Boomtown organisers have revealed the first official map for 2022, ahead of the festival’s long-awaited return next month, giving us our first look at the new layout.
Illustrated by @clraws, the map shows how a mix of spectacular new districts and old favourites will be arranged in the area formerly known as the ‘Downtown Bowl’.
For the first time ever, Boomtown will use “every last inch” of the bowl to build their theatrical city, complete with immersive venues and huge stages. In previous years, the bowl has always contained some camping along with unused space hidden behind the main stages and between the city streets. This means while the main area of the festival will be much more compact, there’s still absolutely loads to see and you won’t have any massive uphill treks between the different main stages.
The aerial image below shows the former ‘Downtown Bowl’ and gives a good idea of how much space has been left unused, or dedicated to camping, in Boomtown’s recent years. This time, we’re expecting all of the space within the outer perimeter of lighting to be used for the City, so while the ‘Uptown’ area visible behind the woods won’t be returning, the total size of the CIty might not change much at all.
The forest parties at the Hidden Woods, Tangled Roots and Tribe of Fog all feature on the map and will return to their previous locations – so despite not having ‘Uptown’ to get to, you’ll still get chance to climb that mammoth staircase up into the Tribe of Frog woods and the Hilltop campsite.
Last month, Boomtown revealed loads more details on some of this year’s new venues. In the brand new Botanica district, new venues include Obsidian, a collaboration by female and non-binary icons featuring queer parties and high-energy music from around the globe, and the Botanica Zoo, with animals and humans living in a utopian community after a former zoo was rewilded.
Though Boomtown is now completely sold out, it’s easy to buy someone else’s ticket through the secure fan-to-fan resale system. Anyone with unwanted tickets can generate a secure link from their TicketSellers account to sell tickets to someone else for face value. The tickets will then be regenerated with the new ticket holder’s name. Names on tickets must match your ID on arrival at the festival, which means official TicketSellers links are the only way to buy someone else’s ticket. Any other offers won’t get you into the festival and are almost definitely scammers. Never send a bank transfer for Boomtown tickets and make sure you’re buying from a ww2.theticketsellers.co.uk link.
Fortunately, you don’t need to know someone with spare tickets to buy some as the secure fan-to-fan resale system makes it safe to buy from strangers. There’s even a constantly updated list of valid resale links over on Boomtown Source, where (almost) every type of Boomtown ticket is usually available for instant purchase.
This year’s Boomtown line-up is being kept secret until right before the event, to encourage people to attend for the festival itself rather than specific big-name acts. However, if you can’t wait until then to start building your own Boomtown playlist, check out Boomtown Source’s list of rumoured and ‘self-confirmed’ artists. Dozens of artists have already let slip they’ll be at Boomtown this summer on their own social media channels and tour posters.
Boomtown Fair returns to the Matterley Bowl near Winchester from Wednesday 10th to Sunday 14th August 2022.
Image credits:
First: Mike Massaro
Second: The Big Ladder Photography
Third: Jody Hartley
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