Best Festivals on a Mid-range Budget

• Charlotte Runcie
• 2 April 2015

This article is from 2015.

St Vincent

For those not letting money stop them enjoying the best music on the biggest stages around this summer

Whether you’re flash with cash or counting the pennies, there’s a festival for you somewhere in this world. Here Charlotte Runcie tackles the Best Mid-range Budget Festivals. So if you've got some coin to throw around and wanna see some of the biggest acts on stage this summer, here's some ideas for which festivals you should spend your hard earned beer and music money …

Also check out: Best Festivals on a Low Budget / Best Festivals on a Big Budget

T in the Park
Where: Strathallan Castle, Auchterarder
When: Fri 10--Sat 12 Jul
How much: weekend tickets around £194
Apart from a spiffy new venue, there’s no point in telling you anything about T in the Park because it’ll be the same as every year. You’ll tell yourself you’re not going because it’s too expensive and you always wake up on the Monday morning with no shoes. Then some pals will convince you to tag along with them, and it’ll end up being the same beautiful, horrendous, filthy weekend it always is. Not that it makes much difference, but the performers this year are pretty starry: Sam Smith, Avicii, the Libertines, the Prodigy, Jamie T, Paloma Faith, Jessie J, Hozier, Fatboy Slim, Mark Ronson. Oh, and Kasabian. Stay safe out there.
tinthepark.com

Latitude
Where: Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk
When: Thu 16--Sun 19 Jul
How much: weekend tickets around £200
An upmarket mix of music, comedy and posh family activities. The line-up is reminiscent of the BBC 6 Music playlist – alt-J, Portishead, Laura Marling, SBTRKT and so on – while the comedy tent promises all the usual male types off Mock the Week plus Josie Long, Sara Pascoe and Adam Hills with the gang from The Last Leg. We’re not saying it’s the most middle-class of all the festivals, but this year Gareth Malone is a special guest.
latitudefestival.com

Green Man
Where: Glanusk Estate, Brecon Beacons
When: Thu 20--Sun 23 Aug
How much: weekend tickets around £165
This twinkly, folky little festival is a purists’ haven, with fresh mountain air and a 100% free-range, corn-fed line-up of quality stars: Super Furry Animals are joined by St Vincent, Hot Chip, the Staves, Owen Pallett, Emmy the Great, the Wave Pictures and Alasdair Roberts. Amid the ten different themed areas, there’s a ferris wheel, cinema tent, bonfire, kids’ zones, real ales and wood-fired hot tubs. Heaven.
greenman.net

Festival Number 6
Where: Various venues in Portmeirion, Gwynedd
When: Thu 3--Sun 6 Sep
How much: weekend tickets around £150
A taste of the Mediterranean in deepest Wales, the Italianate village is where The Prisoner was filmed. It’s also the site of one of the hippest festivals of them all. Words like ‘curated’ and ‘bespoke’ abound in the event info. Headliners are Grace Jones, Belle and Sebastian, Young Fathers and Kate Tempest, but the real draws are the sandy beaches and eclectic surprises, from Welsh male-voice choirs to hidden poetry.
festivalnumber6.com

Bestival
Where: Robin Hill Country Park, Isle of Wight
When: Thu 10--Sun 13 Sep
How much: weekend tickets around £195
The festival season’s last hurrah. With a different fancy dress theme every year (this time it’s ‘Summer of Love’) and a heavy-hitting line-up of Underworld, the Chemical Brothers, Róisín Murphy, Jurassic 5, Future Islands, Charli XCX and, er, Duran Duran, it's worth the trek.
bestival.net