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It’s been a fixture of summer in Peckham Rye for years, but now independent electronic music festival GALA wants level up. It’s been revealed that the event has plans to get even bigger next year.
For its 11th edition, GALA has submitted an application to Southwark Council to run on not one but two weekends in May 2026. In a consultation document, the organisers said the first three days over bank holiday May 22-24 will follow ‘exactly the same format’ as previous years, using multiple stages to hosts DJs and musicians and food stalls across the site and catering up to, very specifically, 9,999 guests.
Like last year, GALA will also run a free ‘On The Rye’ festival for the community on Monday, May 25, as a thank you for letting them use the park. There will be activities for kids including face painting and bouncy castles. In 2025, around 2,300 children went to the event.
But in 2026 the organisers want to run another weekend of events, bringing the total to seven days. They’re hoping to run an Afrobeats Festival on Friday May 29, a Mahrajan day celebrating the full spectrum of Arab music – the ‘first of its kind’ – including up and coming artists the following day. On the last day, Sunday, a ‘concert show’ will be held. These events will be on a slightly smaller site that can host 8,000 people but still finish at the same time of 10:30pm.
Details on programming for these new events haven’t been released yet, but GALA said it will reveal more to the community during virtual engagement sessions happening next week.
Maps show that on the second weekend the site will be tweaked slightly. There will be fewer food stalls and the iconic dome stages and sunflower sound system stage will be dismantled, among other changes.
RECOMMENDED: The best music festivals in London.
Last year, some residents weren’t happy with their local park being used for a music festival. In an official consultation, 82 people said they didn’t want the festival to go ahead, while 20 residents said the opposite. A petition to stop the event from going ahead was launched by a resident living near the park, but the license was granted and GALA 2025 was headlined by Floating Points, Caribou and Avalon Emerson.
Acts for the first weekend of GALA have already been released. Job Jobse, Verraco and Peach will take to the stage to get Londoners dancing. There will also be a legendary house B2B2B with returning friends of the festival Palms Trax, Hunee and Antal.
You can join the community engagement sessions on Wednesday, November 19, on Teams at 12pm to hear from the event organisers about their plans. Find out more on the consultation site here.
GALA 2026 lineup
At the end of October GALA revealed that it would be returning for 2026 with, as always, a stellar dance music lineup. Confirmed so far for next year’s edition are (in alphabetical order):
- Antal
- Bakey
- Beatrice M.
- Benji B & Judah
- Call Super
- CC:DISCO!
- Chaos In The CBD
- Christian AB
- Conducta
- dj sweet6teen
- George Daniel
- HUNEE
- Job Jobse
- Lil Louis
- Mala
- Mia Koden
- Moxie
- Or:la
- Palms Trax
- Paranoid London (live)
- Peach
- Prosumer
- Steffi x Virginia (live)
- System Olympia
- Tasha
- Tikiman & Richard Akingbehin
- Todd Edwards
- Verraco
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