OPINION
Shambala’ s bold next chapter
Having celebrated the festival’ s 25th anniversary this year, Shambala co-founder Chris Johnson outlines what’ s in store for the 15,000-capacity event, including the focus on it attaining B Corp status.
Every August bank holiday, we come together in the Northamptonshire countryside to host a festival that intends to defy the usual blueprint of headliners and expensive beer. For 25 years now, Shambala has been about creating a space where joy, fairness, and ethics come first, and where we can explore what a better society might look like.
What started as a small gathering of around 100 friends has grown into a network of crew, artists, suppliers and audience, all committed to doing things the right way and thinking about the future we want to build.
With over 40 independently programmed venues and more than 20,000 people joining us each year, we’ ve managed to stay one of the UK’ s last truly independent festivals- completely free of corporate sponsorship- and we marked our quarter-century edition with a sold-out show.
But we’ re not resting on that. We’ re currently preparing an application for B Corp certification, aiming to become one of the first UK festivals to achieve this. The ethics of our entire supply chain have also always been at the core of our decision-making- we work almost exclusively with companies and partners who offer sustainable and people-positive products and services such as Oxfam Stewards, MyCause, Nordic Wristbands,
Instagrid, Freedom lager, Onboard. Earth, Riverford Organics, and many local and sustainable food growers. Joining the B Corp community feels like a natural fit, and we’ re looking forward to working with more B Corps going forward.
For our 2026 tickets on-sale in October we are taking another step forward with a new primary ticketing partner, Humanitix. They’ re a charity, which is pretty unique in the ticketing world, and they donate 100 % of their profits to charity partners that are solving some of the world ' s most challenging issues.
Sustainability isn’ t just policy for us- it’ s part of a culture that we have cultivated and reinforced year on year. Collective responsibility now runs deep with our audience- by 3pm on the Monday after this year’ s festival, for example, the site was spotless. No tents left behind. None. No piles of waste. Just grass.
This year ' s big sustainability achievement is that we became the first UK festival to wholesale only sustainable biogas onsite for all concessions, showers, cooking and heating, in partnership with Festival Gas. This was the missing piece in our ambition to be‘ fossil fuel free onsite’- we already run plant and other vehicles on sustainably sourced HVO, use electric buggies, and the build and break period of the event, including crew catering, all run from a grid connection using a green tariff. To eliminate all fossil fuels within our control onsite feels like another important milestone, following becoming meatand-fish-free, eliminating single-use plastics, and running the whole event on sustainable energy.
At the same time, we know we need to balance all this serious stuff with downright silliness and put on a legendary party to sell the tickets.
The year felt extraordinary. One moment, you might be swept into a
Chris Johnson
colour-coordinated flash mob, the next, engrossed in a keynote on art and activism delivered by Led By Donkeys. You could choose to march shoulder-to-shoulder with costume-clad comrades in the legendary Saturday dress-up carnival, or sit in on a workshop about non-violent direct action with Fossil Free London. You might even end up marrying yourself, as hundreds of Shambalans did this year in the brilliantly bonkers Big Phat Green Wedding, before diving into a debate on the role of the arts in the climate justice movement.
As the world becomes more divided and disconnected, we are increasingly focused on what it means to belong, and what ritual means in a festival context. The mass moments of togetherness that we create remind us that we are connected, that we are part of something bigger, and can be powerful when we act collectively.
As we look ahead, we are committed to listening, learning, collaborating, evolving and being our best selves. Festivals like Shambala can- and should- be joyful playgrounds, catalysts for change and vehicles for unity and connection.
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