WOMAD 2026
The World is a Village, according to big tech, but a total absence of phone signal at WOMAD 2026’s new Neston Park site enhanced the atmosphere of an analog and global weekend.
For a festival which truly does represent the world if it were the size of a village it was a delight to be unplugged and yet feel more connected to the sounds of the world — but then, that’s what WOMAD has always done, phones or no phones.
This weekend saw the triumphant return of the global festival after a prolonged absence, with four festivals cancelled in the last six years thanks to a combination of COVID and a financially necessitated change of site.
It felt like the festival had never been away, with a large and good-natured crowd slipping easily back into the habit of globe-trotting through music, experiencing the vibes of the Caribbean, West Africa and the Indian subcontinent all in one evening and without walking more than a few kilometres. This is what WOMAD excels at, curating a diverse, fun and musically worthy lineup from all over the world. In a full weekend of stage hopping, even when an act isn’t to your taste, you can almost guarantee it will still be fascinating to watch.
The festival started off gently on Thursday night, with performances from local children alongside WOMAD Foundation musicians, K.O.G.’s Ghanaian reggae and afrobeat in the impressively sized Big Top, and dub-infused Chinese trad music from Tian Qiyi in the intimate and adorable Sunflower Tent. For the late-night heads, there was a stream of soca bangers put on by Bristol based VP Productions in Rhythm and Rhyme, while NTS Radio DJs played until 2am on the NTS stage, which by day hosted hybrid interviews, cookery demonstrations and performances by artists appearing elsewhere on the bill.
Friday’s highlights included Derya Yıldırım and Grup Şimşek’s German-Turkish electronic psych folk, the densely layered jazz of Ishmael Ensemble & The Rituals Orchestra, soulful sounds from Annie and The Caldwells and Lamisi’s modern take on traditional Ghanaian clapping-driven music, blended with soulful afrobeat and a powerful feminist message.
All this preceded Friday’s main event, a man who proudly boasted “they don’t make them like me anymore”, the original Murderer, Barrington Levy. The dancehall legend wrung every drop from his signature tune ‘Murderer’, and kept the crowd mostly rapt, apart from a few occasions when he seemed to forget performers should try to avoid asking audiences of 15,000 open-ended questions. He ended with a well-rehearsed routine of call and response, with the audience insisting the DJ should “run that track”, sending the crowd off happy, sporadically belting out the refrain to his biggest hit.
But Friday wasn’t done there, with third-generation afrobeat royalty Mádé Kuti taking to the Big Top, and amazing with breath work when singing and playing horns, drawing comparisons to a free diver in a flow state. Greentea Peng took over the main stage with her zen takes on city life, while smaller stages ran to 1am, and NTS and Twende Productions again kept the vibe going until gone 4am.
Saturday is often the biggest day of most festivals, and WOMAD was no different. New Orleans based singer songwriter Sabine McCalla held an early afternoon crowd in thrall on the Village Stage, giving the impression she could have performed literally any song and brought the audience along with her, while 18-piece Mexican brass band Mixanteña de Santa Cecilia had the Big Top crowd emulating their dance moves. Touchingly, the band seemed a little overwhelmed at the size of the crowd which turned out for them. For those fancying a more sedate time, Irish indie-folk duo Lemoncello were simultaneously conducting a very gentle and haunting performance in the Sunflower Tent. Impressively there were no sound clash issues anywhere on site at any point, suggesting excellent planning at a venue which seemed perfectly suited to hosting a festival of WOMAD’s size, perhaps even bigger.
A feature of WOMAD is the way it offers a wonderful array of juxtapositions. Benin International Musical, or BIM, smashed a fun set out of the park on the World Stage, fusing afrobeat with a heavier, rockier and voodoo-inspired sound before Alfa Mist provided a change of pace with hip-hop-shaded jazz. Say She She travelled from New York to deliver their politically-inspired disco funk, while Poet Laureate Simon Armitage performed spoken word over the music of his band L.Y.R., although arguably he was outshone by the guitar and haunting vocals of his bandmate Richard Walters. DR Congo’s Jupiter & Okwess, who have collaborated with Damon Albarn and Massive Attack, had the main stage crowd skanking to their rocky sounds, and were followed up by an incredibly impressive multi-instrumental appearance from Mercury Prize-nominated Emma-Jean Thackray, with her performance of her collaboration with STR4TOSFEAR, ‘Lazy Days’, bringing the house down.
The array of music on offer really did seem to cater to all at all times, and that was perhaps best illustrated by the late-night offerings of salsa and reggaeton in Rhythm and Rhyme thanks to a Jam Jar DJs takeover, and the NTS stage hosting Boiler Room and Fabric veteran Shannen SP spinning house and amapiano, followed by Tanzanian DJ Travella and his stunning Singeli speed garage, keeping the crowd dancing at breakneck speed until 4am.
Sunday followed on in similar fashion and closed out with an excellent lineup for anyone prepared to dash back and forth between the World Stage and Big Top. Another Mercury Prize darling, Glaswegian corto.alto, stunned with his soulful electronica-infused jazz, before Japan’s Seppuku Pistols tore into their set so hard one member of the band broke an ankle but played on, not realising the damage they’d done. The band, who used to play straightforward covers of The Clash and Ramones, long ago pivoted to performing punk-influenced original tunes on traditional acoustic Japanese instruments, to stunning effect.
After that, Swedish singer-songwriter José González pulled out all his best-loved songs with the highlight being ‘Heartbeats’, which was thankfully performed without accompaniment from the Sony Bravia advert it soundtracked on the big screen behind him. Malian legend Oumou Sangaré, as so many others did during the weekend, called out for unity and a more peaceful world as she closed out the World Stage with a string of her hits, inspiring a willing crowd to really move themselves. WOMAD wasn’t done there, with one final big name, Lebanon’s Yasmine Hamdan, enchanting the final Big Top crowd of the festival with her haunting dreamy Arabic vocals.
Lineup and performance-wise, there was really very little to complain about, and punters left the site in a happy mood, following a festival that delivered everywhere it counted.
And to be fair to the organisers, they also pulled off an impressive feat in making sure the first occurrence of the festival at Neston Park went off almost without a hitch. The only real complaint was a lack of signage for toilets and campsite exits, meaning stewards had to work harder than necessary.
In the scheme of things that’s really a minor misstep when putting on a festival for 40,000 people, which managed to retain all the feel and charm of previous editions, despite a significant break. And it’s easily outweighed by the big wins in terms of music and family friendly atmosphere. The World of Children took up more than triple the area of other festivals licensed to host just a few thousand fewer people so wandering past the skate ramp, climbing wall, puppetry workshops, arts and crafts, comedy workshops and the excellent Music Foundation jam workshops easily made anyone who’d left their kids at home feel a touch guilty.
It almost felt as if the WOMAD village existed to raise the children, which yet again proves the world is a village and I guess WOMAD is a pretty idyllic representation of that village.
