On March 18, 2006, GlobalGathering made its debut appearance outside of the United Kingdom when the festival travelled to Miami, Florida. The festival broadened its musical horizons in the American market to include acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Coheed and Cambria, Avenged Sevenfold, Deep Dish, Adam Freeland, Sasha, John Digweed, and many more dance and rock artists. Since then, the festival has expanded worldwide, with the 2008 season including shows in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Australia, and Malaysia.
A scorching line up of the world's biggest DJs and immense live talent ensures guests from around the world get to enjoy a once in a lifetime festival experience each and every event.
GlobalGathering in the UK has become the undisputed heavyweight champion of electronic music festivals and is always held on the last weekend in July. It has established itself as a major UK dance festival since it began in 2001 and has won the crown for Best UK Festival for the last two years running in the DJ magazine awards and is now seen as the industry forerunner for worldwide electronic festivals.
80,000 festival goers and party people descend on Long Marston Airfield in Stratford-upon-Avon over the weekend to rock their socks off to every genre of electronic music including live acts, house, trance, techno at the UK's Biggest Ever Dance Weekender.
The two-day camping festival takes place at the height of summer attracting tens of thousands of musos and style aficionados alike to Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon. Over 100 artists play the sixteen stages, arena and terraces delivering an unforgettable music marathon.
More than any other electronic music festival GlobalGathering combines awe-inspiring music with a super honed and slick production operation. Campsites are the equivalent size of 50 football pitches and all guests can enjoy full facilities. A separate VIP area with Jacuzzi's, private campsite complete with a special golden circle for main stage viewing is also available to VIP ticket holders.
2009 saw a GlobalGathering presence in Poland, Belarus, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea and Australia and the UK line-up read like the who’s who of electronic music, with performances from over 150 artists over two days the festival delivered a euphoric weekend filled with dirty beats and colossal bass lines. The 2009 headliners, The Prodigy, Orbital and Pendulum shook the foundations at Long Marston Airfield, Stratford Upon Avon to its very core. With over 50,000 people attending over the weekend this festival remains [the world’s biggest electronic music weekend].
The standout highlight at this year’s festival was undoubtedly the Godskitchen Boombox which made its debut on British soil. The colossal rectangular structure that housed state of the art DJ equipment and acts as a giant screen from which an astounding combination of lighting, LEDs and visuals were projected in perfect synchronisation with music wowed the crowd in Shakespeare country.
Armin Van Buuren played an unforgettable extended 3hr set in the Boombox to a crowd of 15,000 people in Europe’s largest tent becoming one of the highlights of the 2009 festival.
Over the years GlobalGathering in the UK has created an abundance of highlights in the dance music calendar, and here’s a reminder of a few of our ‘best bits’:
2001 was the first ever GlobalGathering festival which saw 25,000 party people attend and shake the foundations at the airfield in Long Marston
2002 Tiësto made his first appearance as a relatively unknown artist. The capacity increased from 25,000 to 35,000. The weather was scorching!
2003 The festival’s third year and it was going from strength to strength! This year GlobalGathering welcomed the Bedrock Arena. It was also the first year it was really apparent to the organisers that it was becoming an established festival with DJ’s clambering to play it. Carl Cox made his debut appearance and hosted his Global Arena for the first time…
2004 Was the first year bad weather was thrown into the equation, with many tales from stage managers of holding umbrellas over DJs heads whilst they were playing to shelter them from the rain cascading through the holes in the tents where the canvas had sprung a leak. Did this deter the festival goers, NEVER! This turned out to be one of the best atmospheres Global had ever seen as more people gathered into the tents to shelter from the rain.
This year also saw the debut of the Urban Park and an airport/aeroplane theme across the festival to mark the first year organisers believed it had the potential to be a ‘global’ festival. The festival saw people from all over Europe attend. This was the last year GlobalGathering would be a one day festival…
In 2005 the weekend had landed, this year was the first year the festival had VIP, an outside stage, camping; and as a result the first year it could diversify its music policy by booking big live acts to play on the Main Stage. The capacity increased to 40,000 with 15,000 campers.
This year also saw the return of the Radio 1 Beach Stage at GlobalGathering! The Beach was one of the most elaborate stage sets at any festival in the world and the main focus of the event. One thousand tonnes of sand was imported onto the Stratford site and a full-scale water slide was erected turning GlobalGathering into a mini-Ibiza in the UK. When Underworld took to the Beach Stage to perform ‘Born Slippy’ the atmosphere was electric. The crowd went wild jumping on the sand.
2006 Yet again saw the capacity increase to 45,000 with 25,000 campers. Daft Punk made their exclusive debut festival appearance at GlobalGathering which was also their first performance in the UK for 10 years! And with them they brought their visually astounding Pyramid. The French duo took to the stage with reckless, robotic abandon, in robot outfits and were pummeling the crowd with seismic amounts of bass, and doing God-knows-what within the walls of a 40-foot-tall, LED-encrusted pyramid. Electric.
The festival started to book more leftfield acts and embraced the new electroclash sound with acts like Erol Alkan, Digitalism and Justice.
It was the first year the Global offered more bespoke accommodation including Pod Pads.
2007 saw the capacity increase once again to 55,000 and the camping to 30,000. It was also the year of the debut appearance of the Red Arrows. The air show dazzled the crowd with its incredible displays of airborne acrobatics.
Cloud9 camping packages were launched and the festival was also broadcast on Channel 4 for the first time with a stand out performance from Faithless on the show.
2008 saw Global try something a bit different to appeal to new clientele as other festivals like Glastonbury had done, the world famous hip hop star Kanye West took to the main stage for an amazing headline performance backed by his band of 18 musicians. He chose GlobalGathering as his exclusive UK festival of the year and the festival was thrilled to have him. The crowds just couldn’t get enough of the big man from LA and his 90-minute show. He emerged from a cloud of smoke and delivered his only UK appearance that year. Glow sticks flew through the air as his band kicked off with ‘Good Morning’. The audience went berserk when he played his 2005 hit ‘Gold Digga’ and ‘Stronger’.
The Global arena this summer saw Sasha, Eric Prydz and Tiësto blow the minds of the 15,000 capacity tent. Tiësto’s set became so popular another three thousand people danced outside until 2am.
Mark Ronson described Global as awesome. The gargantuan crowds went ballistic for his pop classics and when grime artist Wiley came on stage to perform his No 1, My Rolex, there was no doubt his headline show outshone any others from his 18 month tour. Ronson told GlobalGathering this had been his biggest festival date of the year so far: “It was the first festival where we were the actual headliners and it just felt there was a crowd out there just to see you.”
Godskitchen took place in the biggest marquee in Europe (fact) and featured what some were saying were the most amazing LED screens ever seen. On top of the screens, that looked like a Christmas tree turned upside down, the stunning laser show was jaw dropping. Crowds swelled for Armin Van Buuren, Above & Beyond and Ferry Corsten.
Festival History
GlobalGathering is an annual dance music festival by Angel Music Group, the company behind Godskitchen, and is a key player in the international festival market.
With 10 music festivals across the globe in countries such as Ukraine, Poland, Turkey, Russia, Belarus, Australia and the UK every single event has surpassed all expectations with top class electronic music artists and market leading production.
The festival has been running since 2001 and the concept came about following an unprecedented interest in the opening of Angel Music Group’s new club Code (now renamed Air) the home of Godskitchen, the organisers recognised that there was a real gap in the market and potential to expand out of the club and into the fields, and what an excellent decision that turned out to be….
GlobalGathering - often imitated never emulated
Fun in the sun
Looking good!
Grab your mates for the biggest weekend of the year
Don't forget your shades!Features
