Primal Scream

Festival season is well and truly here and there was one very special thing at Kendal Calling that left be utterly gobsmacked

Summer is well and truly upon us and that means one thing – the return of the festival season.

While it might be a fallow year for Glastonbury, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an entire raft of fun in fields to be had.

I was one of the lucky 40,000 people who descended on the fields of Cumbria for this year’s Kendal Calling – which gets bigger and better each year. Once again, it was a sell-out and not only that but festival goers were blessed with the most incredible weather.

I’m a Cumbrian myself so I know only too well how much it likes to rain in that particular county – the lakes in the Lake District do need their water from somewhere afterall.

There were some concerns Kendal Calling‘s organisers had a too tough a job to match 2025’s epic experience and line-up but people needn’t have worried as this year was even more spectacular.

From Vanessa Carlton and The Kooks on the open night to Two Door Cinema Club, Ash, The Coral and Scissor Sisters on the Friday, the incredible Biffy Clyro in what many are calling Kendal Calling’s best ever headline set and The Libertines on the Saturday before The Lancashire Hotpots got everyone going on hangover Sunday and the whole incredible experience was rounded out by a very on form Primal Scream and Wolf Alice – the line-up truly was something to behold.

One of the glorious things about Kendal Calling is the mish mash of activities on offer – from the stunning woodlands in Lost Eden, which transform into a magical fairytale after dark, to Tim Peaks Diner, Desert Island Disco and Chai Wallahs – this really is a festival with something else.

And this year there was a huge surprise I didn’t expect – the food. To call it varied and plentiful would be doing it a serious dis-service. From the usual burgers and pizza there was fish and chips, gyros, Yorkshire pudding wraps, pasta, BBQ, rotisserie chicken, meatballs, vegan offerings, fried chicken, poke bowls and anything else you can possibly imagine.

Don’t get me wrong, you couldn’t call it cheap but the prices were far from extortionate (although I am a London-dweller these days so I have lost all sense of what is ‘reasonable’) and everything I sampled was freshly cooked and utterly delicious.

There was even an actual sit down restaurant in the fields in the form of Ranch 76 Smokehouse, with the nicest staff you could meet and a breakfast that truly set us up for the day.

I wasn’t expecting to come back from a festival absolutely stuffed and my only regret is that four days is simply not long enough to try everything on offer.

Kendal Calling will be back next year with tickets going on sale at 10am on Tuesday.