Gala 2026

From its early beginnings as a one-day, two-staged event in nearby Brockwell Park, GALA festival has now evolved into a three-day, six-stage affair in Peckham Rye. Having celebrated its 10th birthday last year, GALA is a fixture of the London festival calendar, always on the late May bank holiday weekend. Proudly independent, GALA let the lineup, stages and systems speak for themselves. Big brand advertising is largely kept to the bars; here, the stages proudly sport the names of radio stations, stage curators, and partners from across the electronic scene, from London and beyond.

The clock hits 12:30. I slam my laptop shut. The mercury reads 28 degrees. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Summer’s here. A brief stint on the overground, and a couple of swift cans in the park later and we stroll into the festival on a beautiful Friday afternoon.

We briefly poke our heads into The Pleasuredome for Mia Koden – a half golf ball dome stage, right opposite the entrance, thick with smoke already – playing her signature sunny 140 to a head-bopping crowd. We continue to explore the site a bit more - it’s intimate, a few minutes from end to end, great for the indecisive raver. We end up seeking shade under the shadow of the main stage for Ikonika and Shannen SP, who ease the transition away from post-work brain. The Hyperdub pair switch the drum patterns up in a delicious way, the UK meeting more global club sounds. Someone’s passing out whistles in the crowd, someone else lights some incense. This set is funky, yet patient: building slowly, perfect for this stage of the afternoon.

We move to The Patio, where the legendary rinse.fm are taking over for the day. This is probably the stage you’ve seen on the socials - long and thin, speaker stacks covered in white along the perimeter - it’s simple but visually stunning. D Double E – a man who’s been in the game longer than half of the crowd have been alive – struts onto the makeshift stage. Sporting a sweaty-looking Supreme two-piece, he’s somehow the coolest man here. ‘Lyrics Galore’ gets wheeled by the equally legendary Sir Spyro after seconds; ‘Street Fighter Riddim’ sends the crowd into a frenzy. The set is short, clocking in just under half an hour, but high on impact.

Back to The Pleasuredome for Objekt. Huge industrial fans try to keep the high temperature at bay at the front of the stage; Objekt’s mullet gets whipped up a little as he grins. Settling in for a 90 minute set – hat tip to GALA for giving DJs the time to curate a set, by the way – we start moody, slip briefly into bass-heavy noises, sometimes deconstructed, and again, constructing things slowly. This is one of those sets where at the start you’re nodding your head: “Yeah this is pretty good”, and before you know it, 90 minutes has flown by and you have no idea where it went or what just happened. Class.

Next up is a double header in 1908. Here, the stage is in the centre of the crowd, speakers facing outwards, and one of the coolest figures in dance music faces out into the audience: Tim Reaper. “He’s like crisps isn’t he? Always at least a 7/10. Always good.” Reaper has an encyclopaedic knowledge of jungle and knows how to use it to work a crowd. Much like Objekt before him, he can’t help but smirk behind the decks as he throws the crowd into bedlam, time after time.

Facing the back of the stage and playing on three turntables, Djrum follows. His set is intentionally more on the challenging side: it’s also breaks heavy, but more experimental in its structure. At one point he plays a track with a ghostly vocal that gets thrown around the room by the impressive soundsystem which sends me for a spin. Very cool.

Night is beginning to fall and I’m beginning to flag. I head across the way to Donna’s for something a touch more straight up. Paranoid London are closing out the stage with their signature squelch. Josh Caffé provides live vocals. Donna’s is a simple tent, but there’s two touches that make it come alive at night. Firstly: the ceiling is low. Secondly: the canopy is black. For 30 minutes at the end of each night it’s like being suddenly dropped into the club. This is exactly what I want: an hour of banging acid in the dark. Caffé is a silhouette against the simple backlighting, his vocals sexy. “You know this one” he yells as Paranoid London set off ‘Eating Glue’.

Donna’s is the earliest-finishing stage, so as we slink out to the exit we get to catch the last couple of tunes from Mala, with Sgt Pokes on MC duty. ‘Anti War Dub’ gets a quick spin before Mala sticks on ‘One Love’. Pokes expresses how great it is for them – South London boys – to be able to play at festivals like this, to crowds like this. The pair embrace, as do people dotted all over the Pleasuredome. GALA’s messaging often emphasises the community aspects of what they do, and it shows. 25% of the artists are from South London this year: it’s not just lip service.

