A message from Boomtown founders

Firstly, after just over 1000 days of waiting, we are just 75 days out from dancing together in the beautiful fields of Hampshire. It’s almost unbelievable and sometimes we wake up and have to kick ourselves to make sure it’s real. All the new stage sets are very nearly built, the huge circus shows are being rehearsed, the detail down to the secret alleyways in Old Town have been perfected…. And right now we are genuinely feeling like this year will blow all other boomtown chapters out the water… 

Despite the crazy dynamics, emotions and complexities of the current climate, we are still here, and we would not be sitting writing this letter if you had not rolled your ticket money over. We are so so grateful, and at a time when it seems many events are struggling to sell tickets, to be completely sold out, with a waiting list in the thousands, shows the energy and love for our community.

But all that aside, we are in a very surreal place with the festival. When your whole company  model, everything you have spent your life building up is based around one weekend a year, and then that moment can’t happen suddenly, and then for a 2nd year, it adds all sorts of complexities and emotions into the mix that wouldn’t happen in other organisations we know of. This letter intends to lay out the fundamentals of boomtown at this present time and give clarity to all of where we are…. 

But we need to say this.. when we chose to reset Boomtown, to come back to Chapter 1, in direct consultation with many of you we made some pretty big changes.. This was all about giving Boomtown the best chance of not only surviving after three years out, and hardly any financial income, but to ensure a long and exciting future, where we can not only really focus in on our unique creativity, but also our commitment to inspire positive change in the world, as one of just three festivals to sign an important Green Deal to become carbon neutral by 2025… 

The main city footprint is in the bowl:

We have chosen to build the main part of the city into downtown, this does mean we lose  our beloved Lion’s Den and Psychedelic Forest arenas, however it has allowed us to really enhance the camping experience, adding in centralised villages to focus all our creative energy into one central and spectacular immersive space for you all to explore. 

Line ups:

We are not releasing artist line ups until just before the festival. As ever, we are so proud of the huge selection of national and international music we have booked, across every genre, and strongly believe it to be the most diverse and exciting yet. As we have mentioned before, we never set out to be a festival that people attend because of who sits at the top of a poster. So the shackles and pressures of the line-up are off and we ask you to please come to Chapter 1 with your hearts wide open, ready to immerse yourself deep into Boomtowns music culture as we continue to support and celebrate underground  subcultures.

No cash needed: 

Hands down one of the most controversial things we have ever done, the team have been  so split on this, as on one side we are really against controlled systems, and on the other side we do see many benefits, but in the end we decided to give it a ‘give it a go’ in the hope of creating a fairer system for the many hundreds of outlets we have, with fee’s that reflect their individual takings. We have seen first hand the research from friends festivals across the world, we really do hope it will be easier and simpler from your side as well, please take a moment to explore the system when it goes live shortly. 

A reduction In meat: 

This year we are reducing the amount of meat outlets to a 50/50 split to really help with our sustainability goals.. We do not agree with the way the meat industry is run in many cases. However, to take meat out entirely does not feel right for us at this stage. Instead we have chosen to really build up and focus on the incredible vegetarian offerings at the festival, to balance things out, but also to really dive in and focus on the quality and source of the meat used, this will have knock on’s to some food prices with meat, but one we felt was an unavoidable necessity. 

Fundamentally, there is a very clear reason why there is no other event like Boomtown on the planet, and that is because its people can and do look at things differently, through a lens that many others clearly do not. So with rising seas, extreme heat waves, and the raging forest fires, there has never been a more important time for us to come together and act in total unity, to take inspiration from the indigenous people and elders that have come to guide Boomtown in recent years, who have really taught us to see what we truly deeply care about, to help us love and respect ourselves, each other and this phenomenal planet  that we call home. 

We cannot possibly achieve this huge commitment without you all, really, deeply looking at how you see your time at the festival this august. What will you bring? Will it be reusable, can you inspire your neighbours to keep their camp tidy and clean up? Is there a way you  can car share or come by public transport ?

There is so much more we could say right now but this letter has already ended up larger than initially planned haha! 

So finally.. Boomtown Chapter 1 will be the wildest party imaginable, the ultimate celebration of life, of creativity, of connection (the human kind). We will get dressed up in the most out outrageous outfits, and we will stomp on those dancefloors for days on end…. but we need do so with a form of etiquette never managed before, in the way the ancient communities all over the world have done for thousands of years to harness change for the better for a more balanced and harmonious world.  

With full love and respect,
Lak and Chris x