LOVE TRAILS FESTIVAL AT 10: IT’S BIGGEST AND BROADEST EDITION YET
Love Trails Festival powered by Garmin today announces a major expansion of its programme for 2026, as the world’s first running and music festival prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary with its most ambitious edition to date. With over 90% of already sold, the final 10% of tickets will be released this Friday 27 March at 10am and will be released exclusively to those on the waitlist: https://www.lovetrailsfestival.co.uk/2026-waitlist.
Returning to the Gower Peninsula, South Wales, from 2-6 July 2026, Love Trails has spent the past decade growing from a grassroots coastal gathering into one of the UK’s most distinctive summer festival formats, bringing together trail running and hiking, live music and DJs, outdoor adventure, wellbeing and community in one destination setting. For its 10th anniversary year, that offering is broader than ever.
This latest wave of programming sees Love Trails deepen every side of the festival experience, from bigger after-dark production and new live performances, to its largest ever global gathering of run and hike communities, expanded movement programming, fresh outdoor adventures and a stronger family offer. It reflects how the festival has evolved over the past ten years, and how audiences increasingly want more from a weekend away than either a traditional music festival or a straightforward sporting event can offer on their own.
Joining a line-up that already includes Mr Scruff, Nubiyan Twist, Joshua Idehen, Falle Nioke Soundsystem and Oby Onyioha is headliner nimino, whose warm, genre-blurring electronic sound has made him one of the most exciting names in the dance scene right now.
From the world of running, Andre Coggins and his Mafia Moves crew return to the Gower alongside Birmingham’s largest running crew Made Running fronted by Hermen Dange; and poet and NOTES running founder Josh Lynott leads running experiences across the weekend. Dr Becca Salmon, the fast-rising creator in fitness, lifestyle, and education known for her inspiring and motivational content, will also be joining the line-up, along with Ryan Lloyd Haynes, founder of Run With Purpose, which was created to tackle loneliness and make running a more inclusive sport and British record holder and elite marathon runner, Becky Briggs.
Live music additions include North Wales’ bred, London-based The Joy Formidable, back for their first performances in two years, alongside 1-800 GIRLS, Project Smok, Masca and Good Habits. Fan-favourite Sarah Weiler’s Piano Sing-a-long is back for the fourth year in a row (having since become a staple of the Greenpeace stage at Glastonbury). They’ll be joined by crate-digging DJs and selectors including Cami Layé Okún, Poly-Ritmo and United Freedom Collective, and drum & bass sensation Anaïs. The result is a music programme that continues to reflect the festival’s genre-spanning identity, from global sounds and live instrumentation to club culture, spoken word and late-night energy.
The programme breadth is reflected in the festival’s run and hike experiences too, with standout moments across the weekend including RUN-N-RAVE bringing its high-energy format over from Berlin, Raziq Rauf travelling from Los Angeles to lead run-to-creative-writing experiences, and routes finishing at beachside saunas with Tŷ Sawna, recently voted Wales’ most scenic sauna. Alongside these community-led and creative formats, Love Trails’ trail race programme remains a major part of the weekend, spanning the Garmin 5km, Garmin 10km, Love Trails 16km, Salomon 27km and Ultra-Trail Gower Peninsula®, and giving festivalgoers the chance to run, hike or race a range of distances and challenges across the Gower landscape.
London-based community The Five Points Project will blend the world of movement and music with a guided hike followed by a live jam session, which will be open to anyone from the festival to join in.
At the heart of the 2026 expansion is a significant step up in music programming after dark. The late-night space has moved, and will be transformed with more lights, bigger sound and a large-scale visual screen, creating a more immersive late-night space across the weekend. For the first time, the programme will lean further into live electronic performance alongside DJ sets, with newly announced performances including producer 1-800 GIRLS performing a full live set and drum and bass DJ Anaïs accompanied by live MCing from MC Texas.
Just as central to the Love Trails story is the growth of its movement community. In 2026, the festival will host more than 50 run and hike communities, making it the biggest gathering of its kind in Europe, and a major meeting point for the crews, collectives and organisers helping shape contemporary running, outdoor & movement culture.
Running culture is being advanced by groups offering new and exciting race formats. Love Trails is platforming indie race organisers for the first time in 2026. Joining the programme this year include Mackyard Events, PitchBlack, Stash Running, Unsanctioned Athletics and WhyWeRun, with even more to be announced.
Also new for 2026 is Timed Out™, an immersive race concept that reframes what participation at a festival can look like. Rather than focusing purely on pace, the format creates space for interaction, atmosphere and unexpected moments along the route, offering a more playful and culturally led take on race experience.
Across the weekend, festivalgoers will be able to choose from a wide range of trail races, social runs, hikes and community-led sessions, whether they are chasing a challenge, discovering the landscape at a slower pace, or simply joining in for the atmosphere. That breadth remains a defining part of Love Trails, and one of the reasons it continues to resonate far beyond the core running world.
The festival’s movement and wellbeing programme also expands for 2026. A new alternative night out in the Big Stretch Tent will bring together dance-led sessions spanning hip-hop, contemporary and Caribbean-infused movement, while the main stage programme becomes bigger and bolder with live beats and soundscapes. New Sunset Sessions at the Castle will offer breathwork and restorative movement during golden hour, giving the day a slower, more reflective close before the evening begins.
Beyond the trails, Love Trails continues to make full use of its Gower setting with a programme of outdoor adventures including coasteering, rock climbing, sea kayaking, surfing, stand-up paddleboarding, foraging and birdwatching. New for this year is birdwatching at Cwm Ivy marsh, opening up another way for festivalgoers to connect with the landscape and wildlife of the peninsula.
Families are also set to find more on offer than ever before. The 2026 kids programme includes storytelling, crafting and play, a recycled-material fashion show led by Peas In a Pod, and the festival’s first-ever Kids Run Experience with The Movement Project. Returning favourites Mickey James and Owen Pillai will also deliver sessions focused on physical literacy, play and confidence-building.
Together, the additions make this year’s edition the clearest expression yet of what Love Trails has become over the past ten years: not simply a festival for runners, and not simply a music event, but a modern outdoor culture festival built around how people increasingly want to travel, socialise, move and switch off.
Theo Larn-Jones, Founder of Love Trails Festival, said:
“Love Trails started in 2016 as a small gathering built around the things we loved most: movement, music, nature and community. Ten years on, it has grown into something much bigger, but the spirit is still the same. What feels exciting about 2026 is that the programme reflects just how far the festival has come. It is wider, more immersive and more eclectic than ever before. For our 10th anniversary, we wanted to create the strongest version of Love Trails yet, one that celebrates the community that has grown with us and gives people more ways than ever to experience the weekend.”
The final ticket drop for Love Trails Festival 2026 goes live on Friday 27 March at 10:00am. Fans can still join the waitlist now at https://www.lovetrailsfestival.co.uk/2026-waitlist.