We catch the last song of Giggs from the back of the stage, for what is advertised as his homecoming show. “This is the National Anthem”, he proclaims, before launching into ‘Talking The Hardest’ – twice; of course it got a wheel. The communal ‘Jheeeez’ from the crowd following along, darkness now fully cast over them, is quite something to behold. Catching three headline sets closing like that feels like we’ve cheated the system.

Day two begins back in 1908. The NTS signs attached to the stage have been swapped out for Refuge signs – the Berlin-based radio station curates the lineup here today. First up is Tasha. She gets the memo. Sunglasses on, bopping coolly. Groovy enough to wake the hips up whilst we wait for those park cans to kick in, and shake off yesterday’s hangover.

I assume the majority of the crowd are at Job Jobse’s 3 hour marathon set on the Patio, as it’s still pretty open in 1908, as Kia and Priori come onstage. This is wild. The first 15 minutes or so properly took my head off (perhaps those park cans hit) – it also attracts a lot of people walking into the site, clearly, as it busies up pretty quickly, though still plenty of room to dance. So much is going on. It’s techno, it’s breaksy, it’s an atmospheric soundscape. Part of you is praying this set was recorded, part of you wants this to be a feeling, a happy memory.

More legends follow; Steffi x Virginia in the Pleasuredome. They’re performing tracks from last year’s Patterns of Vibration, Steffi behind a laptop, Virginia, on a platform, stage right, on vocals. What happens next is not what I was expecting: Virginia works the crowd like a pop girlie. Honestly - it’s sensational. When she’s not draping herself over members of the front row (who share the mic with her), she’s back on the stage beating the living daylights out of a Roland pad with a drumstick. Steffi, meanwhile, is calm in the back, orchestrating, stitching everything together. Peach - who’s curating the Pleasuredome today - is side of stage: dancing, filming, fangirling like the rest of us.

We catch the end of Radioactive Man shelling live electro in Donna’s before Bashkka takes to the stage. A runway splits the space in half; two alien-like creatures strut down the stage, vogueing in sync. UFO ballroom: this ain’t your typical London festival. GALA’s commitment to representation feels so natural – it turns out when you book a gender diverse lineup, what you get is gender diverse crowds. GALA don’t make a huge song and dance about it because this is normal – this is their standard. It doesn’t go unnoticed. The tunes are rolling.

The Saturday closing menu is absurd. One of those trade-off decisions: “okay, I’ll see Call Super at Field Maneuvers; Saiorse at Body Movements, …”. I end up at Verraco; the forward-thinking Colombian producer is, once again, in the immaculately-curated 1908. The stage makes a big difference too; I’ve found the crowd here to be the most locked in of the weekend consistently.

Facing inwards like Djrum the night before, backdropped by the sky painted pink and oranges as the sun sets, Verraco goes in. This is left-field, futuristic stuff at its finest. Weaving latin-infused rhythms with distinctly UK sounds – dubstep, bass, breaks. It’s relentless in the best way. As he mixes out of a Priori track and into one of his own (0∞ from 2024’s incredible Breathe…Godspeed), someone I saw earlier losing his mind at Kia and Priori is once again being sent into orbit (we exchange numbers, lovely guy). Aphex’s ‘Digeridoo’ is a minor reset(!) before a bonkers jungle-laden finale.

There’s enough time to sneak round the back and check out the end of Saiorse’s A/V show, debuting tonight. We only get a couple of tunes, but the rig looks great: three large rectangular light structures glow blue and red, lasers pan out over the stage. Pretty much the only queue of the weekend follows: getting out.

Sunday arrives. There are still Arsenal t-shirts as far as the eye can see. The crowd is a bit more influencer than the previous two days - it’s definitely hard work to find the right pockets in the crowd, but they still exist. We arrive a bit later today, and immediately it’s back to Donna’s for CC:DISCO! And disco indeed: not soon after settling in, front centre, a familiar smoky vocal starts to get mixed in. Heads tilt inside Donna’s as people begin to clock Gay Marvine’s summertime belter ‘Lost in Music’, a rework of the Sister Sledge classic. Limbs. Sculpted long hair gets tied up into buns, Donna’s gets even sweatier. Embrace it. CC air drums along to a rework of Kaskade’s ‘I Remember’; I’m fairly sure a ‘Whole of the Moon’ cover is in there too, but it feels like a fever dream. Serious tone-setting stuff for the day.

