Greenbelt Update

SOMEWHERE TO BE LEAVING

As the dust settles on another fabulous Greenbelt, it’s our annual reminder that all good things must come to an end. At least for another 12 months.

And that feels particularly apt this year, as we’ve got some big news to share with you.

Next year’s Greenbelt will be our final one at Boughton, as we begin the search for a new festival home.

Here’s why

When we’ve moved sites before, it’s been because we’ve had to. Maybe we’ve been asked to leave. Or we’ve outgrown a site. Or we’ve just run out of money.

Not this time. The good news is our finances are pretty healthy right now, and we have the amazing ongoing support of our Greenbelt Angels.

Ticket numbers have stayed steady for quite a few years too (which is pretty good going these days). We’ve even been able to build up reserves over the last decade.

And we really like being at Boughton. And we think you like it too based on all the lovely things you’ve been telling us about this year’s Greenbelt.

So why the move?

Here’s the thing. When we do the festival maths and look at future projections, it paints a pretty clear long-term picture. If we carry on as we are, producing the festival as it is – where it is – we’re storing up trouble for a few more years down the line.

We work to very tight margins each year, and we have carefully built up reserves since our move to Boughton.

But even with all the good stuff we’ve talked about, the truth is that – like a lot of independent festivals – the festival has lost money most years since the pandemic.

Whilst it’s been a brilliant home for us for the last decade, and we recently passed our half-century in rude, multi-generational health, Boughton’s greenfield site also poses its own set of operational challenges. All of which cost money.

The big rises in production costs following lockdown have forced plenty of festivals like ours to call it a day. We’re determined that won’t happen to us.

Our inclusive ethos and pay-what-you-can-afford ticketing mean that simply passing on the prices to Greenbelters was never going to be an option.

Or we could ignore it, of course. Trust that something – or someone – will turn up. But eventually the numbers would force our hand and we’d need an emergency exit plan.

As stewards of this glorious, life-affirming, faith-restoring 52 year-old festival that we all love, our first responsibility is to the legacy we’ve been handed.

So we’re being bold and seizing the initiative. Next year’s 2026 Greenbelt will be the last one at Boughton. It will be the most Greenbelt-y Greenbelt you’ve ever experienced, and we really hope you’ll join us for it.

What’s next?

All this isn’t a sudden thing – although it might feel like it right now. Our hard-earned reserves and Angels support has given us the confidence to take this long-term strategic decision to make the move, and ensure the future of the festival for the next generation of Greenbelters.

Thinking and planning has already begun on the search for Greenbelt’s next home. And with this year’s festival now over, that work is ramping up with the same excited spirit and creativity that has been our trademark from the very beginning.

The core festival team – staff and trustees – have been living with this idea for a good while now. We’ve agreed the criteria that will frame our search for a new home, and there is a swell of excitement amongst all of us, as to what the next incarnation of this festival could be. Where we could go. How it might feel. What it would look like.

If you’re a long-in-the-tooth, multi-generational Greenbelter like some of us, maybe this news won’t feel as seismic. You’ll know we’ve had seven different homes over the last five decades. That’s seven different versions of the same festival. Same but different. Each unique to that place and time.

Soon it’ll be time for number eight.

But if you’re someone who’s started coming in the last decade, since we’ve been at Boughton House, we know this all might come as a bit of a shock.

Festivals move sites all the time, Greenbelt perhaps more than most. Maybe it’s because, at heart, the Greenbelt community are pilgrims, always on the way somewhere.

Our festival name is Greenbelt for a reason: it’s a portable happening; not a particular place or patch of ground.

Getting it right

Leaving Boughton is obviously a big step, though, and we’re determined to get it right. That means taking the time and doing the work to ensure a creative, long-term future for this festival we all love so much.

We don’t know where that will be right now – because we haven’t found it yet.

It’s quite possible that we might need to take a fallow year in 2027 as we explore all our options – as part of getting this right; before coming back, bolder and better than ever.

Could you call it a leap of faith? You could.

And by doing it now, it’s a leap we’re making 100% on our terms, eyes wide open, rather than one we’re being forced to make in a rush, on someone else’s terms or timeframe.

We might be leaving Boughton, but Greenbelt isn’t going anywhere. We are, and always will be, somewhere to believe in and belong to.

And in the meantime, it’s time to dream it all up again. We can’t wait to do it with you.

We hope all this hasn’t been too much of a shock. It doesn’t change a single thing for next year. We will go out at Boughton with a huge party and we’d love you to be there.

So get your tickets now, and trust us when we say: you won’t want to miss it!

Have you identified the next site for Greenbelt?

Not yet, no. We’ve made the decision that we need to move on from Boughton after 2026. And now that we’ve made that news public, we’ll start the search for Greenbelt’s new home in earnest. We’ve been doing the early work framing exactly what we’re looking for, of course. And we already have a few ideas and irons in the fire. Now comes the detailed search itself.

Is Greenbelt broke?

Not at all, no. We’ve got money in the bank (our reserves are approx £300k) and we have the financial support of more than two thousand amazing Greenbelt Angels (which, thanks to new sign-ups at the festival and our Spread Your Wings uplift campaign, looks set to provide a miraculous £500k of annual income going forward).

Given all that, you’d think that we’d be fine, right? Unfortunately since the pandemic, the operating costs of festivals have gone through the roof. We’ve spent the years since 2021 fine-tuning what we do and how we work, to make sure we’re being as smart and lean as we can be. And we still can’t quite make the sums work, despite careful stewardship and budgeting.

So on current trends, yes – we would still eventually go broke if we stayed where we are and kept trying to make the festival we’re making right now. We’re determined that Greenbelt is around for our children – and their children. But that won’t happen if we lose thousands of pounds, year after year.

It’s because of our Angel giving and our reserves that we are in a financially solid enough position to make the move well. We want to be good and wise stewards and move on from a position of strength.

Why are you telling us this now?

We want to be open with Greenbelters. We want to give people time to digest the news, and hope we can take everyone with us on this journey. Now that we’ve got the 2025 festival done and dusted, we’ve been able to tell Boughton House (from a contractual and relational POV) and so now is literally the earliest we could have told you.

In many ways, it’s a ‘business as usual’ message’: 2026 will see Greenbelt at Boughton once again. The difference is that it will be our last festival in that location. And we’re hoping that as many will want to be there with us next summer to mark that occasion.

When did Greenbelt decide this?

There wasn’t really an epiphany or eureka moment. But it’s true to say that bringing the festival back to life after the COVID break has been financially and operationally hard, forcing us to question the model year-on-year. Although we experienced a little bump in sales in 2023 (for our 50th anniversary festival – which was to be expected), the sums just aren’t adding up.

Both in terms of our own circumstances and those experienced by our fellow festivals in the wider independent festival sector, the headwinds are hard. And when in 2024, the year after our 50th, we sold slightly fewer tickets than we hoped and forecasted, and had to eat into reserves once again to balance the books, we knew we had a problem. We realised that – without something majorly changing for us at Boughton – it would be insane (given the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing in the same way and expecting different results) to just carry on with ‘business as usual’.

As a creative, prophetic community with a desire to be good stewards and to ensure that the Greenbelt legacy is one that has a longterm future instead of just fizzling out, we knew we had to consider radical options.

So, for the past year, post-Greenbelt 2024, we’ve been carefully considering what staying or leaving looks like – financially, creatively, organisationally, and sustainably. In formal terms, it was at the March 2025 meeting of the Greenbelt Board of Trustees that the decision was firmly and formally made that we shouldn’t stay at Boughton beyond 2026.