“An ever-evolving beast”: Inside Boomtown's ambitious plans for a "bold new era"

Boomtown Fair has become synonymous with super-scaled production and theatrical components, which have drawn sold-out crowds across the years without the (reliably excellent) line-ups even being announced. But this year, as the Hampshire-based festival looks to up the ante by delivering “the most ambitious version of Boomtown ever created”, there’s a bid to bring the festival back to its roots. Holding true to its original ethos of curating the most diverse and genre-spanning line-up possible while also giving its attendees the freedom to roam, complete side quests and explore the “crazy world” Boomtown creates for one weekend each year, the festival is combining learnings from its previous 16 editions with a future-facing outlook. The goal is to fine-tune the most outlandish festival experience possible. 

In 2026, Boomtown is entering a “bold new era” with the theme Chapter 5: Radical Redesign, bringing new districts, up-sized and returning stages, and a general site expansion that adds breathing room to the playground it calls home. Debuted in 2025, the first-ever hydrogen-powered stage at a major festival, Hydro, will expand to become Hydro XL by more than doubling in capacity, while the festival’s beloved The Lion’s Den will make its long-awaited return after more than five years. Meanwhile, Boomtown promises an “evolution” of its classic line-up, bringing through an even larger range of styles this year, including a focus on live music, tapping the likes of Kneecap, Four Tet, Scissor Sisters, Madness, SHERELLE, Oppidan, Brutalismus 3000 and many more to join the bill.

Ahead of this year’s edition of Boomtown, which is set to take place from August 12 to 16 at the Matterley Estate in Hampshire, we spoke to the festival’s Director of Music Strategy & Programming, James Cousins, about the new stages, districts, and expanded line-ups of Boomtown ‘26. 

Your theme for this year is radical redesign, what does that entail?

We're expanding the site out for this year and really creating a lot more breathing space. Going back to the similar site plans we had before COVID, we felt it was time for us to expand out again and broaden the types of music we're booking as well, adding as much new, fresh stuff as we can.

Why did it feel like the time to expand and diversify the line-up?

Boomtown is like an ever-evolving beast. This year, we’ve brought in as many new styles of music as we can. Obviously, genres change rapidly at the moment, so we’re just keeping up with that. Our Hydro stage – which is focused on house and techno – is growing from its original 8,000 capacity to 20,000 this year, where we've got big headliners like Four Tet and Skrillex, and we’re also concentrating a bit on the hard techno side of things with artists like 999999999 and Brutalismus 3000, who are mixed in with acts like Groove Armada and Floating Points. We're really big fans of that style of music, and Boomtown for years has wanted to give it more of a presence at the festival.

It seems like you’ve been diversifying the line-up beyond Boomtown’s roots in bass music in the past few years. Is that a conscious decision? What inspired it?

I'd still say we've got just as much bass music as ever at the festival, but there is a lot more variation around it. You're still gonna get all your classic 140, your garage, drum ‘n’ bass and your jungle, but we're just adding different flavours in and around that. As we expand out, we feel it's important to cover as many bass styles as we can and really push the live side of things out there, with artists like Kneecap, Madness and Scissor Sisters. It's really important for us to fly the flag for live music in the festival scene.

Is that something you feel like fans are becoming more and more drawn to?

Yeah! It's always been the foundation of Boomtown really, and it's just something we love and want to push more. I mean, you can't beat a big live performance on stage, especially where many other dance music-led festivals focus less on that. We really want to make it one of the main things that pushes us forward. We're bringing back The Lion's Den stage this year, which is a firm favourite of ours. It'll be its first time back in years – it's a beautiful natural amphitheater and the perfect setting for a live stage. We’re really excited to bring that back.

The Lion’s Den is a real fan favourite, a lot of people will be excited to see it return. Can you tell us your plans for that? What inspired its comeback?

It's something that we were always planning to bring back, it was just waiting for the right time. We felt that this year was the perfect year for us to expand the festival site, and bring back that stage with a brand new set design and production around it. This is the first time the site's been spread out properly to where we were before COVID, so it felt like the right time.

The Hydro stage debuted last year as the first hydrogen-powered stage at a major festival – as it expands to become Hydro XL, what are your plans for it and how does green innovation play a part in Boomtown?

Green innovation is something that is really important to us, and if we can really push the boundaries of how stages are run, we want to be part of that. 

This is also the second year running where you’ve released the line-up more than a week in advance of the festival. As more festivals seem to be competing to get their line-ups live earlier, is this a purposeful decision, or a way to excite new audiences?

Boomtown is obviously a lot more than a line-up, it sells itself to the public, but as we expand out and we're bringing in new genres, I felt that we needed to showcase the music that's being played in order to bring in the new audience. If we're going to keep changing the type of music we're booking every year, it's important for us to show what's going on. 

What kind of atmosphere are you looking to foster through your curation? How does your curation decision complement your values as a festival, and how do you select who plays?

It's really important for us to book as diverse of a line-up as possible. Every act that I book really has to come in with high energy, so I research heavily. With so many big stages at Boomtown I have to consider them all together, and also understand the audience - if there's a synergy in the type of crowd that will go to watch acts from different genres for example. At any given moment, we might have a band like Madness playing on one side of the festival, whilst a jungle act is playing in the woods somewhere else, and that will be at the same time as someone like Marlon Hoffstadt playing at Hydro. It's like a big patchwork quilt that we’ve got to knit together in the build-up to the festival to make sure that everything sings all at the same time.

How has the audience changed over time, and how much does the music booking process play a part in that?

I think the crowd is always going to change, especially when we’ve been going for as many years as we have. We always try to stick to the roots of why we put the festival on in the first place, and we have to understand that styles change and the type of people that come to festivals change, and embrace every walk of life. You don’t get many festivals where you see a Kneecap next to Scooter next to Shaggy!

There are new districts and stage expansions being debuted this year, can you talk us through those?

Some of them are still top secret so I can't really talk about those too much, but we do have a new district popping up, as well as a few more stages. Obviously we have The Lion’s Den coming back, Grand Central is moving its position on the site, and that will be one of our main live stages. Between those two, we'll have some amazing live acts over the weekend.

You’re also incorporating more green spaces and nature into the site this year and adding some “hidden spaces”. What’s the thought process behind this? What are you looking to achieve?

We’re really trying to create some great breakout spaces for people to get away from the music, when they can immerse themselves in nature and chill. Part of the ethos around this year's redesign is to draw inspiration from our natural surroundings, in this case the beautiful South Downs National Park, and look at ways to facilitate more of a connection between people and nature.

Production is a really significant part of Boomtown and has won the festival several awards before. Why is it so important to put on such a spectacular show?

It's been the ethos of the festival since we started. We wanted to take people on a journey for the weekend, we don't just want someone standing in front of the stage. They want to lose themselves, enjoy all the theatrics, go and complete the quests, and like you said, the production has been a main part of that. We’re just creating this crazy world.

Boomtown 2026 takes place from August 12 - 16 at the Matterley Estate in Hampshire. Grab your tickets for the next edition here.