Summer is on the way and the 2023 festival season is about to begin. With anticipation mounting for this year’s must-attend events, British hotel chain Premier Inn has created a new index to reveal which festivals are receiving the most ‘hype’ this year.
The index looked at combined Spotify streams for the top five headliners at over 100 festivals, alongside Google searches for ‘[festival name]’, ‘[festival] + tickets’ and ‘[festival] + line up’ and considered each festival’s attendance capacity to unveil the most anticipated festivals for 2023.
The UK’s Most Anticipated Festivals
Looking at British festivals, Dorset’s Camp Bestival took the crown as most anticipated this year. With headliners including Craig David, Grace Jones, The Kooks and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, against its relatively small capacity per day of 10,000, the festival is clearly making a name for itself with its famous headliners from the 90s and 00s.
Pitched as a family camping festival, the event actually has two dates across two locations – Dorset and Shropshire – as well as offering silent discos, yoga, meditation and even theatre and comedy shows.
The UK’s runner-up, Lancashire-based Lytham Festival, presents household names such as the Kaiser Chiefs and George Ezra, Lionel Richie, Sting and Jamiroquai, offering listeners a variety of different genres.
Rounding off the top three is Wireless Festival in London’s Finsbury Park, which has a larger capacity of 50,000 festivalgoers a day. A rap and urban music festival, Wireless includes headliners Playboi Carti, 50 Cent and Travis Scott, who amass an average of 21 million combined monthly Spotify listeners.
Sister festivals Reading and Leeds come in sixth and seventh place respectively, while more rural festivals such as Wilderness, Truck Festival and Henley Festival – all in Oxfordshire – also make the top 15.
Surprisingly, festival royalty Glastonbury didn’t make the rankings, despite a star-studded line up and high competition to buy tickets. This could be due to its large capacity of 210,000 versus other more exclusive festivals, or it could be that music lovers are seeking out lesser-known, smaller festivals where they may be more likely to secure a ticket and get closer to their favourite artists in smaller crowds.
