Boomtown (also known as Boomtown Fair) is a five-day theatre and music festival held annually on the Matterley Estate in South Downs National Park, near Winchester in Hampshire, England. It was first held in 2009 and has been held at its current site since 2011. The event runs in the second week of August each year, and features a diverse lineup of live bands, electronic music DJs, speakers, and other performers across a wide range of genres.
Boomtown takes place on 1,250 acres of farmland, and consists of 8 districts of a fictional city, alongside camping, workshop, and activist areas. Each district has a distinct identity and is constructed with life-sized street sets, housing more than 50 hidden venues run by independent collectives and record labels, with some resembling typical amenities including a post office, hotel, and police station. The 12 large main stages are run by Boomtown, and several stages are situated within woodland, with permanent wooden staging, bars, and walkway structures. The large scale of the build and its infrastructure requires six weeks of construction, and a month of disassembly.
In addition to music, each edition of the festival features heavy immersive theatre elements, expanding on an overarching narrative through a large alternate reality game, and serving as social commentary. Attendees can interact with actors portraying citizens of the fictional city and obtain copies of the festival’s in-universe newspaper, The Daily Rag, which is published throughout the event. The storyline climaxes in the festival’s closing ceremony on Sunday night. Previous years have included themes of artificial intelligence, media manipulation, political corruption, and the environment.
History 2009-2016: Boomtown Begins Boomtown Fair was created when Rutherford and Mitchell, who had grown up in the festival and free party scenes, decided that music festivals lacked atmosphere, and that many genres were being overlooked. The first chapter, Boomtown Begins, took place from 7-9 August 2009 and was held at the Speech House Hotel in Coleford, Gloucestershire. It was a successor to their first festival held the previous year Recydrate The West, which was predominately a ska and cider festival.
In its second year, the festival moved to the Stowe Landscape Gardens in Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, before finally relocating in 2011 to the Matterley Estate in Winchester, where it has remained ever since.
Between 2012 and 2014, the Arcadia Spider featured as a main dance stage, before being replaced by the custom Banghai Palace in 2015. In 2015, the Lion's Den stage was moved to a large natural amphitheatre bowl to accommodate the largest crowds of any stage at the festival. The 2016 fair saw further expansion with Sector 6 across from Lion's Den in Temple Valley, introduced to even the spread of bass-heavy music across the site. The same year, a discarded cigarette caused a fire in a car park field, destroying more than 80 cars.
2017-2019: A Major Festival In the weeks leading up to the 2017 event, the construction of the city was hampered by bad weather, which contributed to delays at the gates, with some guests queuing for up to 10 hours to enter the site. The rest of the event proceeded without incident.
In 2018, organisers applied to increase the capacity of the festival to 80,000 but the application was rejected after concerns from locals around strain on the transport system. Instead, they were granted an increase to 60,000, and allowed to open a day early, providing attendees used sustainable transport methods - coaches, shuttle bus, or cars with more than three people. The same year, the festival saw its first major headliner, Gorillaz in a UK-exclusive show.
The 2019 fair introduced the new Area 404 district in place of Sector 6 providing a dedicated zone for techno and acid house music. The event was focused around the "Leave No Trace" mantra. Encouraging attendees to take their rubbish and camping equipment with them as they leave, and banning single-use plastics from all on-site merchants. As a result of this push, the festival saw a 50% reduction in tents and equipment left behind by attendees.
In 2019, the festival saw very high winds. The Relic main-stage stage was closed during a performance by Shy FX after a piece of debris from the stage was blown onto the crowd. All subsequent acts that day were moved to the Lion's Den stage. The Relic stage re-opened the next day. No injuries were reported.
COVID-19 Pandemic The 2020 event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following year, after an announcement from Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 25 February 2021 announcing the roadmap for the removal of restrictions in England, public confidence in the 2021 festival season increased. Following this news, many festivals in the UK saw a huge increase in ticket sales, with the organizers of the Reading and Leeds festivals stating they were 'very confident' the summer's events would go ahead. By Thursday 25 February, all remaining Boomtown tickets had sold out; 48,000 in total.
However, on 20 April 2021, Boomtown announced its cancellation for the second year in a row. Organisers cited the lack of a government insurance scheme to cover COVID-19-related risks for music festivals, stating that "for an independent event as large and complex as Boomtown, this means a huge gamble into an eight-figure sum to lose if we were to venture much further forward, and then not be able to go ahead due to COVID." The organisers planned to hold a smaller event known as Boom Village, but was cancelled due to safety concerns over rising numbers of new COVID-19 cases.
As a result of cancellations from the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival corporation's total equity had dropped from more than £2.1 million in October 2019 to just £151,879 in October 2021.
