Festival Awards 2

Bestival, New Order, Festival No. 6 win big at the UK Festival Awards 2012

Download, Jake Bugg and Django Django also take home trophies awarded by both official judges and half a million public votes

Festival Awards

Bestival has been crowned with the ‘Best Major Festival’ gong at the 9th annual UK Festival Awards, which took place at London’s Roundhouse tonight. The event’s continuing success, despite being one of the youngest contenders at the awards, is a triumph for the independent sector. The win means that Bestival, which was founded by BBC Radio 1 DJ Rob Da Bank, has won awards at almost every stage of its development since scooping ‘Best Medium Festival’ in 2005. Rob also featured on the Emergency Board Meeting at the UK Festival Conference earlier today. 

Festival No. 6, the event that launched this year at the unique location of Portmeirion in Wales, has also proved a hugely popular choice among voters and judges, scoring the title of ‘Best New Festival’. Festival No. 6 triumphed further when British music legends New Order, present at this evening’s award ceremony, collected the prize for ‘Headline Performance Of The Year’ and the festival’s mastermind Gareth Cooper scooped ‘Promoter Of The Year’. 

18-year-old rising singer-songwriter Jake Bugg beat off fierce competition from a shortlist including Mercury prizewinners, Alt-J, to the title of ‘Best Breakthrough Act’. Voters, of which there were a record half a million this year, chose Django Django’s incredibly catchy track ‘Default’ as the ‘Anthem Of The Summer’, while the coveted ‘Best Line-Up’ category, one of the few categories not vote for by the public, saw rock music once again coming out on top with Download Festival emerging victorious after much deliberation from the judging panel. 

Ever a pressing concern at festivals, ticket buyers considering where to pitch up their tents in summer 2013 may do well to note Cambridge’s Lodestar festival that was bestowed the honour of ‘Best Toilets’. As previously announced, the evening’s recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award was Live Nation’s Chief Operating Officer, John Probyn. Probyn collected his accolade in the wake of both an Olympic and record-breaking year, and following a continuing highly-celebrated career in the entertainment industry. 

A colourful array of the year’s best festivals celebrated into the night as Camden Crawl, Latitude, Green Man, Bloodstock Open Air and Global Gathering also joined the ranks of the winners picking up awards across the evening. A full list of winners can be found below. 

Steve Jenner, Festival Awards co-founder comments: “It is pleasing to see so many first-time category winners breaking through this year and indicative of the dynamic movements in the market at this time. Much more than winning gongs, though, the Festival Awards are about celebrating and uniting the UK festival industry which, in these turbulent times, is more vital than ever.”

2012 Awards winners in full:  

Best Major Festival - Bestival 

Best Medium-Sized Festival sponsored by Eventbrite - Bloodstock Open Air Festival 

Best Small Festival sponsored by Jeremiah Weed - Y Not Festival 

Best New Festival sponsored by Access All Areas - Festival No.6 

Best Dance Event sponsored by Peppermint Bars - GlobalGathering 

Best Metropolitan Festival - Camden Crawl 

Best Line-Up - Download 

Best Family Festival - Latitude 

The Grass Roots Festival Award - Green Man 

Best Toilets sponsored by XL Video - Lodestar 

Best Overseas Festival - Benicassim (Spain) 

Agency Of The Year sponsored by IQ - William Morris 

Promoter Of The Year sponsored by Robertson Taylor - Gareth Cooper (Festival No. 6, Beach Break, Lollibop) 

Headline Performance Of The Year - New Order at Festival No. 6

Best Breakthrough Act sponsored by Jagermeister - Jake Bugg 

Anthem Of The Summer - Django Django - 'Default' 

The Extra-Festival Activity Award - Live From Jodrell Bank 

Concession Of The Year - Paelleria 

Lifetime  Achievement Award - John Probyn 

The Greener Festival Award - Croissant Neuf Summer Party 

Best Brand Activation sponsored by CGA - Southern Comfort Juke Joint

About Festival Awards

The UK Festival Awards was launched in 2004 and is a key staple of the live music and festival industry calendar and sell-out event. Its mission is twofold: to provide a platform to highlight the spectacular achievements of the festival sector and empower festival-goers to shape the continuing standard of the marketplace. The Festival Awards Conference was first developed in 2008 following huge demand from the industry, and has established itself as a crucial business information tool and open forum for the sector, celebrated by leading promoters, festival directors and agents as an integral part of the business. The European Festival Awards were established in 2009, in co-operation with Yourope (the European Festival Association) in response to the wishes of continental promoters keen for similar representation and take place on the opening night of Eurosonic Noorderslag in Holland. All three events are owned by Festival Awards Ltd, in which Mondiale Publishing Ltd purchased a majority stake in 2012.