‘A mermaid brushed her hair while people put objects under her boobs’: discover the tiny secret festivals rivalling Glasto for vibes

Fed up with expensive tickets and omnipresent branding, some festival fans are creating their own anarchic, ticketless events full of glitter and silliness. They explain how it’s done

Picture the scene: it’s July 2025 and I’m DJing at a festival called Loveshack. I’m not fretting about losing the crowd to a different stage because there isn’t one: we’re in a barn in the Welsh countryside. The dress-up theme is 90s icons, and below me Joanna Lumley is talking to Andre Agassi while a cop from the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage video looks on. People’s possessions are strewn around but no one seems worried, because the crowd is just 60 members of my extended friendship group and everyone is having possibly the best festival experience imaginable.

In a world of overpriced and overrated mainstream festivals, tiny events like this are becoming more common. It’s true that tickets still fly out for the big fests: with Glastonbury having a fallow year, its 200,000-odd punters have hungrily looked elsewhere, leading to festivals such as Mighty Hoopla and Green Man selling out in a day. But there is a definite sense that festivals have been losing their independent, renegade spirit. Lineups feel samey, and despite high ticket prices there are a depressing number of onsite “brand activations”, where a bus covered in the livery for a new smartphone, say, makes you feel like you’re walking around in a 3D advert. As John Rostron, who runs the Association of Independent Festivals, says: “Not everyone wants to go to a festival and see a Dyson-activated tent.”