Houghton Festival on the grounds of Houghton Hall returns in August 2025. Adam Bloodworth went to its 2024 edition to follow in the footsteps of unlikely dance music fan, Kate Middleton
Alongside ‘Alec Baldwin shoots cinematographer’ and ‘Will Smith punches Chris Rock,’ ‘Kate Middleton goes to underground electronic music festival’ lives high on the list of weirdest, most unexpected news stories. But there she was: cap down, in the middle of the night, apparently at a stage called ‘Earthling,’ surrounded by a lot of people so giddy with party spirit they looked like they were anywhere but Planet Earth.
Kate Middleton was at Houghton last year because her aristo family friends, the Cholmondeley’s, live at Houghton Hall, the grand 17th century country pile which has land enough surrounding it to put on a festival. One worker tells me they’re “asset rich rich but money poor” so they decided to put on the UK’s only 24-hour knees-up. (Even Glastonbury turns the decks off at 6am.) Apparently the family, including daughter Rose who is friends with Wills and Kate, loves a knees-up and attends the festival often.
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Tours of the gardens of Houghton Hall are available with a festival ticket; owners lend the land to artists to create sculptures and the lasting memory is tens of unnerving metal casts of a naked Anthony Gormley that are buried into the rolling Saltburn lawn, forming one extensive sculptural rumination (being here at night must be terrifying). But most of the festival action is half a kilometre away around the Hall’s lake.
The idea is extra-long, transportative sets, allowing fans longer with their favourite DJs. Midland played for four hours in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday, and some fans had sold Glastonbury tickets to be here, prioritising this singular fan experience with electronic sound. Call Super, Ben U.F.O. and Gigi FM represented the sonic diversity, representing every corner of the techno, house, disco and dub step genres, plus much more. The music never ends, literally, though there are corners of the campsite far enough away from the sub-woofers to get a good night’s sleep. (I particularly loved how one particularly special woodland stage requires walking through the main campsite to access; it’s a middle finger salute to VIP guests, many of whom won’t be bothered to make the trek out there.)
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Crowd-wise Houghton is probably the poshest music festival in the UK, other than maybe Wilderness. The car park is full with Mercedes and Audis and Origin Coffee literally built a bouji coffee shop on site. There’s the coolest record store, vegan food everywhere, and Kate Middleton was possibly about the average age. (Gen Zs are knocking about but this is really more for people old enough to have developed a proper music taste.)
If you’re not mad about every individual dance music genre, this 24-hour rare can feel underpowered, with little else to do to keep entertained other than the electronic stuff. I found myself craving more live music. There is a little bit of percussive live scheduling, but you really have to search it out. But if you’re happy with DJs and really good coffee, this is undoubtedly the UK’s slickest tear up in the woods.
Houghton festival returns in 2025