Wide Awake Festival 2026

Since its founding in 2021, Wide Awake has built a bold reputation very fast as an independent festival. It will be important for people who want to discover new music, opening their ears to completely exciting paths. Wide Awake places the best new emerging acts alongside established favorites in a lineup that really isn't scared to be a bit different.

This is the first edition of the festival, following the revitalization of live music post-pandemic, capturing that feeling of moments so eagerly missed due to absence. From leftfield indie to post-punk, electronica, techno, and through to jazz, its inaugural lineup is richly infused with a genre-bending array of artists that one would seldom find at any London festival.

After an opening year of success, Wide Awake expanded into a two-day event for 2022. That certainly proved to be a very savvy move, as on the musical broadening scope of the Festival, bookings took place, like electronic heavies Bicep to headline Friday night and the dynamic performances from Primal Scream leading the lineup from Saturday with the punk-rock firebrands Amyl and the Sniffers with anarchic energy from Fat White Family.

By 2023, Wide Awake had sealed its position as the UK's best festival for daring to be different. Caroline Polachek seized her first-ever festival headline slot. The following year saw King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, titans of all things psych-rock, seize center stage in further solidifying this very eccentric festival.

Looking at 2025, Wide Awake returned with another killer lineup. That year, the headliner was Kneecap, the absurdist, pointedly political Irish hip-hop trio famous for their wild live shows. Joining them in the headlining slots were genre-bending wit CMAT and rising UK outfit English Teacher—keeping the bill a hotbed for talent that truly defied expectations.

Wide Awake remains that revelatory explosion of eclectic sounds and visionary musicianship, confirming in the process that it is not just another festival, but an indispensable place for musical discovery. Be it being into the cutting edge or simply wondering what goes on off the beaten track, Wide Awake is where it's at.