Why Are We So Loyal To Our Favourite Music Festivals?

Rummaging through my email inbox for a festival ticket bought back when life seemed simpler brings up everything that has not happened since. Time has passed without new memories, without gatherings lit by dazed fairy lights, dust-stained beats, reunited strangers and the sound of collective freedom. You can imagine the shock that stirred when the date at the top of the confirmation email was 2019. You can imagine the mental questions that rolled on after in a Sandy Denny cry – 'Who knows where the time goes?'

As somewhat of a commitment-phobe, it seems hilarious and rather worrying that my loyalty to Kelburn Garden Party has lived longer than any romantic relationship in my life. The idea of the festival has become like a long lost relative, the fun auntie you only hear crazy, legendary stories about. But therein lies a trust that these stories will once again become a reality and I will be both taken under its wing and given a taste of careless freedom. 

There is a comforting quality in Scottish festivals that is embraced protectively by their small communities yet forever grows among warm, open invites. Like an old family reunion that gets brilliantly out of hand, the mutual connections trail off further than anyone can keep track of. But what is it that pulls people back to these festivals year after year? Every festival devotee will have qualities they look for: the programme, the people, the place. But what about the elders of the family? With that in mind, we ask some of the people behind Scotland’s most-loved festivals what it is that they think makes festivalgoers stay loyal to their festival over others?

Chris Knight, Music Programmer, Kelburn Garden Party
“I think the best festivals are those that seem to have an ingrained culture, because when you have festivals that have been around for a few years, you get the staff and crew embedded in the festival. And you end up with an event that doesn’t seem transient – it doesn’t seem like it’s just been thrown up and is there just to make some money for the promoters. It’s a real sort of solid cultural entity. 

"At Kelburn, you know, we're a small festival, we can't afford to book the heavy hitters. So we’ve certainly worked hard to really establish ourselves with a reputation of booking new, exciting, up-and-coming acts that always deliver. So while a lot of people might come to Kelburn not really knowing the acts so well, a lot of people say that they always discover a lot of stuff. We’ve been around for 12 years, so we feel that we can have quite a free hand with everything – it means that we can take risks with everything. We know that people are going to come and enjoy it because they trust us and they have an open mind musically.”

Chay Woodman, Press Officer, Eden Festival
“I think Eden goes the extra mile to make people feel welcome and entertain them. It's okay having artists in a field, some flags and calling it a festival, (and there are a lot of fantastic festivals in Scotland – a lot of different types), but Eden picks some fantastic music. It's not always about having a heavy top line of some huge headliners. You can have some really good headliners and then spread everything out through all the other stages, which I think works for Eden very well because it's a four-day festival. It's a family-friendly festival and you get to see a lot more things just by wandering. 

"Eden is also in this beautiful valley, Raehills Meadows near Moffat in southwest Scotland. There are not many artists that come to southwest Scotland. But this area, Dumfries and Galloway, tends to excel at doing music festivals. We kind of do it well. I don't know why. Maybe because we're the bottom of Scotland, I don’t know.”

Katch Holmes, Producer, Knockengorroch
“Knockengorroch is run by a family, my family and it has family at the very core of it and that sensibility sort of seeps out into the ethos of the festival as a whole. You know, how you try to love your family, whatever their faults are? Your loyalty is kind of driven by love and only love. And I think that the festival is a little bit like that – none of us is perfect, but there's very little judgement. People look after each other. Also the length of time we've been going for: we've been going for 24 years this year. That means you've had entire families form and grow up at the festival, you know, people have met there, conceived there, we've had ashes scattered there.

"There are lots of people that have a very intimate connection with the land because they've been coming there for so long. And they've had so many formative experiences, so they feel like they're really part of the place. And we feel that too.”

Aarti Joshi, Head of Marketing and Communications, DF Concerts
“I think the reason that people stay loyal to TRNSMT and why they did for T in the Park for so many years, is because of that special connection – the relationship between the artist and the crowd. Artists tell us all the time that the atmosphere is different in Scotland – there’s a special relationship and energy in Scotland that can’t be replicated. A Scottish crowd is unlike any other. Festivals that we put on like T in the Park and TRNSMT are just about creating or facilitating that moment to happen where artists and crowds come together. It's something special, and it makes people want to experience that feeling again and again.

"There’s something about TRNSMT that feels like ‘ours’. Because it's right in the heart of the city – these legends are on our turf, and as well as wanting to support homegrown local talent, people want to go and show these visiting megastars what Scotland is all about.”

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Knockengorroch, Carsphairn Hills, Kirkcudbrightshire, 19-22 May
Eden Festival, Raehills Meadows, nr Moffat, 9-12 Jun
Kelburn Garden Party, Kelburn Castle, nr Largs, 1-4 Jul
TRNSMT, Glasgow Green, Glasgow, 8-10 Jul