Looking for the perfect excuse to escape to the coast this year? Why not head to one of the UK’s seaside festivals that bring the best music, culture, food, and adventure to stunning coastal locations. Whether you fancy dancing barefoot on the beach or going wild Bear Grylls style, here are some of the top seaside events to add to your calendar for 2025.
UPDATED: 21 February 2025
Brighton Festival
3-25 May 2025
East Sussex makes a wonderful getaway in May, and don’t forget to pack fancy dress and dancing shoes for one of Europe’s leading arts festivals. Established in 1967, the Brighton Festival is a celebration of music, theatre, dance, art, film, literature and family events, in a seaside location that welcomes diversity, creativity and innovative thinking. This year’s Guest Director at the helm is musician and composer Anoushka Shankar, so expect vibrant rhythm to this three-week celebration spread across a variety of venues in Brighton, Hove and East Sussex.
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The Big Retreat Festival, Pembrokeshire
23-26 May 2025
Festival time doesn’t have to mean wild all-night parties – there’s a new league of wellbeing festivals spreading across the UK, including this festival for all five senses on the Pembrokeshire coast. Voted one of the top wellbeing and adventure festivals by The Guardian, The Big Retreat wraps fitness, yoga, talks, workshops, foraging, feasting, arts, bushcraft, live music and more, into a four-day feel-good getaway. Situated on the picturesque and unspoiled Welsh coastline, it’s an amazing opportunity to nourish your body and soul this summer.
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Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival, Cornwall
13-15 June 2025
Fancy yourself in a scene from Fishermen’s Friends? Come and celebrate Cornwall’s rich maritime heritage with boot-stomping songs of the sea. In Europe’s largest, free nautical music festival, over 80 local and international sea shanty groups come together and perform in venues across this vibrant harbour town. Coinciding with the Falmouth Classics Regatta – three days of yacht racing, parades and shoreside entertainment, it’s an all-out maritime fiesta that make Falmouth the place to pop in your calendar for an early summer break.
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Isle Of Wight Festival
19-22 June 2025
Boasting an impressive musical heritage stretching back to Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix in its early years, this popular music festival still features a line-up that’s no less impressive. This year Sting, Stereophonics and Justin Timberlake are set to take the stage, alongside DJ sets, fair rides and a blast of island life in this iconic destination off the south coast of England. And if home comforts are your thing, check out our accommodation on the Isle of Wight to guarantee a dry place to stay!
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Arts on the Beach, Cornwall
5-6 July 2025
Cornwall’s Watergate Bay isn’t just the venue for the world-famous summer surf and music festival that’s Boardmasters. A much more family-friendly beach event on this stunning, wave-lashed shoreline is Arts on the Beach – two days of free workshops and entertainment fuelled by Cornwall’s vibrant coastal lifestyle and creative vibe. Stay nearby in Newquay and expect live theatre and music, dance, circus, silent discos, creative workshops, and a whole parade of brilliant and briny characters down on the sand.
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Weston-Super-Mare Sea Shanty And Folk Music Festival, Somerset
1-3 August 2025
Don your pirate outfit and pump up your lungs to join the crew at this free festival in Somerset’s nostalgic seaside resort. Audience participation is encouraged, as you make your way around venues around the town centre and along the sea front, where you’ll catch all sorts of shanties and folk music by groups with pun-tastic names, such as the Back Beach Boyz and the Pluckateers.
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Gone Wild Festival, Norfolk and Devon
7-10 August 2025 in Norfolk
21-24 August 2025 in Devon
With two venues to choose from this year, this adventure festival from Bear Grylls combines activities, workshops, and music for the whole family. Choose from the stately grounds of Holkham Hall in Norfolk or Powederham Castle in Devon, to experience a seaside festival with a difference. Take active challenges, learn new skills, listen to music from the likes of Clean Bandit, workout with Joe Wicks, and get the chance to meet the great Bear Grylls himself.
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Broadstairs Folk Week, Kent
8-15 August 2024
Traditional folk music and Morris dancing aplenty are at the heart of this lively festival that takes over the Edwardian streets of Kent’s popular seaside town. With concerts, ceilidhs, workshops, parades and free family events to look forward to, this really is a fantastic week of music and dancing beside the beach.
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Fringe By The Sea, North Berwick, Scotland
1-10 August 2025
Switch up your summer calendar with a summer trip to North Berwick on the east Scottish coast, for the colourful Fringe by the Sea. Take your pick from a programme of more than 250 music and comedy events, wellbeing sessions, family shows, entertainment and talks by the sea on the East Lothian coast. Whether you meet the award-winning authors, join in foodie masterclasses or boogie at the silent disco, Fringe by the Sea has something to whet everyone’s festival appetite.
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Solfest, Solway Coast, Cumbria
21-24 August 2025
Celebrate summer in Cumbria, on a spectacular site with views across the Solway Firth to the peaks of Dumfries, Galloway and the Lake District. The family-friendly Solfest fuses jaw-dropping coastal scenery and rocking entertainment – whatever your taste in music. And there’s also a buzzing kids area, a circus tent and a smorgasbord of festival food to keep you fuelled up. Stay in one of our nearby cottages to take advantage of a hot shower and a restful sleep so you’re ready to head back into the action for another day’s carousing.
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Kernowfornia Festival, Cornwall
26-28 September 2025
This brand-new, independent net-zero festival on the beautiful Looe Beach, is even more reason to get down to Cornwall before the sun sets on the season’s beach parties. There will be bands in the sands, good food, fireworks and all-out festival vibes for this groundbreaking three-day event with community and sustainability at its core. Headliners this year are Marillion, Nick Mulvey and Jordan Rakei. Stay in one of our holiday cottages in Looe, where you can dip in and out of the action at your leisure.
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Book a coastal cottage for some of the best seaside events of 2025
Simply Sea Views has an array of holiday cottages in stunning destinations close to the UK’s best seaside festivals. Check out our collection and find the perfect bolthole to retreat to after a fun-packed day of festivities.
