Family festivals UK: a guide to the best weekends with kids

Family festivals UK: what makes one work

A family festival is not just an ordinary festival that lets children in, and the ones parents return to year after year share a few habits. The good family festivals in the UK are planned around a child's day: early starts, a field of things to make and climb before lunch, music that suits an afternoon on a blanket, and quiet camping away from the late-night stages. The best ones still book bands that parents actually want to hear, which is why the format has grown so quickly since the late 2000s.

The calendar is short and predictable. One family weekend opens the year on the late May bank holiday, and the rest arrive in late July and August, timed to the English school holidays. Ticket structures follow a common pattern too: babies and toddlers usually go free, primary-age children need their own cheaper ticket, and teenagers have a band of their own with rules about being accompanied.

Here are the family friendly festivals in the UK that have kept their place over many summers, with the details that matter when you are travelling with children.

Camp Bestival, Dorset

Camp Bestival is the best known of the family festivals in the UK, built from the start for a weekend with kids, and one of the longest running: it began in 2008 as the family offshoot of the Isle of Wight's Bestival. It is held in the grounds of Lulworth Castle in Dorset, a short drive from the Jurassic Coast, over four days around the end of July and the start of August. The castle, a seventeenth-century hunting lodge with four round towers, stands over the main arena.

Families usually arrive on the Thursday and camp for the full run, and the early-arrival camping packages are often the first thing to sell out. Day tickets exist for those who live within reach. The programme mixes chart acts and nostalgia headliners with a large children's area, science tents and a funfair, and most of the crowd arrives with children of primary-school age.

Latitude, Suffolk

Latitude takes place at Henham Park near Southwold in Suffolk in the second half of July, over four days from Thursday to Sunday. It is a general festival rather than a dedicated family one, with major headliners on the main stage, but its comedy, theatre, poetry and literature tents and its large children's area have made it a regular choice for families. For anyone in Cambridge it is also the nearest of the large summer festivals, roughly seventy miles to the east.

The age rules are typical of the bigger events. Children aged 0 to 4 go in free and need no ticket. Children from 5 to 12 need their own child ticket and must be with a ticket-holding adult. Teenagers from 13 to 15 need a teen ticket, can move around the site on their own, but cannot pass through the perimeter gates without an adult. Everyone under 16 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian over 18, and the organisers advise bringing proof of age.

Deer Shed, North Yorkshire

Deer Shed is a smaller, three-day festival at Baldersby Park near Topcliffe and Thirsk, held over a weekend in late July. It mixes music and comedy for adults with hands-on science, craft and sport for children, and each edition is built around a theme that runs through the site, from decorations to activities. A recent edition centred on a giant maze with escape-room challenges. The line-ups lean towards independent rock and indie bands, which gives it a slightly different crowd from the southern family events.

Just So and Elderflower Fields

Just So, at Rode Hall in Cheshire, is a children's arts festival rather than a music festival with a kids' area: storytelling, theatre, dressing up and a woodland full of games make up the bulk of the programme. It takes a weekend in the second half of August and has returned after a fallow year, which is worth knowing if you see it missing from a calendar.

Elderflower Fields opens the family season on the late May bank holiday weekend at Pippingford Park in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex. It describes itself as a first festival for families and keeps its size down on purpose, with two music stages, woodland play, workshops and a communal picnic. The nearest stations are Cooksbridge, Lewes and Uckfield, from where a taxi is the usual last leg.

The best family friendly festivals compared

All five family friendly festivals below were running in their most recent season, and together they cover most of what festivals for families across the UK offer. The table gives the usual slot, not a fixed date, and the children's ticket pattern as published by each organiser.

Planning a festival with kids: a short guide

A few habits separate a good weekend with kids from a long one, at family festivals in the UK as anywhere. Ear defenders matter more than any other item: small children's hearing is easily damaged, and the front of a main stage is far louder than it feels from the back. Most family festivals sell them on site, but they cost less bought at home.

Pitch close to the family camping area and the toilets, not close to the arena. A wagon or trolley does more work than a buggy on rough grass, where the festival allows them. Agree a meeting point the moment you arrive, and write a phone number on a wristband or on the child's arm. Plan the day backwards from bedtime. The headliners finish late, and a family that sees the afternoon acts and the children's tents fresh often has a better weekend than one that pushes on past ten.

Finally, check the age bands before you book. Prices for child tickets are far lower than adult ones, but the band boundaries differ from festival to festival, and a child who turns thirteen in July may need a teen ticket by the time the gates open.