Let’s cut to the chase at the very start – OTT 2026 was a truly wonderful festival weekend.  It’s got form – OTT has been doing its thing for Thirty Something years and it knows how to deliver. It also knows how to party. FFA Reviewers simply adore this festival. Allow us to tell you why….

OTT is a remarkable synergy of Vibe and Location. There is an intrinsic buzz to OTT that is driven by its people. It is so powerful the air crackles. You can feel the sheer human emotion of the thing as you approach the site. This is what creates a proper festival, and OTT has it in spades. Many other events, large and small, never attain that community spirit, comradery, or atmosphere. OTT remains one of the most chilled events on the festival circuit, so trust your intrepid FFA Reviewers on this – OTT is very, very, special. It’s addictive of course, and FFA Reviewers have been hooked for years. Just take a looksee at the FFA Off The Tracks 2025 Review for just a hint of what malarky has gone down in previous years.

The Donington Park Farm location is integral to OTT, with the festival centred on the farmyard, courtyard, and various barns and out-buildings. The farm business hosts its own large pub (yep, that’s right!) and large dining area in the old stables. They even source venison from their own ancient deer park in the Diner, if you must. Throw in an extensive year-round campsite with proper brick-built facilities, and this location offers it all. The farm has strong green credentials with reed bed water treatment, biomass heating, and solar power. It’s all good stuff. Oh, and don’t forget the in-house Real Ale & Cider festival too. 2026 was blessed with decent weather, but everything at OTT is under cover if the rain gods come a calling. You starting to get the picture yet?...OTT isn’t your typical festival.

Your FFA Reviewers once again had an absolute gas. What follows is simply what worked for FFA in 2026, and it’s been an absolute bugger deciding what made this final cut. OTT always offers remarkable value, and the standard of acts at OTT is always on the button – yet some fine artists never made this review. So it goes. Omission is not a sin! This is FFA’s OTT 2026:

Friday

FFA were up and at ‘em from the off, with a great set from the always splendid Roving Crows. You know where you stand with the Crows: full-on Celtic folk-rock mayhem, coupled with heart-on-your-sleeve compassion. Sporting a Palestinian flag emblazoned guitar, O’Neill simply ripped into the circus of current US politics with a cracking ‘The Orange Man Cometh (… and he’s fucking me and you) Well, Quite. A truly excellent band. Oh Lordy, it’s only Dub Catalyst! Laying down an early marker for one of the sets of the whole festival weekend, this was an absolute powerhouse of a performance – high energy, dynamic, musically solid, and simply a class act from the dozen or so performers. The counterplay between laconic rapper JPDL and wild-child Lovett was an absolute joy. If Dub, Hip-Hop, Rap, and a thundering Brass section are your bag, look no further that this superb crew. The OTT crowd were bouncing, particularly to Light The Fire.  Great band. Let it burn!!!

Not much to say about The Beat that has not been said by FFA countless times; always guarantee value, always put on a show, always get an audience kicking, and Hamilton’s sax playing was particularly cool on Friday night. A fine outfit to close the main stage. 

FFA were flying, particularly after immersing ourselves in The Egg’s excellent psychedelic soundscapes of live keyboards and percussive overlays to some thumbing beats. Drops to die for. Loved it. There are a million classic-rock cover bands out there, but when you stumble across a good ‘un, all is well with the world. Unchained nailed the genre in the atmospheric Stockyard for their midnight set. Their version of the Kinks ‘You Really Got Me’ epitomised a great set from some fine musicians. FFA had a thoroughly spiffing time at yet another infamous OTT Friday night. FFA were blissed out. As it should be. So it was.

Saturday

FFA’s Saturday was a full-on day of band watching, people watching, and, OK, OK, doing frankly nothing but talking bollox to anyone fool enough to listen. We cruised the stalls, walked amongst the healing vibes of the Energy Orchard, and grooved to the funky beats of the unfortunately named Fat Digester. An enjoyable hour with a fine outfit and old stalwarts of the festival circuit, who appear to have captured the market in industrial waste system monikered bands.

All hail Funke & The Two Tone Baby – all round good guy, multi-instrumentalist, cracking beats, dirty gob-iron, and great loops – what’s not to love? Phil Cudworth & Boz!   Percussionist Boz is the perfect straight man foil to Cudworth – like a very young Ernie Wise, whilst Cudworth is a flat capped microcosm of the whole festival scene – its ethos, its style, its humour, its world view, all epitomised in one man. Through simple songs and music, the guy cuts through to lambast and ridicule the pompous and power mongering, to champion right not might, and, pointedly, in his song ‘Our Tribe’, to celebrate the festival community in all its diverse glory, whilst wise enough to realise that ‘Tribe’ should never equate to ‘tribAL’. Also – bloody funny.

