK music festivals for 2025
Summer 2025 is finally here. And with the warmer weather and longer days comes the jewel in summer’s crown: the much-anticipated British festival season. It’s a months-long affair, not least because the lead-up to a big festival can be just as exciting as the event itself: the group chat assembled months before, the line-up drop, the outfit planning, the last-minute supermarket dash for cereal bars, baby wipes and tinnies of beer. It really never gets old.
These days, festival season proper starts as early as April and extends all the way to the end of September and into October, with events happening all over the country. The choice is pretty overwhelming: you can pitch up at a boutique camping weekender where you can sweat out your hangover in a wood-fired sauna, go hardcore at one of the scene staples like Glastonbury or Reading and Leeds, try a dance music marathon at Field Maneuvers, Gottwood or Houghton, or cop a ticket to one of the many, many day festivals and align your trip with a city break.
To make the choice even harder, there are new events happening this year, too – such as Lido in London’s Victoria Park with headliners Charli XCX, Jamie XX, London Grammar and Massive Attack. But if you’re still deciding what is worth spending your hard-earned cash (and precious holiday days) on, one word of advice: you should probably decide soon. Festivals sell out fast, and due to tiered pricing, you’re much more likely to pay more for your ticket closer to the event date.
To help you decide, Time Out has compiled a very-extensive guide to the best UK music festivals for 2025. We know the UK festival scene inside-out, so you’re in safe hands. Check out the events below, in chronological order – and don’t forget to check back, as we’ll be updating this page with more events as they’re announced.
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There’s some great stuff coming out of Sheffield’s underground at the moment, and this is summed up by the annual boutique affair that is No Bounds. Fusing music with art, technology, audiovisual entertainment and dance, performances take place in a variety of interesting spaces, linking the city’s industrial past with its creative present.
Big names: TBC.
Required apparel: All black everything.
Don’t say: ‘Algorave is for nerds.’
Sheffield, various venues. October 10-12.
Big names: Dry Cleaning, These New Puritans, The Orielles.
Required apparel: Oversized coat and optimistic sunnies.
Don’t say: ‘Do folk even listen to bands these days?’
Bristol Beacon, various venues. November 8
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