Dream­ing about sum­mer fes­ti­vals? No need – there are plen­ty of win­ter and ear­ly spring events hap­pen­ing around the coun­try, help­ing liv­en up these dark and drea­ry months. No tents involved.

Most­ly at cities and towns around the UK with sev­er­al mul­ti-venue events, one-day or week­enders, there’s plen­ty to choose from, and more sur­fac­ing as time goes on. Check these good­ies out…

Winter Sprinter at The Lexington
11–14 January

At The Lex­ing­ton pub close to King’s Cross, there’s a four-night fes­ti­val tak­ing place with a pro­gramme of bands each evening. Pre­sent­ed by Fika Record­ings with The Just Joans, With­ered Hand, Ali­son Eales and more on the line­up. The Lex­ing­ton

Celtic Connections
19 Jan – 5 Feb

Celtic Con­nec­tions is Glasgow’s annu­al folk, roots and world music fes­ti­val. Twi­light Sad, CARA, and Scot­tish folk quar­tet West­ward the Light will per­form plus hun­dreds more. You’ll also dis­cov­er ceilidhs, talks, art exhi­bi­tions, work­shops and free events. Celtic Con­nec­tions

Independent Venue Week
30 Jan – 5 Feb

Not strict­ly a fes­ti­val but #IVW is one of the most impor­tant weeks of the music cal­en­dar, espe­cial­ly dur­ing these times of such uncer­tain­ty for our inde­pen­dent grass­roots venues. Get out and sup­port your local music palace – and par­take of this annu­al feast of music which sees venues host a whole slew of artists. The Trades in Heb­den Bridge is just one tak­ing part, with Philip Sel­way, Eng­lish Teacher and Kee­ley Forsyth on their line­up. Inde­pen­dent Venue Week

Lewes Psychedelic Festival
Saturday 4 Feb

The annu­al day event is as pop­u­lar as ever – this year sold out super fast but there is a wait­ing list. TV AM, Acid Klaus, Valve and more at the All Saints Arts Cen­tre. Lewes Psy­che­del­ic Festival

Beam Me Up Festival
10–11 February

A brand new two-city event tak­ing place in Oxford at the O2 Acad­e­my and Lin­coln, at The Drill. Both fes­ti­vals are one day events with two stages. Coach Par­ty, Opus Kink, Pri­ma Queen, Pale Blue Eyes and more acts are set to appear. Beam Me Up 

Dark Arts
25 February

The Lounge Soci­ety, Deadlet­ter, Regres­sive Left, Acid Klaus and many more tak­ing part. At the Bel­grave Music Hall, Leeds. From mid­day onwards. Dark Arts

Swanage Blues Festival
2–5 March

The Big Blues Par­ty on the South Coast. There will be 50 gigs with 30 great acts tak­ing place at 15 indoor venues. Also open mic and jam ses­sions. If you can’t make it this week­end, there’s anoth­er fes­ti­val in Octo­ber. Swan­age Blues Festival

Road to Takedown Festival
7 April

In the build-up to its first event in eight years, TAKEDOWN FESTIVAL will be show­cas­ing three bands from their line-up at a one-off show at Boston Music Room on 7 April. The ‘Road to Take­down’ show will see per­for­mances from Con­fes­sions of a Trai­tor, Seething Aki­ra and Crushed By Waves. http://www.takedownfestival.com.

Takedown Festival
8 April

Over 30 bands per­form across 5 stages. Sleep Token, Skin­dred, Loathe, Jamie Len­man, Punk Rock Fac­to­ry, InMe, Palm Read­er, Our Hol­low Our Home, As Decem­ber Falls, CLTDRP, Fear­less Vam­pire Killers, The Bot­tom Line, Seething Aki­ra, Itha­ca, Con­fes­sions of a Trai­tor and Den­dera and more. At Portsmouth Guild­hall http://www.takedownfestival.com

