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Shambala is an annual, family-friendly festival held over the August bank holiday in Northamptonshire. This year, the festival will run August 27-31. Performers include Bob Vylan, BCUC, Los Bitchos and many more. 

The employees of the festival will own Shambala via an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). This is a decision the official press release states will make certain “that [Shambala’s] founding ethos – creativity, sustainability, independence and community – remains protected for years to come.” 

Chris Johnson, co-founder and MD says, “All of us at Shambala have an emotional stake in what we have built over 25 years; now everyone has an ownership stake. We would be nothing without our people, and they deserve to carry on the Shambala legacy as beneficiaries.” He also spoke to how the decision was intended to protect the festival from increased commercialization: “we simply could not sell to venture capitalists or the big promotion companies.” He said the founders “fell in love” with the EOT model while exploring options for the sell.

Dan Rafferty, co-founder and Head of Music said the choice to transition to employee-ownership reflected the festival’s core values:  “As a society, we must explore alternative models of ownership as a way through which the massive power and potential of capitalism can be focused on serving humanity and the planet at large. Employee Ownership is just the next, natural step in Kambe’s adventures towards a utopia.” 

Shambala has consistently shown a commitment to this “uptoia” thinking. The festival has been 100% renewably powered for its entire lifetime and last year’s 25^th Anniversary festival was the first UK festival to be heated entirely on biogas. 

Incoming chair of the EOT, Tom Berry says, “Employee ownership is the very best long-term option for people-focused businesses looking to protect their culture and reward their people. Kambe is a hugely creative group of people who have worked together to create one of the most culturally significant and unique festivals in the UK. The Kambe founders want a lasting legacy and employee ownership means everyone wins. I’m incredibly proud to be the team’s first EOT Chair.”

Shambala festival hosts around 15,000 adults each year, making it one of the UK’s smaller festivals. But it is rich with “poetry, puppetry, politics and permaculture” in its 40 venues hosting a motley of events sure to please any festival-goer. And they are proud to host “one of the most unique” musical line ups, spanning from punk to soul and from techno to folk. 

Any remaining tickets for the festival can be found here. 

As announced on the festival’s Instagram page, regular tickets will be sold on November 17 while packages tickets, which include coach transfer, will be sold on November 14.

Glastonbury Festival 2025 tickets will go on sale on Thursday, November 14th (coach + ticket packages) and Sunday, November 17th (standard tickets).
Info at https://t.co/iNoqjqbQ5T pic.twitter.com/hajhnEjwJb

— Glastonbury Festival (@glastonbury) October 10, 2024

Furthermore, the price of tickets has also been announced with an increase from previous years. Any ticket will have a booking fee of £5, and the price of standard tickets is £373.50. Over social media, the organizers for the festival stated that there is an increase of £18 in tickets from last year, where a standard ticket would be sold for £355. Coach prices have also been announced: a return ticket from London is £74, from Edinburgh £162 and from Manchester £74. You can check the full list below:  

Registration for tickets is currently open at this link. Registering will allow you to enter the sale, however it doesn’t guarantee tickets. The big change that the 2025 edition will see in terms of tickets is that Glastonbury will use a queue system this year. This is to facilitate and make more fair the ticket buying process. The organizers have advised ticket buyers to only use on device per account, as logging in and queuing from the same account from multiple devices may cause delays or even being stuck in the queue.

In previous years, in order to buy tickets the page had to be refreshed multiple times; this year instead anyone who is trying to buy a ticket is advised not to refresh the page at all as that may cause to lose their place in the queue. Anyone who joins the queue when the tickets are already on sale will automatically be put to the back of the queue.  

 

 

 

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In the Q&A section of the Glastonbury website, the organisers have explained how the new queue system works, and they stated: “When you reach the front of the queue, you will be asked to enter the registration number and registered postcode for the lead booker and up to 5 other people for whom you are attempting to book tickets. You will have 10 minutes to complete this page before your session expires, however tickets are not allocated at this point. When you proceed, the details you have provided will be displayed on the next page.”

Glastonbury usually reveals the first few names in the line-up after the first batch of tickets is sold. This year, artists such as Rhianna, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran are rumored to be performing.