Wilderness Festival 2025 review - seriously delirious escapism

Wilderness is the kind of festival where you can overhear a conversation about the philosophical implications of rewilding whilst queuing for Veuve Clicquot, or watch a man dressed as a vicar strip naked mid-cricket match without anyone blinking. It is, in every sense, deeply decent – equal parts bougie and bonkers, like a country house party that accidentally invited in the circus, the club kids, and a few stray shamans.

This year’s gathering was a reminder of how the annual arable revel in Cornbury Park has become the gold standard for sophisticated summer merrymaking. And golden it was, with the sponsor’s halcyon venue – affectionately nicknamed the “Church of Audi” – squatting at the top of the grounds and at one point driving an actual gilded car through the fields as part of a parade. Let’s just acknowledge for a second that the arts are in a spectacularly dire state, and current culture wars are divisive – but if a bit of Discolicious bling and some exclusive al-fresco parties allow for the plethora of activities on offer, then that’s OK with me.

Because the line-up was excellent – Air, Aurora, Wet Leg and Basement Jaxx being amongst the most unforgettable musical moments – but it was the bits in between that allowed for further moments of human connection and joy. Alongside the main stage music, there is a diverse and excellently curated program that goes far beyond the gigs.

Wilderness sort of teaches you what it is to be alive – immersive nature, intellectual stimulation, established and new musical acts, theatre, crafting and feasting, sometimes at a banqueting table in the forest. Combine this with actual flushing toilets, a short walk to your tent and cocktail bars so fancy you momentarily forget you’re in a field and you've created the kind of weekend that spoils you for every other festival.

Thursday

Sometimes the Thursday evening festi-line up is a calmer affair, with a bit of a waft around the grounds to get your bearings, and perhaps some cheesy chips. We didn’t expect to get sucked into the uplifting house of TV personality Gok Wan, spinning some proper party-starting tunes that kept us boogying into the evening.

An exploratory wander into new venue The Dive – a dimly lit roadhouse bolt-hole – had us transfixed by experimental chaos‑rock trio Mary in the Junkyard. It became clear that this grimy-glam little stage was the breeding ground for the weekend’s "ones to watch", including Humane the Moon, Goodbye and Callinsick lining up to shake the walls.

Keen to preserve energy for the rest of the fest, we negated the mostly 18+ Thursday evening offerings – and I now have to live with the fact that I may never again be able to attend the Disco Ceilidh Hoedown, hosted by DJ Max Galactic and Monsieur Bon Bon. Unless of course, they return triumphant next year.

Friday

Friday morning, I managed to coax the teens into The Forum for a talk on “How to Survive The Culture Wars” with Paul Dolan, author of Happiness by Design and new book Beliefism, and Sarah Stein Lubrano, author of Don’t Talk About Politics. It was a fascinating cocktail of philosophy, neuroscience and social movements focused on whether healthy debate can spark real change, with practical tips on how to recognise our own biases and then work towards overcoming them. From the profound to the playful, we went on to create some clay creatures in the Family Field – denied as we were to the Headpieces & Hat workshop, oversubscribed as it was (side note – the same thing happened not twice but thrice over the weekend).

Whilst there was a bit of whinging about the security (rigid bag searches and an ironclad policy on U18s not being allowed in without a responsible adult) these checks and balances meant that for the most part there was no extreme over indulgence, or gangs of marauding youths in the glow of newfound freedom going a bit OTT.

The demographic at Wilderness is beautifully mixed. Parents can nostalgia-trip to legacy acts while their teens rave in the woods. Little ones get early-morning theatre and glittery drum sessions. And those allergic to children? Off they jog to yoga, forage, join a culinary workshop or dive into the Book Tent.

Skirting the periphery of DJ Yoda in search of pizza, I mentally catalogue everything I'm missing – the inner child drawing workshop, falconry in Wychwood Forest, body poetry, a sacred womb ceremony, modern calligraphy, and that intriguing breakfast wine workshop... But as we wander and festival mode slowly kicks in, I surrender to serendipity, letting unplanned discoveries unfold – some more fortuitous than others: Whilst aiming for the Tartopia Poetry Show at the House of Sublime (a pink keyhole-shaped portal to another realm), I managed to narrowly avoid shepherding my 10-year-old into Tom Selmon's erotic photography workshop. But one of the moments of festival education I wasn’t quite planning on.

Friday night’s headline acts on the mainstage was a blissed out affair, with Air's transcendent French electronica framed by a minimalist white oblong box. Parisian chill-out veterans Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Duncke floated through their 1998 masterpiece Moon Safari, unlocking core memories for an entire generation and allowing us to both re-find and lose ourselves in the metronomic fizz and hypnotic bass of “La Femme D’Argent”, “Sexy Boy”, “Kelly Watch The Stars” and “Remember”. This is music that has genuinely stood the test of time.

Air were followed by another 90s retro duo – Orbital, known for being architects of the rave era. Brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll, dressed all in black with flashlights for eyes, bought a significantly harder sound, channelling warehouse dancefloor euphoria and uneasy dystopian scratches with samples of Stephen Hawking and The Spice Girls, opening with “Where Is It Going?” and blasting through “Dirty Rat” into “Satan” before working all the way back to classic anthem “Chime”.

I confess I left the teenagers to continue the rave with Annie Mac in The Valley (a steep outdoor venue tucked away through some woodlands spitting strobe lights into the night) as I headed back to the tent, utterly losing my tenuous grip on any agreement about what time I might expect them home.

Saturday

Saturday saw the sequins quotient ramp up significantly, with extreme crowd commitment to fancy dress resulting in golden stars and glowing jellyfish wandering between stages.