2022-present: Recovery and re-expansion The festival returned in 2022 with a reset chapter number and a vastly condensed layout, with 8 districts (reduced from 14) and 12 main stages (reduced from 25). The majority of entertainment was moved into the bowl, with the campsites onto the flat land surrounding. Two new flagship main stages were introduced, Origin as the main dance stage, and Grand Central as the main live music stage, with the previously-largest-main-stages not returning. The festival also adopted a lineup policy whereby most performers were announced only days before the event, this coincided with a drop of typical headliner bookings.
The 2022 fair took place during a period of extreme heat in the United Kingdom, with temperatures forecast to reach 38°C. The dry conditions made the site extremely dusty, and many attendees wore face coverings such as bandanas. The dust caused many attendees to develop a cough, which became colloquially known as 'boomlung'.
On 17 August 2022, co-founders Luke Mitchell and Christopher Rutherford confirmed that the festival, previously the largest wholly independent festival in the UK, had sold a 45% stake to a company jointly owned by Live Nation, Gaiety Investments and SJM Concerts, citing financial pressure following the pandemic. Trade press reported the split as 18% to Live Nation, 18% to Gaiety and 9% to SJM.
On 29 June 2023, for the 15th anniversary of the festival, Boomtown announced The Prodigy would be headlining the fair on Sunday, the first headline announcement since the change in policy. However, the Friday during the festival, the band cancelled all upcoming performances after vocalist Maxim suffered a back injury. The Prodigy was replaced by Chase and Status.
On 6 December 2024, Boomtown launched the 2025 event with a return to lineup announcements in advance, with a first-wave of artists, and announcing the first re-expansion outside of the bowl. The Old Town district moving to Hilltop, and the introduction of two new main dance stages: The Lions Gate (replacing Origin), and a new fully-hydrogen powered stage Hydro for techno and house music, a first for a major UK festival. The event also included the reintroduction of a single wellness and spiritual healing area Thrutopia, with speakers, traders, and workshops, and a large communal fire pit.
In April and May 2025 the ownership of Boomtown's parent company changed. UK Festival Holdings, a subsidiary of Live Nation (Music) UK, took over the 80% holding in LNGSJM Holdco, and on 15 May 2025 bought a further 5.1% of Circus of Boom directly from the founders. Two further directors were appointed to the Circus of Boom board the same day (see Ownership).
In June 2025, the festival was granted 1-year approval from the South Downs National Park Authority to expand capacity from 65,999 to 76,999, bringing capacity in line with their existing license from Winchester City Council. The plans included a planned reduction in crew from 17,999 to 12,999, citing efficiencies, and an increase in ticket-holders by 15,000.
On 1 October 2025, Boomtown launched Chapter 5: Radical Redesign, marking a return to the festival's larger, pre-pandemic footprint after four years largely condensed within the bowl. The redesign introduced several major changes, including the return of the Lion's Den stage, a 150% expansion of the hydrogen-powered Hydro XL stage into a new flagship stage, and the relocation of Grand Central to Hilltop. The festival also announced a shift in programming, moving away from a recent emphasis on bass-heavy genres towards a more diverse offering, and a greater number of live bands.
Chapter 5, titled Radical Redesign, took place from 12 to 16 August 2026. The festival returned to a larger site layout, with the reintroduction of the Lion's Den stage and the introduction of the expanded Hydro XL stage. The 2026 edition also featured a more diverse musical programme, with artists including Skrillex, Kneecap, Madness, Scissor Sisters, Faithless and Four Tet.
In April 2026, the South Downs planning authority unanimously approved the festival's continuation through to 2030. For the 2026 event, Boomtown announced a UK-first academic research hub integrated into a major music festival, to explore social interaction and the impact of shared cultural events.
Layout
The 1,250 acre greenfield festival site is split into a few main areas:
the Downtown area contained within Cheesefoot Head; the Temple Valley valley which splits the site diagonally; and the Hilltop area which extends across the crest of the hill that is the mid-ground between these two areas – it is also the geographical centre of the site.
The main entertainment is contained within the Downtown and Hilltop areas with attendees taking either Hippie Highway (a large, steep hill) or The Stairs (a temporary staircase structure) to travel between the two.
Each of the 8 districts has a distinct identity, with unique set design and music genres on show. Each district has at least one main stage, alongside small and medium size venues integrated into the street sets. The festival contains 12 main stages and 50 additional hidden venues.
The largest main stages (Lion's Den, Hydro XL, and Grand Central) differ from the others as they are designed to accommodate crowds in the tens of thousands, with vast stage sets at the centre with bars, toilets, and accessible viewing platforms around the area.
A number of stages feature within the natural features of the sites. The 'forest party' stages are set within the woods under tree canopies, with sand flooring and large permanent wooden structures. The Lions Den stage is also set within a large natural amphitheatre.
Almost all of the site accessible to the public that is not part of the entertainment area is used for camping, with no barriers or further security between camping areas and stages.