It’s Sep­tem­ber and sum­mer is retreat­ing fast. This is what End of the Road fes­ti­val in Dorset is all about – offer­ing one final chance to prance about in a field, choose food from a won­der­ful array of ven­dors, chat to just about any­one, and queue up for the toi­let with a cup of saw­dust. Watch­ing Altin Gün and Float­ing Points on the final night tru­ly felt like the sea­son’s finale. On our first night back home, right on cue, autum­n’s chill began to make its pres­ence felt.

It’s been a fun­ny – strange not amus­ing – old year for the UK fes­ti­val scene. Unset­tling. We all know what dire prob­lems the fes­ti­val and music indus­tries face and pleas to the gov­ern­ment by the AIF to help out via a reduc­tion in VAT from 20% to 5% have far fall­en on deaf ears.

It has been depress­ing watch­ing the num­ber of fes­ti­vals call­ing it a day, whether per­ma­nent­ly or tak­ing a tem­po­rary (we hope) hia­tus. One close to my own heart is Blue­dot, the sci­ence and music event in Cheshire, held at Jodrell Bank Obser­va­to­ry. Every fes­ti­val needs a USP, and Blue­dot excels by com­bin­ing a strong sci­ence pro­gramme with a mix of music. Space talks with Bri­an Cox and Jim Al Khalili plus sets by Orbital and Chem­i­cal Broth­ers are what makes Blue­dot so appealing.

Dis­as­ter struck in 2023: the weath­er gods gift­ed Blue­dot the worst con­di­tions they could have dreamed up. I did secret­ly pon­der if the Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty team behind its sci­ence pro­gramme could invest in some cloud-repelling tech­nol­o­gy but sad­ly they played by the rules and the site was drenched from the get-go till Sun­day’s mud­fest. Hope­ful­ly Blue­dot will be back in 2025, and the signs are look­ing fair­ly positive.

I usu­al­ly start the sea­son pho­tograph­ing Beard­ed The­o­ry. This late-May festie has been through changes in own­er­ship but has remained close to its orig­i­nal con­cept and is thriv­ing. Beard­ed The­o­ry is a unique and super-friend­ly fes­ti­val with a great mix of music and tribes. Her­itage acts mix with folk, trance and punk and Sun­day gives way to fam­i­ly day with a fan­cy dress com­pe­ti­tion and, usu­al­ly, the Bar-Stew­ard Sons of Val Doonican.

Tow­ersey, a folk fes­ti­val that cel­e­brat­ed its 50th anniver­sary, has shut up shop. Deeply root­ed in the local com­mu­ni­ty, Tow­ersey fea­tured Ceilidh ses­sions and some top artists – I’ve had the plea­sure of see­ing Seth Lake­man there, along with quirky vocal groups like the Spooky Men’s Chorale and the haunt­ing Salt­fish Forty.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the beloved Barns­ley fes­ti­val Under­neath the Stars has come to an end too, for now or maybe per­ma­nent­ly. Own­er Kate Rus­by has report­ed­ly stat­ed they’ve had a fab­u­lous ten years run­ning the small event but admits cer­tain aspects have pre­sent­ed a chal­lenge, such as sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Under­neath the Stars will be missed – friends who are loy­al atten­dees have loved ‘the friend­li­ness, the charm, beau­ti­ful folk music and new artists.’ It’s very much a fam­i­ly affair with Kate and fam­i­ly pop­ping back and forth from their house in the vil­lage and greet­ing every­one they meet.

Anoth­er small fes­ti­val I had my eye on in Read­ing (no, not that one) called Down at the Abbey has host­ed some amaz­ing line­ups – last year they bagged The Comet is Com­ing and Pale Blue Eyes. In order to sur­vive, they’re hold­ing back this year with the promise to be back in 2025. I’m keep­ing my fin­gers crossed. And KITE fes­ti­val has also down­sized with a week­end at Abbey Road Stu­dios, hope­ful­ly to resur­face at Kirtling­ton Park, Oxford, next year.

As a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, I’ve shot sev­er­al Lon­don day fes­ti­vals this year. All Points East is arguably the behe­moth of the Lon­don festie scene, com­man­deer­ing Vic­to­ria Park for a series that packs in jaw­drop­ping num­bers of head­line acts over sev­er­al days, and inter­est­ing, thought­ful cura­tion. I was there for Nation of Lan­guage, Float­ing Points, Teenage Fan Club and Death­cab for Cutie plus many more. All Points East also gives back to the com­mu­ni­ty with the local coun­cil to offer free neigh­bour­hood activ­i­ty days.

Those day fes­ti­vals seem to be increas­ing in num­ber. There are strict rules though, to cov­er health and safe­ty and get all the pun­ters in at top speed, spend­ing as much as pos­si­ble: no food or drink allowed except for an emp­ty water bot­tle, a Ryanair-style bag size rule and no under 18s per­mit­ted. So you won’t find your­self trip­ping over those fairy­light-bestrewn baby wag­ons, quite dif­fer­ent from oth­er fes­ti­vals I could mention.

Green Man is a con­stant on my year­ly cal­en­dar – and for a great many oth­ers judg­ing by the Glas­ton­bury-style fren­zy on tick­et-release day, with total sell-out hap­pen­ing in about four hours. If you don’t suc­ceed (tick­ets this year go on sale 28th Sep­tem­ber with a new tick­et provider), nev­er fear, you’re bound to bag them on resale sites right up to the last minute. Green Man was as won­der­ful as ever this year, although the music was a tad under­whelm­ing. Jon Hop­kins’ set was riv­et­ing, with sound and lasers bounc­ing around the stun­ning nat­ur­al amphithe­atre. Com­mend­ably, the Ris­ing stage area has been giv­en a revamp, offer­ing a larg­er stage and more space for the audi­ence – after all, a big crowd is what new bands need most of all. Bor­ough Coun­cil were ter­rif­ic, as were cool shoegazey band TTSSFU.

We con­clud­ed with End of the Road, which I had­n’t vis­it­ed since 2013 when David Byrne and St Vin­cent head­lined. It’s a love­ly site with fan­tas­tic sound, espe­cial­ly on the main stage, and the music was so bril­liant­ly curat­ed. Hel­lo Mary (review here), Bill Ryder Jones and the emo­tion­al, rich per­for­mance by Phos­pho­res­cent were three stun­ning sets.

If I could hold any sway with the team at EoTR it would be to tack­le the pro­lif­er­a­tion of chairs, espe­cial­ly at the Gar­den stage. I’m aware a few fes­ti­val goers may need to sit down but the sheer num­ber was mind bog­gling. And chairs seem to encour­age peo­ple to just set­tle in for the day and bare­ly pay mind to the music at all.

So autumn seems to have made a too-sud­den appear­ance and we start to shrink back into our shells. All that colour, cre­ativ­i­ty, cul­ture and good will – plus the indi­vid­ual, loy­al and pas­sion­ate sense of com­mu­ni­ty that grows up around each fes­ti­val – goes back into its box till next year. Hope­ful­ly, like me, you’ve used your fes­ti­val expe­ri­ences to dis­cov­er some new artists to inspire you, and to book tick­ets to see over the win­ter months. And as those next-year line­ups reveal them­selves over the com­ing months, there’s anoth­er year of fes­ti­vals to look for­ward to.

So which fes­ti­vals did you go to this year? And what were your highlights?