The wellness offerings at Wilderness really do run the gamut. Wandering past one of the many yoga sessions on offer, Teen watching a packed yurt observes: "They're so close they practically have their faces in each other's bums." She’s not wrong. A synchronised arching movement confirms: it’s a yogic hump train. No yoga for us, then.

With any such practice now wildly off the cards, we opt instead for a visit to the temple of nature, taking a fresh dip in the wild swimming ponds, next to the hot tubs and paddleboard yoga. A great freshener for the evening ahead, which began with Hot Dub Time Machine on the Wilderness Stage. My only complaint here was that the set was a mere 45 minutes long. We could’ve had two hours of this time-travelling danceathon, with DJ Hot Dub firing up a sweaty kaleidoscope of Salt ‘n’ Pepa, Technotronic, Josh Wink, and Fatman Scoop as he journeyed from the 70s to present day hits. Toddlers on shoulders screamed along to the Spice Girls, TikTok teens waved their hands in the air to 90s cheese with bamboozling enthusiasm, and a man dressed as the pope knocked over a small child. Everyone cheered.

Mancunian pop-poet Antony Szmierek was an unexpected hit of the weekend, who performed tracks from his most recent album Service Station at The End of the Universe, which is well worth a listen. “Yoga Teacher” and “Rafters” were particularly fitting fare for the crowd, who Szmierek jumped down from the stage and ran amongst on his way to say “hi” to those on the viewing platform. His likability, word prowess and slightly ravey flavour was a huge hit.Bringing the beauty to the early evening, quirky Norwegian songstress Aurora was the perfect festival headliner, chatting about piss, snot and joy, preaching that curiosity is “the fundamental thing”. Her haunting opener “Churchyard” was followed by an incredibly moving rendition of “Through The Eyes of a Child”, dedicated to the children of Palestine. Alongside earnest delivery of tender ballads such as “Exist for Love” she skips around the stage with a spritely energy for “Queendom”, declares she loves a stranger she sees – “strictly sexually” – and tells us “our voices help and everything we do matters so much”. "Run Away", dedicated to "all the people longing for a home that doesn't exist anymore", resonates with the crowd who croon along, but those hoping for her best known song “Running With The Wolves” were left disappointed after “Giving In To The Love” rounded off the set.

Supergrass then bought a Britpop blast from the past, working their way through I Should Coco which this year celebrates its 30th birthday (!) and a further catalogue of greatest hits veering between nostalgic spiky rock and more mellow acoustic vibes nicely frayed at the edges. It was cheerful nostalgia for a crowd whose Adidas stripes may have faded but whose lyrics memory hadn’t. The mainstage saw a slight mass exodus after "We Are Young We Are Free" – the lure of Eats Everything giving family rave vibes at The Atrium proving too much for some. A quick jaunt at The Clubhouse (always a good place to be for bangers served with a side of ironic glee), sharing sway space with nudists and borrowing hula hoops from friendly circus performers, and we were done for the night.

Sunday

By Sunday, you may have expected that the sequins had dulled, the wild swimmers had wrinkled, and a child’s cardboard Dogman hat had made its way to Lost Property. But in a savage display of programming, the puppeteers of Wilderness 2025 had made sure that we all stayed for the last night, prepped and ready for some jolly splendid finale headliners – Wet Leg and Basement Jaxx.

But first – we all embraced our inner pervs for the terribly titillating annual cricket match, a by-now well-established staple of the festival that sees young and old, naked and sequined, feral and glam gather together for a kind-of-sports show featuring cricket players in dress up. Anyone can play. The experience is held together at the seams by hilarious compares Timmy Sampson and Robin Clyfan whose wry commentary on the costumes, pitch invasions, umpiring and opinions on their esteemed sponsors is everything.

Stopping off at The Hustle, a wicked little corner doing a barefoot Bali-in-Oxfordshire thing, we swayed to chilled grooves from Mamadafunk before heading back to the mainstage for the much-anticipated Wet Leg. Frontwoman Rhian Teasdale patiently taught the crowd lyrics to newer material from the band's chart-topping second album, Moisturizer, woven between crowd pleasers like “Angelica,” “Ur Mum” and “the song that made it all happen,” “Chaise Longue.” The audience revelled in the punk-tinged blend of deadpan wit, barbed guitar riffs, and sticky indie-pop hooks, with no one able to take their eyes off Teasdale – a woman exuding magnetic presence, utterly owning her well-deserved moment.Basement Jaxx brought the weekend to a spectacular close with their first full live main stage show in over a decade, 25 years since the release of Remedy and reminding everyone why we fell in love with electronica in the first place. The crowd surged to the euphoric mix of garage, funk and Latin in mega-hits such as “Bingo Bango”, “Jus 1 Kiss”, “Do Your Thing”, “Red Alert” and “Romeo” performed on a sloped stage which became a playground for dancers, acrobats and singers in spangly silver costumes. In a sweaty, surreal and gloriously chaotic finale,

 “Where’s Your Head At” drew the festival to a close, its prophetic lines “don’t let the walls cave in on you” ringing in our ears as a deliriously meaningful reminder to hold onto a little bit of Wilderness back in the real world – to master the art of being both silly and sublime, ridiculous and radiant all at once.

Wilderness isn't just a festival – it’s a masterclass in how to be. This weirdly wholesome, hilariously transformative weekend creates a space where you can be utterly ridiculous and unexpectedly real. The organisers continue to understand that a great festival isn't merely about the headline acts; it's about an environment where curiosity, connection and celebration give permission to be gloriously, authentically alive.

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