Scale Glastonbury’s Pennard Hill Ground, trudge through Creamfields’ camping village or navigate the Isle of Wight Festival’s terrain with a suitcase and you’re guaranteed head turns aplenty. Pull up to Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire on a balmy July afternoon – in a chauffeured car from London, no less – and you’re more likely to have a helping hand open the BMW door and spot a Rimowa fighting for its life as it’s dragged, rattling in protest, across bumpy terrain.
Just a matter of hours earlier, we’d sped out of the capital in time to miss the commuter crowds, hauling suitcases and backpacks worthy of hold luggage for a long-haul adventure into the back of a transfer in the shadow of London’s Victoria Station. Now, having cooled off with the car’s AC at full blast while speeding down the M4, the weekend’s headliners blasting out of the speakers in preparation, we were navigating Wilderness Festival’s glamping site, ushered in different directions towards the comfort of our tipi.
The brainchild of the partystarters behind Secret Garden Party and Lovebox, Wilderness launched onto the festival scene in 2011 as one of the most multifaceted out there. Antony and the Johnsons, Laura Marling and Toots and the Maytals took to the stage in the first year, setting high expectations for a unique, premium offering among nature that has grown to encompass wellness, food, comedy, theatre and, of course, music.
In the 15 years since the inaugural Wilderness Festival, it’s become known as the ‘poshest’ pick of them all. Our first experience of the festival, back in 2024, was punctuated with Champagne-sipping between comedy sets, lakeside picnics and dancing on tables – showered and pampered – in between courses in banquet tents. Not forgetting people-watching society’s most fashionable extroverts as they joined in with the year’s dress codes. Where else can you watch from a shaded spot, gyros in hand, as families pass dressed as mythical creatures on a Friday afternoon?
So, when the offer to return presented itself, it was a no-brainer, and we rolled up to our shelter knowing what to expect – but aware that Wilderness is never short of surprises.
