BoomTown Festival 2022

BoomTown Festival - Chapter 1: The Gathering - takes place at Matterley Estate, near Winchester, Hampshire, and will run from Wednesday 10th until Sunday 14th August 2022.

Boomtown follows a storyline that evolves each year, and has been reset for the post-pandemic world where the State of Emergency has become a State of Emergence that has risen from the ashes of the old. It is a new world, accompanied by a new story that is waiting to be told that focuses on reflection, acceptance and reconnection. It is a time of celebration, a time to come together, a time of gathering.

For 2022 Boomtown has reimagined the festival layout, with the main entertainment area now within Matterley Bowl, with forest chillouts and woodland parties in the areas around it.

Line-up

Boomtown will be keeping the majority of acts secret until just before the festival.

Tickets

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Each ticket has a compulsory eco-bond added for £10.

As standard 5 day tickets are now sold out - the only way to come for the full five days is to book a Public Transport Saver festival entry ticket with Wednesday transport priced at £215… which means you get to come on Wednesday for free!
Those aged 12 and under are free but require a ticket.

More Information

In 2020 organisers signed the Green Deal, this year they are taking further steps in becoming a circular festival. They need everyone to take part and do their bit and 'Leave No Trace'.

Green Deal:

Ahead of the festival, Boomtown is launching its sustainability campaign for 2022, after being one of the first UK festivals to sign a Green Deal and commit to being Net Zero by 2025. Boomtown’s ongoing priority is to protect the environment from the impact of an event of its size, to raise awareness and inspire ongoing behavioural change amongst the public that attend Boomtown. 

Some of the key headlines include: 

•  We are switching our fuel to hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), which will reduce emissions from fuel consumption by 90%. 
• In 2019 we eliminated the sale of single-use plastic bottles at the festival, preventing 225,000 plastic bottles a year. We will continue to encourage everyone to bring their own reusable bottles and food serveware. 100% of the food serveware at the festival is compostable.
• Our brand new main stage, Origin, is being built using with real plants and sustainable materials, a lot recycled from previous main stage Lion’s Den. We have some really exciting information about this being released soon. 
• Every afternoon at the festival, people attending can listen out for the mobile pop-up sound systems and Eco-Warriors to get involved in the big Boomtown tidy. The Eco-Warriors will be handing out free 2023 festival tickets and merchandise to the cleanest camps and those doing their best to keep the South Downs National Park clean and free from litter. 
• With our partnership with Tree Sisters, we have so far planted 100,000 trees around the world from Madagascar to Nepal. We continue to plant trees, contributing to one of the most powerful solutions for climate change. 

Organisers have also revealed:

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.

Costume:

the Saturday at the festival will be our dedicated dress up day with the theme being....CELEBRATION. Think all things maximalist, go wild, go LARGE, let it all out and celebrate with colour, print and sparkles galore.

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?

More information will be here when available

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