Top 8 Summer Music Festivals 2014

Although some of the top big league festivals like Coachella, Governor’s Ball, Ultra, Bonnaroo, Sónar and Primavera Sound, have already passed, there are still loads to look out for this summer. Take a look at the top 8 current and upcoming music festivals of summer 2014, save the dates in your calendars, and don’t be sorry! Party on!

Glastonbury (June 25th – 29th)

Glastonbury has a huge & diversified amount of live music to offer! Even by pulling all-nighters, consuming tonnes of Red Bull and a “controlled” amount of “energy tablets”, you’ll be lucky to see half the bands on your must-see list.

The festival first began in in 1970 during the hippie, counterculture and free festival movement, and was originally a pop, blues and folk festival. Glastonbury has since been held intermittently through to 2014 and has always taken place on Worthy Farm in Somerset, England. With its long musical history, famed headliners and incredible line-ups, it’s no wonder Glastonbury is ranked as one of the top music festivals in the world. On the downside, despite the all rainbows & sunshine (…and a pair of wellies) aspect of the festival – yes, the live music is majestic – it will cost you an arm and a leg to take part in this musical English phenomenon. Huffington Post did the nitty-gritty dirty work for us and found out an estimate of how much Glastonbury actually costs:

For more info: http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/

Roskilde (29th June – 6 July) (Play this video in Creation 5)

According to Consequence of Sound, Roskilde “may be Glastonbury’s biggest rival”. While the line-up is an outstanding one, with Rolling Stones headlining, Stevie Wonder and Drake playing on the main stage on closing night, and the likes of Lykke Li, Outkast and Bastille performing, what’s particularly interesting about the Denmark-based festival is that the camp grounds opens a week before, creating a frenzied and distinctive atmosphere. Roskilde was first created in 1971 and is run by Roskilde Festival Charity Society, a non-profit organisation supporting initiatives backing children and young people, humanitarian and cultural work. It has since become the largest North European culture and music fest.

For more info: http://roskilde-festival.dk/#dLdBSOQf00C4g43k.97

Tomorrowland (18th – 20th July & 25th – 27th July)

Tomorrowland is a mega electronic music festival held in Boom, Belgium. The festival was first set up in 2005 and, as the word spread, what was once a 1-day festival turned into a 3-day festival with over 180,000 visitors and a huge number of acts. This year, in celebration of Tomorrowland’s 10th anniversary, the festival will take place over two weekends, with more or less the same line-up on both weekends. In light of all the hype created around Tomorrowland 2014, and with the news of a documentary being made and coming out in 2015, 400,000 tickets were sold out before this year’s line-up was even announced.

To check out the huge line-up see: http://www.tomorrowland.com/en/line-up

Pitchfork (Jule 18th – 20th)

“For a festival that’s always lived in the shadow of its bigger brother Lollapalooza (see below), it appears the sibling owns 2014” says Michael Roffman at Consequence of Sound.
Held in Union Park, Chicago, Pitchfork Music Festival presents over 40 of the best new and emerging bands. The festival is internationally known to be one of the most “welcoming, comfortable, reasonably priced, and rewarding weekends of music around”.

Tickets are still on sale at a reasonable price. For more info, check out: http://pitchforkmusicfestival.com/

Lollapalooza (August 1st – 3rd) (Play this video in Creation 5)

The Lollapalooza Music Festival features alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock, hip-hop, dance, and comedy performances. Created by Perry Farrell (lead singer of Jane’s Addiction), the festival ran from 1991 to 1997 and was later reintroduced in 2003. Lollapalooza is a weekend festival in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois. In 2010, the festival announced it was to branch out overseas. The festival has since been staged in Santiago, Chile, and São Paolo, Brazil. The main Chicago event attracted 300,000 people last year and tickets were running out before the line-up was announced. This year, the $250 3-day passes were sold out in no more than an hour, but you can still purchase day passes. Today, Lollapalooza is included in the ranking of large-scale festivals such as Coachella and Bonnaroo.

For a chance to see Eminem, Outkast, Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex, Lorde, Calvin Harris, Foster The People, Krewella, Iggy Azalea and more, check out the website at: http://www.lollapalooza.com/

Burning Man (August 25th – September 1st) (Play this video in Creation 5)

The Burning Man Project takes place in the middle of the Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, USA. For 7 days, Black Rock City is a place of community, art, self-expression and self-reliance, where the people are guided by ten principles that echo the cultural spirit of the event: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, immediacy.

It is a place built by the participants from scratch and where everything is set on fire at the end, to leave without a trace. The burning of the large wooden effigy (the burning man) ritually takes place on the Saturday night. Within the city are innovative sculptures, installations, performances, theme camps, art cars, and all-flower costumes. The temperature drops below 0ºC at night and rises to 45ºC in the day.

To join the movement, check out: http://www.burningman.com/

Outlook (September 3rd – 7th) (Play this video in Creation 5)

Outlook Festival famously takes place in Pula, Croatia. It is Europe’s leading bass music and soundsystem culture festival, with a roman amphitheatre, beaches, boat parties and castles, drum&bass and Dubstep DJ legends. Outlook is where the party is!

To join the crazy festivity: http://www.outlookfestival.com/

Secret Garden Party (July 24th – 27th)

If you like animal onesies, multi-coloured dust powder, firework displays, great music and a unique atmosphere, Cambridgeshire, UK, is where you want to be in July! The Secret Garden Party is an independent art and music festival, launched in 2004 as an alternative to the large-scale mainstream music festivals mentioned above. The festival has since grown from one stage, with 1000 visitors, to over 15 stages and 26,000 visitors. SGP supports The Campaign Against Living Miserably, which aims to prevent male suicide in the UK. This year’s theme is “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”.