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PANAPALOOZA 2026 - Grown Organically, Kept Close: From Caterpillar Cafe to Woodland Wonderland
PANAPALOOZA 2026 - Grown Organically, Kept Close: From Caterpillar Cafe to Woodland Wonderland
Panapalooza feels like a festival that's being inherited; the people who built the culture are still there, but younger generations are now shaping it too.
Organised by the people who once served tea and dahl from The Caterpillar Cafe deep down the Rabbit Hole at Glastonbury Festival, Panapalooza carries the same spirit of creativity and magic.
Some festivals arrive fully formed. Others grow organically, shaped by the people who return year after year. Panapalooza belongs firmly in the latter camp.
As the festival grows, it remains rooted in the community that built it.
What began as an extension of the community around the Caterpillar Café, a beloved corner of Glastonbury Festivals’ Rabbit Hole, Panapalooza has gradually evolved into something entirely its own. From organically hosting stages to becoming an independent gathering, Panapalooza remains a labour of love, continuously reshaped by the families, friends and younger generations who bring fresh ideas to its ever-expanding vision.
This year, it emerged from last year's barn and stepped out into the fields and woodlands of Upper Seagry, near Chippenham, just under half an hour from Bristol. The new site breathes more freely, allowing room for new ideas while maintaining the sense of closeness that defines the festival.
Arriving along the country tracks towards the site, we were welcomed not by traffic marshals but by two wild turkeys guiding us towards the gates. It felt like an appropriate introduction.
Panapalooza may only host around 500 people, but the attention to detail rivals festivals many times its size. Handmade flags ripple around the main stage. Small bridges are dressed in colourful fringing. Giant picnic baskets, oversized toadstool tables and a long banquet dining table covered in playful food sculptures fill the site with life. The festival considers all corners, not in pursuit of perfection but as an expression of collective creativity.
This is a festival built by people who genuinely enjoy making things.
The site unfolds across fields and woodland. A massage tent nestled among the trees. A handmade hot tub bubbles next to a hanging cinema screen. Workshops invite festivalgoers to try felting, and stilt walkers and jugglers fill the in-between.
Music is spread across four stages, offering something for almost every taste. The main stage welcomes everything from singer-songwriters to rock performances, djs and gong baths. Elsewhere, DJs carry the energy into the night and through to the early morning, with jungle, drum and bass, garage, techno, psytrance and experimental sounds. Crawling through a tunnel leads you to the Badger Set stage, encompassed by the trees and a quadraphonic surround system that delivers an immersive experience.
Among highlights were The Lords of the Veg Funk, whose infectious blend of disco, funk and hip-hop transform the field into a dancefloor shaking a whole lot of ass. Equal parts art, party and communal celebration, their set perfectly captures the playful energy running throughout the festival.
Elsewhere, the caravan stage invites anyone to their open decs in the day, and djs take the stage into the night, complimented by fire performances.
Yet despite the music, the art and the woodland surprises, what lingers longest after the weekend is the atmosphere.
Many festivals attempt to encourage playfulness. They create spaces for it, advertise it and build it into their programming. At Panapalooza, play seems to happen naturally. Perhaps that's because the festival already feels like a community rather than an audience.
Throughout the weekend, multiple generations share the same spaces. Generations of families and friends dance together and lift each other up both literally and metaphorically. Long-time festival goers mingle with younger attendees, sharing notes. There is a genuine sense that this culture is being passed on rather than simply recreated.
The oldies have the knowledge, and they're still here to play.
For anyone familiar with festivals such as Shambala, the atmosphere will feel reassuringly familiar, the creativity, inclusivity and joyful weirdness are all present. But welcoming around just 500 people, Panapalooza offers something increasingly difficult to find: genuine closeness.
Offering a free bbq on saturday and a slower paced sunday, where the sofas are carried towards the main stage to create a more comfortable communal space. The gesture feels representative of the festival's ethos, responding to the people within it; adapting to the people who are there rather than expecting people to adapt to the festival.
From cafe, to barn, to field, Panapalooza has undoubtedly grown. But unlike many festivals, growth doesn't appear to have come at the expense of character.
If anything, the extra space has simply given its community more room to play.
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