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Ppicture the scene: it’s July 2025 and I’m DJing at a party called Loveshack. I’m not worried about losing the crowd on another stage because there isn’t one: we’re in a barn in the Welsh countryside. The theme of the dress is 90s imagery, and below me Joanna Lumley is talking to Andre Agassi while a police officer from the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage movie looks on. People’s belongings are everywhere but no one seems to care, because the crowd is just 60 members of my close group and everyone has a chance to do the best at the festival imaginable.
In a world of cheap and overcrowded festivals, small events like this are becoming more and more popular. It’s true that tickets still fly to the big festivals: Glastonbury has a low year, its more than 200,000 players looked elsewhere, which made festivals like Mighty Hoopla and Green Man sell out in one day. But there is a definite sense that festivals have been losing their independent, rebellious spirit. The lineups feel the same, and despite the high prices of tickets there is a slight amount of “brand appearance” in the place, where a bus put on the livery of a new mobile phone, say, makes you feel like you are walking in a 3D commercial. Like John Rostron, who runs the Association of Independents Celebrationshe says: “Not everyone wants to go to a party and see a tent set up by Dyson.”
The opposite of stupidity is evident. Let’s call it secret celebrations. They usually work like this: a group of like-minded couples organize a weekend. The place can be a camping site or a rave-friendly farmer’s field, or even a high-heeled mansion. They are usually held in vanity-free wedding venues that allow camping and overnight stays. Attendees bond well over the weekend – so much so that the event goes from one party to an annual celebration. The numbers range from 50 to 200 and are usually friends or acquaintances of the organizers. And these events are usually not ticketed, nor are they open to the general public.
Not until they grow up, anyway. “Green Man started with Jo (Bartlett) and Danny (Hagan) moving to Wales and throwing a party to get the couple together,” says Rostron. Now it has 25,000. He said of Gemfest in Wiltshire: “It’s now an 8,000-strong festival but it started as a 21st birthday party for someone called Gemma.”
Many secret festivals are run by people who came of age in the late 00s of “boutique festivals”: Bestival, Glade, Big Chill and Secret Garden Party were part of the wave that put stupidity in the spotlight, encouraged dressing up and deep weirdness. Dulcie Horn, whose creative studio Chuffed works on a wide range of parties, sees a parallel: “The magic in boutique dining came from people pouring their blood, sweat and tears into every experience. Private parties are based on the idea of a close-knit group.
A good example is Swansea’s Killer Wales, which hosts around 70 people each year, many meeting for the first time. Although British parties are often concerned about meeting new people while drinking drugs, according to manager Alex, the vibe of Killer Wales is “deliberately laid back.
Festival-goers are divided into groups with decorative themes, to disrupt any established groups, and many performances follow. Daytime games include trying to hang a willing person from a washing line using pegs, or silly sumo wrestling on a nearby beach, where contestants wear Easter baskets on their heads. Alex’s friend, named Yas, said: “A person throws away all the eggs when they hatch.
Pride of place is an annual art show, where everyone shows off their skills – the dumber the better. Yas said: “One year, a man wore a baseball cap that was a little tight, and took it off repeatedly. A bird was sitting down brushing its hair when two people placed very large objects under its breasts.
A private festival called Come Bye also has talent. “The winner becomes the most popular person in the whole place,” says organizer Max Hagenbach, who has run the event at a permaculture farm near Abergavenny for eight years. “At a popular festival, you’re almost done eating. Here, we give people the chance to do what they’ve always wanted to do – write a play or make sculptures. Someone woke up a year ago.”
People exchange things for free at Come Bye, just like they do at Burning Man. But, unlike the US culture of sharing, Come Bye is not good. “You just bring good things and share them with everyone you meet,” Hagenbach says. “You can bake brownies and give them to the first 20 people. People have precious gifts, poems, or they just pick a watermelon and give it away.”
At another secret festival, Mansionface, someone has devised a way to escape. “It was a type of Operation board game,” designer Tom Lee says. “If you make a mistake, the whole room fills with smoke.” Lee says these festivals are a great option for people who may not be DJing or making a living. “A lot of us produce, but not in our day jobs. None of us are exactly playing Fabric (nightclub) next week. So we always wanted it to be a place for our friends who make music as a hobby. A lot of people did their first DJ sets at Mansionface.
Alex Podger runs Oddfolk in Cornwall for around 100 people every year, and sees parallels between our partying habits and pagan traditions. “In the pagan calendar, there are usually four major events every year, such as the harvest, and four smaller events that you can meet with the people of your community. The fact that they are not bound by a plum or run but by WhatsApp does not make it less important.
“From the beginning, Oddfolk has never been something you buy a ticket for,” says Podger. “You have to participate and help. In the first year we made an Excel spreadsheet – it was very difficult – and put people into groups, like a cooking group for a day or a recycling group called the Sisterhood of Left Waste. Doing this makes you a participant, not just a consumer. The organizers ask for financial support, which has always been under £100. This pays for the sound system and food for everyone. It only works because 30% of the audience is included in the production the food at another time.
Podger compares it to anarcho-syndicalism, where there is a breakdown of authority over independent groups. “I’m scared of exhaustion. If we let everyone party until 8 o’clock the first night, people won’t eat when the catering team has prepared lunch the next day, and no one will be at the 4pm show that someone has been preparing because they’re trying to eat lunch when there’s no one. Finally, they’re driving for six hours without sleep.
While traditional, unlicensed BYOB gatherings like these are often not subject to the same licensing and health and safety regulations as licensed festivals (or may be subject to the jurisdiction of the venue that hires them), safety remains a major concern. “We all look after each other, but there have been times when I’ve had to sleep with someone because – not joining the party – they might have a hard time,” says Alex of Killer Wales.
Many people will miss being at Glastonbury this year. But for all its greatness, it’s worth considering that perhaps the abundance of big festivals today prevents what many of us crave most: positive experiences with other people that go beyond saying “I love your big flag” and walking away.
As Horn says: “The size and the number of programs means that I’m always with Fomo at Glastonbury. Even though it’s a small festival, I use less energy and have more time to interact with people. I went to another small festival that had a water slide and some music in the sun all day. Amazing experience.”
Advice for anyone who wants to organize their own private celebration
Host your event on the same page as an existing festival
When a venue or venue becomes a festival-goer, they are more likely to want to do more in the summer, says John Rostron of the Association of Independent Festivals: “The venue used in Nozstock (in Herefordshire) is used for smaller festivals, for example.
Don’t be afraid of Excel spreadsheets and difficult decisions
Tom Lee of Mensionface said: “Maybe you’re asking your friends to give you a few hundred fish each. “So it’s important to budget properly. Our biggest problems came when we thought the numbers were closed and then people started dropping out. We had to have a strict plan to set a date to guarantee the return of their money from the additional budget.”
Keep employees happy while they are working
Yas from Killer Wales said: “We try to do everything together, including food, but sometimes we need everyone to help us move things and organize things. “So we try things as best we can – we share stickers to fix them. People hate stickers!”
Resolve conflicts quickly
Although small parties are a good place to spread ownership of different things, “having a little structure and establishing principles and consensus is still important”, says Alex Podger of Oddfolk. With the possibility of various disagreements between groups, “agreeing to always work respectfully and resolve conflicts goes a long way”, he adds.
Don’t forget the Fyre festival tutorial
On such a small scale, it only takes one thing to mess up a scupper for the rest of the week. So, as Max Hagenbach of Come Bye recommends: “Ask advice from anyone who has done this type of thing before.” If you’re hiring generators, walls and sound systems, you need to know what to do if something goes wrong—or you’re lost!
