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.
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.
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 UK festival undoubtedly sets the tone for the international festival circuit and is the benchmark festival for the GlobalGathering brand.
2010
marked an epic ten years of GlobalGathering with 50,000 people heading
down to Long Marston Airfield once again to join the festival
celebrations. Headliners Faithless and Dizzee Rascal sent pulses racing
with festival anthems God is a DJ, Insomnia, Bonkers and Holiday and
were joined by 2manydjs and Chase and Status (live) at the top of the
live bill with firm Global favourites Armin Van Buuren, Carl Cox and
Above and Beyond heading the DJ bill.
2manydjs Friday
set saw the crowd go wild as confetti cannons filled the Global Arena
with hundreds of thousands of brightly coloured heart shaped pieces of
confetti as they dropped their awesome remix of Joy Division’s Love
Will Tear Us Apart and every camera-phone on site was out to capture
the moment that will go down in GlobalGathering history.
Other highlights of the festival included Jaguar Skillz entire set on
the Saturday which saw hordes of fans bouncing around in the baking
heat to classics such as Hot Hot Hot and You’ve Got The Love setting
the tone for the 16 hour Saturday music marathon. Dizzee Rascal stole
the show with his energy fuelled hit packed set with pyro and confetti
galore and hundreds of giant balloons projected into the crowd ending
the 10th year main stage birthday celebrations in style.
This year also saw the festival welcome for the first time to British
soil the Californian production outfit The Do Lab who are famous for
their creative production stateside at Coachella and Burning Man
festivals. They created a weird and wonderful wonderland in the VIP
area, the Live Stage and also the FWD>>Rinse stage.
Also new to the UK festival was the one off addition of the x10 Stage
with dance legends of the last decade Tall Paul, Jeremy Healy and Judge
Jules playing classics and retro sets to fans. The Godskitchen Boombox
returned for its second year wowing crowds with its stunning visuals
with sets from Armin Van Buuren, Above & Beyond and Sander Van
Doorn proving he is now firmly placed amongst the top tranceratti out
there.
2011 saw GlobalGathering move into it's second decade in the business in style as it boasted a brand new site layout, new outlook, new arena hosts and generally a bit of a touch up to keep it ahead of the game. Headliners for the occasion were Pendulum, Tinie Tempah, Chase & Status (live) and Underworld, spread over two days on the final weekend of July as always.
Friday kicked off with a bang, Jaguar Skills and Breadyman rocked the main stage in preparation for that night's headline act - Pendulum who closed the stage with an impressive performance packed with anthems, energy and just an all round unrivaled stage presence.
The second headliners for Friday night were Underworld who were playing in the mammoth Global Arena to a packed out crowd, highlights of the set included classics such as Dark And Long and Born Slippy. Closing the tent after Underworld was Eric Prydz with his sensational EP/IC set up which blew the crowds away.
The Saturday welcomed the second wave of party revelers to join alongside the weekend ticket holders for the final leg of the weekend. The addition of the Dubstep tent and also the Hospitality brand were welcomed with open arms as both tents kicked off from the get go.
After a day of heavy duty action from all corners, Saturday's headliner Tinie Tempah took to the main stage like a duck to water. With each song the crowd were getting more hyped before a massive finale to Pass Out with pyros and fireworks accompanying the memorable moment. Following that Chase & Status had managed to bring the Metropolis tent to it's knees, with people queueing to even get near the tent by this point, the boys showed exactly why 2011 has been their year with a truly magnificent performance, one that will be remembered for a long time to come.
GlobalGathering Electronic Music Festivals
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
Technicolour!
Team Global!
Party Girls!Features
