Isle of Wight Festivals

Since the late ‘60s the Isle of Wight has been the location for some truly stunning festivals. From music festivals with superstar line-ups to family-friendly, literary, comedy, arts and food festivals – there’s something for everyone.

Combining a festival weekend with a holiday is one way to do it; enjoy the festival, but make sure you give yourself enough time to get to know the Island. Getting to the Isle of Wight is so easy, with excellent public transport links in Portsmouth and Southampton, that there’s no excuse for taking advantage of the Island festivals right on your doorstep.

Once you’re here, choose from all kinds of accommodation. While you can always camp at the major festivals, maybe you’d prefer to stay in a hotel? Or perhaps some glamping in a yurt? Every kind of accommodation you can think of is available on the Isle of Wight, so get searching.

The Isle of Wight Festival

The award-winning Isle of Wight Festival is steeped in history and famed for mixing iconic legendary artists with the hottest up and coming acts. Year on year, 55,000 stylish, free spirited Festivalgoers come together in a beautiful location, for one of the most distinctive events of the season. With the best atmosphere around and a friendly vibe, as soon as you set sail across the Solent it feels like the holiday has already begun.

Expect the biggest acts in the world, along with the hottest up and coming artists. Multiple stages, classic festival atmosphere and you’re by the sea! It doesn’t get better than that. Hundreds of thousands of people have travelled to the Isle of Wight to enjoy this world-famous weekend, but it’s far from the only one on Festival Island…

Music to your ears

We’ve a wide variety of eclectic boutique festivals on throughout the year including Jack Up the Summer, Rhythm Tree and Hullabaloo. The Ventnor Fringe Festival celebrates it’s 10^th anniversary this year, hosting an eclectic mix of over 100 different shows.

The Wight Proms has now established as one of the 'must-do' events on the Isle of Wight, the 4-day festival will take place on 29th August - 1st September 2019, in the grounds of the Grade II* listed Georgian, Northwood House, Cowes. The festival celebrates the island's music, food and people, even featuring the native red squirrels.

Ready, set, sail!

If music isn’t your thing, Cowes Week is one of the events we’re best known for. Held in August each year, it is one of the oldest sailing events in the world and regularly attracts a host of famous faces. Cowes comes alive during the 7-day festival, with plenty of onshore entertainment too.

The Round the Island Race is one of the many famous sailing events that attracts the great and the good of the sailing world, as well as lots of keen amateurs. It’s an amazing spectacle for land lubbers too!

Isle of Wight Walking Festival

The Isle of Wight Walking Festival sponsored by Warner Leisure Hotels takes place on the 4th to 19th May 2019.

There are around 100 walks for you to choose from across this two-week period – from short to long, flat to hilly, beaches to forests and everything in between. With over 50% of walks being new this year, we don’t think you’ll be disappointed!

That’s not all folks!

If all that’s not enough, we’ve got two International Classic Car Shows (Ryde and Newport), the always popular Classic Beer, Buses and Walks and Isle of Wight Day. And for fitness enthusiasts we have the Isle of Wight Challenge and Walk the Wight with Mountbatten, both excellent ways of seeing more of the Island’s beautiful and varied landscape.

The carnivals on the Isle of Wight are almost as famous as the festivals and take place across the Island every summer. Have a look at our dedicated carnivals page for more info and for all our events see our what’s on page.