The Secret Garden Party 2016

A crazy festival party where everyone joins in and brimming with ideas and creativity that takes place at Mill Hill Field, at Huntingdon, in Cambridgeshire.

This is a festival without sponsorship and offers an eclectic musical mix. The dates are confirmed as Thursday 21st to Sunday 24th July 2016.

Set in a 220 acre landscaped garden, bordering a river and lake, The Secret Garden is a garden-party-gone-crazy. As well as music there's loads of activities for kids and adults alike, and it is more of a party experience. The festival has been granted a permanent licence with a capacity of up to 32,000 for each of the four days.

Line-up

Headliners Air, Caribou, and Maribou State, plus Lissie, Maribou State, Rae Morris, Milky Chance, Shura, The Temper Trap, Submotion Orchestra, Band Of Skulls, Andreya Triana, Field Music, Izzy Bizu, La Femme, Hot Since 82, Teleman, Money, Dua Lipa, Billie Marten, Beardyman, Rosie Lowe, Little Comets, Jackmaster, Bicep, Haelos, Swim Deep, Midland, David Rodigan, The Japanese House, NZCA/Lines, Meilyr Jones, Barns Courtney, Hot 8 Brass Band, The Skints, Slutface, Louis Berry, Shannon Saunders, Postaal, Starling, Love Ssega, Seramic, Amber Arcades, Babeheaven, Beans on Toast, The Age Of L.U.N.A, Pleasure Beach, The Wholls, exmagician, Strong Asian Mothers, Man & The Echo, Lail Arad, Haus, Earl Kioko, Broadway Sounds, Zuri Aura, All The People, The Defekters, Earl Okin, The Meow Meows, Jamie Joseph, Aisha Badru, Petite Meller, C Duncan, Rationale, SG Lewis, Stealing Sheep, Formation, Zibra, Pure Bathing Culture, Oscar, Weaves, and Kudu Blue.

DJs includes The Martinez Brothers, Hot Since 82, Jackmaster, Waze & Odyssey, Super Flu, Eagles & Butterflies, Jon Sa Trinxa, Bicep, Paranoid London, Midland, Citizenn, Ejeca, B.Traits, Jasper James, Huxley, Waifs and Strays, Edu Imbernon, Mark Jenkyns, Felix Dickinson, Eddy Temple Morris, Denney, Mystery Jets (DJ Set), Children of The Dust, Be Svendsen, Olaf Stuut, Mojo Filter, Mr Price, Slim Howl, Cousn, Wild Sirenda, and Shapes DJs, plus you can expect an appearance from The Head Gardener.

Latest additions Molotov Jukebox, Clean Cut Kid, Sundara Karma, Secret Company, KLOE, Mt. Wolf, Nimmo, Blondage, Kioko, Stony Browder Jr, and Belle Roscoe.

Completing the DJ line-up are Stanton Warriors, DJ Marky, Roni Size & DJ Krust ft Dynamite MC, DJ Hype, Ben Pearce, DJ Tennis, Maxxi Soundsystem, Jasper James, Laura Jones, Taxman, Delta Heavy, Craig Richards, Ruede Hagelstein, Pedestrian, JFB, Loadstar, Jonas Rathsman, Hito, Sam Binga, The Heatwave, Faraway, Fleetmac Wood, Moose Funk Squad, Luke Solomon, Jodie Harsh, Lewis Boardman, Lancelot, Robert James, Tyke, Futureboogie, Cooper Saver, Throwing Snow, Krywald & Farrer, Urulu, Mr Beatnick, Itchy & Skratchy, Tristan Da Cunha, The Menendez Brothers, Slamboree, Wax Wings, 2 Bad Mice, Man Power, Kasra V, Sage Caswell, Fat Tony, Sobad, Banofee Pies, Polynation, Tim Fanucci, Itchy Rich, Pedram, Frank Co., KB & Airayd, Dagger, Carasel, Bobby Pleasure, D Product, Frank Tope, Steve Huerta, Hilit Kolet, Maze & Masters, Nicolas Fischer, Oliver Keens, Andy Lemay, Jen Ferrer, Jim Warboy, T-Sex, Vellum, Juan Thyme, Clam Jam, Karousel, Love U & I, Michael Palmer, Sophie Lloyd, Ted Rogers, James Phillips, Jerk, Mixology DJs, Space Station, Zen Zero, Johnny Rock, Charley McFarley, Gill Dalton & Brydie, Duncan Hatterman, Olly Mundy & Ashley Wild, and For Better or Worse.

