One of the most stunning and unique new festival kids on the block LIDO Festival – returns with Kelis, Maribou State, Folamour and more
Lead photo – @Perry_gibson
By the end of August, festival fatigue is a real and documented condition. The summer circuit has done its work — the muddy fields, warm lager, the headliners you’ve seen twice before in a slightly different field — and for a significant portion of the music-going public, the idea of doing it one more time before September arrives requires genuine persuasion.
LIDO festival, this Monday the 31st at Victoria Park, is that persuasion.
Named after the park’s historic Lido Field in east London, LIDO has positioned itself from the beginning as something different to the summer mega-fest model — and the distinction is genuine rather than marketing. Thoughtful lineups, real sustainability commitments, zero mud, and a setting that happens to be one of London’s finest green spaces. It’s the kind of festival where the crowd reads the lineup as carefully as the organisers put it together, and where that mutual investment actually shows.
The 2026 edition has had a complicated path to this Monday. Originally scheduled for June, ground condition concerns — the result of one of the wettest winters in recent memory following last summer’s drought — led to the rescheduling of the headline Maribou State date to August 31st, while CMAT and Bombay Bicycle Club’s shows were unfortunately cancelled entirely. The response from the festival has been all you can realistically ask for, transparency and community-first thinking that’s increasingly rare in the live events space.
What remains is still, frankly, exceptional. Maribou State headline a bill that includes Kelis, Folamour, and the prospect of legends of Theo Parrish b2b Moodymann — a pairing that belongs in a much larger conversation about the best things happening in electronic music right now. That’s a lineup that would justify attending in almost any context. In Victoria Park to finish off the festival season, it’s perfection..
LIDO won The Festival Award at the Rolling Stone UK Awards in 2025 following a debut edition that featured Charli XCX, Jamie XX and Massive Attack. The pedigree is established. The intention is clear. In a summer where the festival calendar has felt stretched to breaking point — too many events, too many parks pushed to their limits, too many compromises made in pursuit of scale — LIDO remains committed to doing less, better.
Monday the 31st of August. Victoria Park. Go.
