First acts for Boomtown 2025 revealed
- Text by Ben Smoke
- Photography by Bekky Calver
For the first time in five years, Boomtown festival have delighted fans and festival goers by releasing the first wave of acts for the 16th iteration of the event early. Known for selling out in advance with details of the line up only being released weeks before the event, this morning’s video announcement took many by surprise. You can watch it for yourself below.
Those due to perform at the award winning and trailblazing site next year include The Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Maribou State, Sean Paul, Nia Archives, and Azealia Banks. Also scheduled to appear is The Blessed Madonna, Rudim3ntal, Honey Djion, Boney M and west country legends The Wurzels.
The acts will join over 600 artists still to be announced in what the festival is calling a “vibrant tapestry of sound”, featuring everything from hip-hop and post-punk to reggae, world music, folk, and beyond. With genres spanning drum and bass, techno, house, rock, jungle, disco, and psytrance the event promises to be another transcendental weekend.
Organisers also announced today that Boomtown 2025 will see the introduction of a breathtaking new stage named ‘Hydro’ which will showcase the full spectrum of 4×4 music: house, techno, and disco. Elsewhere the monumental Origin stage regenerated as an ancient temple, newly named ‘The Lions Gate’. Next summer will see Boomtown grow back outside the Downtown bowl area once again, expanding into the surrounding hills, valleys and woodland, creating more space, more nature to walk through, more intrigue and more discovery.
‘Chapter 4: Power Of Now’ will take place in Winchester’s Matterley Bowl between 6th-10th August 2025 featuring a sweeping blend of genres and eras. The full list of acts released so far can be found below.
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