FFA Find Of The Festival by a country mile – The Dead Reds. OTT have the knack of discovering outstanding talent year-upon-year, and they excelled with giving mainstage time to this outfit. Absolutely splendid with frontwoman Beth Lees almost Joplineque on the slower, dirty blues numbers, whilst ripping it up on flute when the band hit the pedal. In some great company, Dead Reds were arguably FFA’s set of the day. Excellent. Galdorcraeft, another stunning OTT find from previous years, once again excelled, but once again were smitten by technical hassles leading to a truncated set – form or fate? Who knows, but either way, the band remain visually and musically stunning. Medieval instruments embedded in 21st century soundscapes, Pagan mythology let lose to run free in the Black Barn. Impossible to categorise, and FFA love them for that alone. Final track ‘Legacy’ captured their wonderful spirit perfectly. Please do check ‘em out. Next up - the superb Project Empty Head; pumping electronica overlayed with thoughtful bass runs and meandering progressive builds, whilst frankly creepy characters transit the stage. Excellent and another reason to love the diversity, experimentation, and downright quality of the OTT roster.

Time for some polished beats and phasing of the sublime Banco De Gaia, before the Alabama 3 circus came to town. The OTT arena was absolutely chocker for their set, and it would be an understatement to say the band delivered. No one quite does sleazy acid-country like A3, and the band absolutely rocked the place with a setlist loaded with band classics. Your FFA Reviewer must have got some grit in his eye at the sampling of D.Wayne on tracks like the stunning and showstopping Hypo Full Of Love (The 12 Step Plan), whilst ‘Mao Tse Tung Said’ nearly blew the roof off the Marquee stage. A superb headliner to close the stage. To no one’s surprise, OTT rocked on until the small hours with FOUR separate and completely diverse scenes going down across the stages. FFA were bouncing and staggering between Dreadzone DJ Set with Greg Dread and the always wonderful Silent Disco with old stagers DR Matt & DJ Lipglossboss. Greg closed his splendid set with ‘Captain Dread’, by which time FFA were well away with the faeries.

Sunday

Recovery Sunday is always shrewdly programmed by OTT; a gentle melodic start, some barmyness, and then a bit of stomping. Grupo Lokito, a Brazilian / DRC / Kenyan / Cuban / UK world music fusion combo, fitted the early bill perfectly. Some beautiful Latino rhythms and afro-beats to warm the soul. Barmyness indeed from The Everly Pregnant Brothers; FFA don’t really do ‘fun’ – such a shallow emotion – but the guys were genuinely amusing and thoroughly entertaining, to the obvious delight of the singing, dancing, crowd. Good booking OTT! It was left to the splendid Noble Jacks to close the whole shebang. Splendid stuff, with some fine fiddle and an almost Levellerseque vibe on some numbers.  ‘Dreams Carry Me On’ being song of a cracking set.

Now then. This festival Reviewer always states that line-ups are a transitory thing – there’ll be other bands coming along next year. A truly great festival transcends its artists. If you need to judge a festival’s merit solely by its line-up, you’ve been going to the wrong festivals. Never, ever, confuse an event offering bands in fields for a ‘festival’. The beating heart of a true FESTIVAL like OTT is its people; the vibe they create, the atmosphere they generate, that wonderful shared oneness of festival community spirit. At OTT it starts with the intense passion of the organisers and radiates outwards to touch everyone involved, from staff to volunteers, to the wonderful crowd.  Everyone is a player here. Sunday night in the farmyard, bathed in late summer evening sunshine, summoned up that festival spirit perfectly. Just OTT people being, well, OTT people. Some punters sparked up impromptu sessions, others danced, all just made new acquaintances. Long after the bands had packed and gone away, OTT thrived. Sunday evening is now officially a thing! … Off The Tracks. One diverse Tribe… and it’s all lovely.

FFA ended our OTT 2026 Preview with the following statement. We think we got the 2026 bash spot on!

“Small, intimate, bijou …. An old school vibe, with 21st century facilities. OTT is the best Weekend House Party you will ever experience.”

See you next time around.

Article by Barrie Dimond

Images by the excellent Mr Graham Whitmore (check out his portfolios HERE)