page_title: Boomtown (music festival)
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Boomtown (music festival) / Location
caption_attribution_description: English: Hippie Highway at Boomtown Fair 2019
context_page_description: Boomtown is an independent immersive five-day theatrical music festival held annually near Winchester, Hampshire on the Matterley Estate in South Downs National Park. It was first held in 2009 and has been held in its current site since 2011. Its diverse line-up of bands, DJs and speakers perform on many different stages each a part of a district with its own unique theming. Each yearly event is known as a Chapter and expands on the storyline from the previous year, told through the sets, live actors and many forms of alternate reality games. The festival site is split into several districts, and the narrative is reflected in the design of the districts, streets and venues, which are populated by hundreds of actors to play the role of inhabitants.
  The festival is run by Boomtown Festival UK Limited company directors Chris Rutherford and Luke Marcus Mitchell, both from Bristol. The large scale of the sets and infrastructure require six weeks of construction, and a month of disassembly for each event.
  In July 2019, the organisers were granted a capacity increase by Winchester City Council, bringing the total number of people allowed on site to 76,999.
context_section_description: The festival takes place in South West England on the Matterley Estate in Hampshire on the grounds of the South Downs National Park, 3 miles from Winchester. The grounds are situated between the A31 and A272.
  The grounds have been the home of a number of music festivals and concerts over the years, including Creamfields in its inaugural year of 1998, Homelands from 1999 till 2005 and Glade Festival in 2009. Because of this long history with a number of iconic events, many consider the grounds to be firmly entrenched in the roots of many notable acts and genres, especially with regards to dance music, underground dance music and other electronic music.
  The fair is situated at grid reference SU 52919 28297. The site is split into 3 areas: the Downtown area is contained within the Matterley Bowl, the natural valley Temple Valley features the area of the same name, and the Hilltop area extends across the crest of the hill that is the mid-ground between these two areas - it is also the geographical centre of the site.
  The site is divided by the steep hill between the Downtown and Hilltop areas with participants taking either Hippie Highway or The Stairs to travel between the two.
  A number of stages feature within the natural features of the sites. The Hidden Woods, Tribe of Frog, Tangled Roots and Psychedelic Forest stages are set within forests under tree canopies. The Lions Den stage is also set within a natural amphitheatre.
  Elsewhere on-site, the motocross track within the Materley Basin has in the past held the British round of the World Championship, as well as the Motocross of Nations. The site has also hosted the Tough Mudder endurance test series.
caption: View from the top of Hippie Highway, the main route between Downtown and Hilltop
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