How do you sum up a weekend like Leeds Festival 2026? Good times, variety, positive progress and a bit of tweaking required I’d say.
On the musical side, it was incredibly diverse in the range of artists who performed and who I was lucky enough to see. From the pop glam of Charli XCX and the brooding brilliance of Fontaines DC, to the voice of an angel with Raye and the brilliant Dave bringing social conscious hip hop and some famous guest names to the headline position, the big names have undoubtedly delivered across the different
genres.
Pleasingly when you look at the acts on across the weekend, Festival Republic have done a lot of work in recent years to ensure that past criticisms of female artists and bands with female mmbers being underrepresented on the bill is not the case anymore.
Across the weekend, I saw some of the big female names and acts alreadymentioned and you can add Florence + the Machine to that list, too, but they’ve also been really well represented on the smaller stages and tents with the next, potential female stars playing. l’m thinking She’s Green, Paris Paloma, Sade Olutola, Florence Road, Bar Italia, Rose Gray, Slayyyter, Ruby Roberts, Camille Blackman,
Clementine Douglas. A whole host of others have shone in their own ways and proved why it’s important they are represented.
The other area that I think was highly noticeable across the sprawling Bramham Park site all weekend was safety, social responsibility and sustainability being at the forefront of things.
Leeds Festival has rightly or wrongly had a reputation over the last ten years or so and it’s not easy shaking that off. Yes, the crowd is quite young and that brings its own challenges, but it feels like they’re doing everything they can to eliminate as many issues as they can and provide the appropriate resources for the hundreds of thousands of festival attendees, in this case over the four days – and I couldn’t see a single incident of concern over the whole weekend. We couldn’t walk anywhere, or be standing waiting for a band coming on, without seeing or hearing public safety announcements, be it about drug use, explaining consent, or the need to stay hydrated in the warmer weather. The Festival app also does a great job in putting out safety information as well as giving useful notifications of starting time reminders for bands you’ve earmarked to see.
While it’s obviously a commercial operation intended to make money and that was represented in the array of stalls and food vendors (the street food options were a million miles away from the standard rubber burger or flavourless noodles that used to be the norm at festivals. I had a lobster roll, for instance!), you’ll also regularly see on your wanderings around the site; assistance points, medical help,
wellbeing spaces, charities like the Samaritans are there to help people if they need it, or want to speak to anyone and many other commendable spaces, including Breast Cancer Awareness, drug testing and Alcoholics Anonymous.
Sustainability and recycling were big themes leading into the weekend and again there was plenty of that in evidence, from the tent point to dump it if you don’t want to take it home (though they encourage you to take it home in the messaging around the site), to the money back on your card pint pots, something that encourages the more industrious small children with their parents to collect them up and cash them in if they’re dropped on the floor. Hopefully, that bonus pocket money will go some way towards buying a gig ticket, or some music by some of the artists they’ve seen!
Stage wise is probably the one slight area for them to look at next year. The main stage (The Grid) is great in its layout and again is designed with fan safety in mind with how it’s split and controlled. The Gallery is similar but on a smaller scale and the screens at both are impressive, being the bigger venues on site.
The Ballroom is a great new addition and drapes and chandeliers really do make it stand out. The one slight thing is that if it gets packed and you aren’t standing centrally you might not have a great view of the stage area, but I’m sure that could be easily tweaked another year.
I only briefly made it out to LS23 in the woods and it seemed a pretty cool space, although how it lasted with the rain running down the hills on both sides to it would be a concern, but I like the idea of taking some smaller stages out of the main arena.
My favourite of the Festival was probably The Canopy. Yes, I don’t agree with BBC Introducing losing its stage and three of the acts do raise concerns about nepotism and taking up spaces for bands that could really use the leg up, but as an actual space, I thought it was a great size, never got too crowded and I saw some of my favourite performances there over the weekend.
The one that did struggle to work within the festival was clearly The Warehouse, aimed more towards the dance and DJ side of things. It was clear it was extremely popular and especially with a lot of the younger crowd, so being shut for nearly two days owing to crowd control issues was a problem for the organisers obviously, but not great for the performers who didn’t get to play, or the fans that wanted to see them.
Of course this is something the organisers will resolve for next year.
Aside from a few tweaks needing on the stages, I thought organisationally it was set up very well and the logistics of running such a huge operation are to be commended. The staff on site at every point were friendly, messaging was delivered with a smile and humour from the shuttle bus staff and people directing you on site and it was replicated in the Press area as well, where we were well looked after by the Zeitgeist Agency throughout the weekend, so thank you to Nathan and his team.
All in all, after twenty years of not going to Leeds Festival I’ve had an absolutely superb time, walked just over twenty five miles in three days (and yes my legs do feel it now while I’m sitting at home typing this up but I don’t regret it) and more importantly managed to cover twenty seven bands across the three days for Leeds Living (Ed: Which made 50 in total. Thank you, Kev and Rob) because caring about the music is as important as the experience side of things.
Main image: Florence The Machine – The Grid Stage