Brick Lane Jazz Festival
14–16 April

Pro­grammed across sev­en music venues over three days at the Tru­man Brew­ery and beyond, Brick Lane Jazz Fes­ti­val show­cas­es a selec­tion of artists mak­ing the biggest waves on London’s vibrant jazz scene today. Hand­son Fam­i­ly, Camil­la George, Beringei, Vula and many more. BLJF

Astral Festival
29 – 30 April

Astral fes­ti­val start­ed off as Bris­tol psych fest in 2013 and slow­ly turned into its own beast that need­ed its own iden­ti­ty. Run by Alex Stud­er of Stolen Body Records it brings the best psy­che­del­ic, heavy psych, doom and hard rock music to Bris­tol. The fes­ti­val now takes place over the bank hol­i­day week­end in April at Strange Brew. There’s a warm-up par­ty at Rough Trade on Fri­day too. Tak­ing part: Gnod, Mars Red Sky, Slo­mat­ics and Ivan the Tol­er­a­ble. Astral Fes­ti­val tickets 

Stag and Dagger Festival
29th and 30th April

Edin­burgh on Sat­ur­day 29th and Glas­gow 30th. First wave announce­ment fea­tures Black Lips, Jef­frey Lewis and the Volt­age, Scalp­ing, Dutch Uncles and many more. Venues are only a few min­utes apart from each other. 

Liverpool Sound City
29–30 April

The famed Mersey­side week­ender is back. There’s a fair few on the line­up so far, includ­ing hot tick­et Maisie Peters plus The Goa Express and Sofy. The event takes place at Mount­ford Hall. Liv­er­pool Sound City

Sounds From The Other City
30 April

It’s Sal­ford we’re talk­ing about, in case you won­dered, tak­ing cen­tre stage over Man­ches­ter. This Bank Hol­i­day event takes place on his­toric Chapel Street, and fea­tures “new music, art and alter­na­tive under­ground cul­ture.” Line­up com­ing soon. Tick­ets

In The Round Festival at The Roundhouse
16–25 April

Now in its sev­enth year, In the Round Fes­ti­val at the Round­house, Cam­den, is renowned for its spe­cial, one-off gigs. With full seat­ing set around the cir­cu­lar stage, you are guar­an­teed a great seat (I saw Goat Girl last year, and yes, the spe­cial seat­ing is great). The pro­gramme of events now takes place in the Stu­dio The­atre, Hub and Round­house Bar and Cafe along­side head­line shows. Lau­ra Viers, Son­ic Trans­mis­sions, Unqui­et, Rodri­go Y Gabriela and more fea­ture this year. In the Round

Fair Play
1 April

North­ern Quar­ter, Man­ches­ter one-day event. Scalp­ing, Naima Bock, Man­drake Hand­shake, Biped, Lunch Mon­ey and more. At Soup, Night & Day and oth­er venues around the city. Tick­ets from £13.20. Fair Play

Sheffield Get Together Festival
Saturday 20 May

This friend­ly day event in Sheffield takes place at a vari­ety of venues. Pale Blue Eyes will be play­ing. Sheffield Get Togeth­er Festival

The Great Escape
10–13 May

Brighton’s famed event which takes place at var­i­ous venues around the town. There are around 500 artists tak­ing part, includ­ing Bam­bie Thug, Grove and Girls Of The Inter­net. 4 days and 30-plus venues – you’ll need a hol­i­day after this. The Great Escape

In Colour Festival Leeds
13–14 May

Bru­denell Presents announces a new week­end fes­ti­val, ‘In Colour’, hap­pen­ing at The Bru­denell Social Club, Leeds. Algiers, TVAM, Pale Blue Eyes, Acid Klaus, Cloth, Alice Low and more. In Colour Festival

Portals Music Festival
27–28 May

We’re almost into sum­mer fes­ti­val sea­son but this one just sneaks in. A mega fes­ti­val tak­ing place at EarTH in Stoke New­ing­ton. This week­ender has numer­ous artists tak­ing part such as Mono, Bo Nin­gen, And So I Watch You From Afar. Por­tals Music Fes­ti­val.

All details are cor­rect at time of posting