As well as 15 live music stages & 6 DJ stages Gardeners can expect Vogon poetry readings & spoken word, robo copout,  cosmic knitting, mutation station, art constellations, cosmonaut displays, astronaut training, mermaid school, guerilla science, virtual reality, paint fights, floating dance floors, laser wars, regression sessions space safari, 24 hour pub, 24-hour woodland parties, boating lake & bathing, sanctuary & hot tubs, massage area, live theatre & comedy, exotic life drawing, the get high high jump, organic food stalls, the forum, camp fire tales from the outer limits, mud wrestling, dance-offs, kids’ area, fine dining, little gay brother bar, and science meets fiction.

Tickets

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Tickets sell out each year and expect this year to be no exception.  Tickets are priced at £180. A teen ticket is priced at £135, children aged under 12 years can attend for free, a campervan pass is priced at £60, and dog passes (limited numbers) were also available. Prices do not include booking fees.

Litter Bonds

To improve and motivate the litter clear-up each and every ticket for the party this year will have £10 automatically added (excluding under 12’s). Everyone will be given a Litter Bond in addition to the normal festival wristband, plus TWO bin bags. The £10 will be redeemed when gardeners hand in their full bin bags, which can be given to members of the litter crew in the campsite hubs.

Theme

This year's theme has been announced as The Gardeners Guide To The Galaxy.

The number one rule is any idea must facilitate participation. To ensure that this principle is upheld, Secret Garden Party gives over half of all programming money back to the gardeners, in the form of arts and expression grants.

Other activities

As well as music there's loads of activities for kids and adults alike, and this event is more of a party experience Parades, Art tents, Walkabout Theatre & Theatre workshops, Big Wheel Rides, Boat Rides, Swimming, Treasure Hunts, Bands in trees, open mic stages and as always, participatory games of all descriptions.

The festival offers restaurants, food talks, cocktail bars, ale tents, massages, kids area, barefoot discos and twilight fire circle tales.

On site

The festival is spread out over two sides of a lake with a large main stage area, 'The Great Stage' and then smaller tent venues dotted around, like 'Where the Wild Things Are', 'The Living Room', and 'Small World' which all have artistic décor. The happenings on the main stage side are generally more dancey and louder, and the other side has a more acoustic and chilled vibe.

Action camps

The Action Camps are the life blood of Secret Garden Party. They are created by festival goers, for festival goers.

Regression Sessions Space Safari

Intergalactic Mermaid School: Due to popular demand the mermaid school is back from outer space to teach all you budding space maids. Bigger and better than before. Sign up in the info tent. Places will be on a first-come-first-served basis. If you don't turn up in time someone else will be able to take your space.

Survival Swamp: Do you think you have what it takes to be an astronaut? Let’s get physical, a course designed to test physical and mental strength. Are you tough enough to explore space?

Stardrive Express: Think Starlight express meets Mario Cart on hover boards.

Robots: Ed209, R2D2, Robocop out Make a Scene

Plasti-scene: Aardman return to create a super-spacey stop-framed animation with ‘make-a-scene plasti-scene.’

Laserwars: Do you think you've got what is takes to conquer this planet? We'll put you through you paces with Laserwars. It's Survival of the fittest.

Wonky Races...: ..are, quite obviously, an alien race that has crash-landed in The Garden having run out of hopper juice for their Hopper Drive engine. In order to take off and leave the garden they must ask permission to commence mining the plentiful supply of the resource right under your feet. Space Hoppers. They will of course be submitting the appropriate paper work in triplicate to ask permission to start mining this under-recognised resource.

Alcohol policy

As an independent festival, bar sales keep the event alive so organisers limit the amount of alcohol you can bring. You may bring the following on first entry only... 

EITHER: 12 cans beer / lager / cider per person 

OR: 6 cans + 1 bottle of wine per person (decanted into plastic bottle).

More information will be here when available. 

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