ArcTanGent Festival Is Moving: Why ATG Is Leaving Fernhill Farm for a New Gloucestershire Home

ArcTanGent Festival will leave its long-standing home at Fernhill Farm following this year’s festival, with organisers confirming that ATG will move to a new site near Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire from 2027.

The move brings an end to more than a decade at Fernhill Farm, near Bristol, where ArcTanGent has been held since its first edition in 2013. For regulars, the site has become an integral part of ATG, with its compact arena, familiar stages and surrounding countryside helping give the independent festival an identity that feels distinctly different from many larger events on the UK festival calendar. The final ArcTanGent at Fernhill Farm takes place from 19 to 22 August 2026 before the festival begins its next chapter in Gloucestershire.

While the move itself has now been announced, festival organiser James Scarlett recently went into considerably more detail about what has been happening behind the scenes on 2 Promoters, 1 Pod, the podcast he hosts alongside Damnation Festival promoter Gavin McInally. The discussion covered why ATG is leaving Fernhill Farm, the search for a replacement, why remaining around Bristol ultimately wasn’t possible and some of the less obvious requirements involved in finding somewhere capable of becoming the festival’s new home.

Why is ArcTanGent leaving Fernhill Farm?

According to Scarlett, the decision to leave Fernhill Farm wasn’t initially one the organisers were looking to make. The festival had been operating at the farm on a two-year rolling agreement, but during the build-up to last year’s event the team were given notice that they would need to leave the site.

That left the organisers in the unusual position of preparing for another ArcTanGent at Fernhill Farm while simultaneously beginning the search for somewhere capable of replacing a site they had spent more than a decade developing. Moving an established festival is considerably more complicated than simply finding another large piece of land, particularly when so much of the way ATG operates has been built around the characteristics of its existing home.

The team therefore began looking for a site that could accommodate the festival without forcing them to completely rethink it. One of the biggest priorities throughout that process was maintaining the existing ArcTanGent layout, particularly the arena. After years of refining where stages, bars, traders and other facilities sit and how people move between them, the organisers weren’t looking to tear everything up and start again simply because the festival needed a new address.

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The search for ArcTanGent’s new home

Keeping ArcTanGent around Bristol was initially the ideal outcome. The festival has spent its entire history in the area and moving only a short distance would obviously have caused the least disruption for regular attendees, suppliers and everyone involved in putting the event together. The problem was finding somewhere that actually worked.

Scarlett explained that there simply wasn’t a suitable site around Bristol that met everything ArcTanGent required, forcing the organisers to widen their search. Eventually they found what they were looking for north-east of Fernhill Farm, with the festival now set to relocate to a site near Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire for its 2027 edition.

Moreton-in-Marsh sits in the Cotswolds in the north-east of Gloucestershire, putting the festival considerably further north than its current home while still keeping it in the South West. It is also well connected, sitting close to major routes through the region and having its own railway station. Rather than necessarily making ATG more difficult to reach, Scarlett suggested the new location should actually improve the journey for a large proportion of the festival’s audience, particularly those travelling from the Midlands, the North and other parts of the country.

For a festival with an audience travelling from across the UK and further afield, that accessibility matters. The move might take ArcTanGent away from the Bristol area it has called home for more than a decade, but Moreton-in-Marsh potentially puts it within easier reach of a much larger part of the country.

Finding a festival site isn’t as simple as finding a field

One of the more interesting parts of Scarlett’s explanation was just how many things have to be considered when searching for a festival site. Size is obviously important, but a field being big enough doesn’t necessarily mean you can put thousands of people, several stages and an entire temporary infrastructure on it for a weekend.

Road access is a major consideration. Thousands of festival-goers need to arrive and leave within relatively concentrated periods, while HGVs, production vehicles, artists, traders, staff and emergency services all need reliable access throughout the build, festival and breakdown. The shape and gradient of the land matter too, particularly when ATG’s organisers are specifically trying to recreate the familiar arena layout rather than designing an entirely different festival around whatever land happens to be available.

Then there are basic utilities that most festival-goers probably never think about when everything is working properly. Water was one example Scarlett discussed on the podcast, drawing on the team’s experiences with ArcTanGent’s sister festival. Operating a festival on a site without a connection to mains water creates a considerable additional logistical challenge, with huge quantities required for drinking points, catering, toilets, showers, bars, cleaning and backstage facilities.

It is a good example of why the search took considerably more than looking at a map and finding a suitably large green space. ArcTanGent needed somewhere with the right amount and shape of land, suitable road links, workable infrastructure and enough flexibility to recreate the festival people already know.

Will ArcTanGent change when it moves to Moreton-in-Marsh?

There will inevitably be differences. Moving a festival that has occupied the same farm since 2013 means some things simply cannot remain identical, and regulars will have a completely new site to learn when the gates open in 2027.

What is reassuring from Scarlett’s explanation, however, is that reinventing ArcTanGent doesn’t appear to be the objective. The organisers already have a festival format that works, and much of the site search has centred on finding somewhere that allows them to retain it. Maintaining the feel and layout of the existing arena has been a priority, meaning the ambition is for the new Gloucestershire site to feel familiar even if the landscape surrounding it is completely different.

That matters for a festival like ArcTanGent. Its identity isn’t built solely around the bands on the bill. Over more than a decade it has developed its own atmosphere and rhythm, helped by an arena where moving between stages is relatively straightforward and where the festival’s relatively compact nature encourages people to discover artists they might otherwise have walked straight past.

One final ArcTanGent at Fernhill Farm

Before the move happens, there is still one final weekend at the festival’s original home. ArcTanGent 2026 takes place at Fernhill Farm from 19 to 22 August, giving regulars a final opportunity to experience the site that has hosted every edition of ATG so far.

Leaving after more than a decade will inevitably be bittersweet, but the circumstances behind the move and the process of finding its replacement suggest the organisers have been able to treat it as more than simply finding somewhere else to put the stages. The search has been about finding somewhere capable of accommodating the ArcTanGent they have already spent years building.

In 2027, that journey takes ATG north-east to Moreton-in-Marsh. There will be a new landscape, new routes to the campsite and probably a few weeks of everyone arguing about where their favourite camping spot has gone, but the intention is clear: move ArcTanGent without losing the things that made people keep coming back to Fernhill Farm in the first place.

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