Gilles Peterson and Bjørn Torske’s sets get swapped, so I miss the former unfortunately – something jazzy wouldn’t have gone amiss. Torske is decent though: the tunes are spacey and hypnotic, it’s definitely Sunday vibes - and probably wise to step it down a little after that start. I float around a little bit; the Patio is yap central, so I end up at the main stage for the legendary Cassy. Playing all vinyl, she is effortlessly cool; waving to people in the crowd, beaming ear to ear the whole time. This is sultry house music for the club, and she’s managing to make it feel intimate on the main stage.

It’s back into the Pleasuredome for Talaboman. Tunes aside, John Talabot and Axel Boman are very entertaining to watch. Boman – wearing his own merch – bounces around with childlike energy, Talabot – flowing linen shirt – stays parallel to the mixer at all times, tweaking, adjusting. There’s a football analogy that I like about how great centre back partnerships are often one ‘cat’ – poised, reading the game, agile; and one ‘dog’ – fast, energetic, chasing the ball.  I can’t get it out of my head the whole time.

The set itself starts off meditative. They have two hours, there’s no rush. Not many vocals to start with, it’s rolling, sexy, propulsive. It’s properly pumping after an hour or so, and the vibes front right are immaculate.  A woman in the crowd pulls out some roll-on deodorant, which gets passed around more gratefully than the hand fans and bottles of water. Fair play. Boman launches beers into the crowd, gesturing “Shhh!”. Todd Terje, who closes out the tent after, turns up about halfway through, carrying a bag for life. He embraces Boman, peeks over to check out an ID for himself, eating a yoghurt. The Dome has gotten both headsy and silly – cat and dog.

Beyond Terje in the Pleasuredome, there’s international talent aplenty to close out proceedings on Sunday: Chicago royalty Lil Louis on the Patio; Euro disco dons Hunee, Antal and Hunee pack out 1908 more than I’ve seen all weekend; livewire Seth Troxler is on the main stage, inflatables and all. However, I’m drawn to Moxie ending things in Donna’s. It feels right to end with a Londoner. The last time I saw Moxie she was in the crowd at Corsica Studios’ closing party, watching Kode9 shutting down Room 2 with the rest of us, several hours after playing her own set. One of our own.

Of late, it feels like Moxie is getting her flowers again. She curates Donna’s today to celebrate 10 years of her On Loop label; her mainstay NTS show has just celebrated its 15th birthday, and the tent is heaving. The sunset tonight seems to last for an eternity: golden hour truly golden.

It’s been a very housey day, and by and large this continues in the same vein. A cheeky sprinkle of speed garage lands like a sugar rush, however. Like a snap of the fingers, Donna’s is once again plunged into darkness, metamorphosing into an intimate club-like space.

Moxie gets on the mic just before time: “GALA festival! Locked in!!” and thanks everyone for coming down. There’s no let up in the final 15 minutes, and an absolute stomper of a final track (a shameless Shazam is no help, alas). Euphoric, bouncy, post-punk adjacent: this is like being dropped into a peak-time Optimo set – I can’t express how well it lands. Clearly I am not the only one who’s been thinking this; she kindly shares the Accessory Records label on Instagram for people to dig. (Not that I needed more encouragement to dive in, the track prior on said release is a Yo La Tengo rework – come on!)

As the crowd streams out, it feels like most groups are on their way to the pub, or an afters –  Moxie not taking her foot off the gas feeling like the right call. A maccies and two buses home for me however, grateful for the recovery bank holiday, and very impressed with what GALA has to offer.  In a market where London day festivals feel homogenous, corporate, or both, this was a welcome relief.  There’s always going to be pockets of chatty types at an event like this, it comes with the territory.  Such is life. But there’s plenty of people there for the dance too. There’s a lot to be said for nailing the basics: plenty of toilets, well-stocked bars, huge soundsystems (yet no sound bleed), and trusting your community to curate good lineups; I could go tomorrow and see a totally different lineup such is the depth that they book. GALA are on to a winner.