Six stages

ONE HEADLAND,
SIX ROOMS.

No stage here was built for a festival. A vine terrace, a cliff top, a signal tower, a set of municipal bathing steps, a shingle cove and a boat — we put a PA in five of them and left the sixth alone.

A steep hillside town of stacked pale houses descending in terraces to the water

Town side · Fri–Sun · 16:00–00:00

The Terraces

Six dry-stone terraces cut for vines two centuries ago, holding an audience instead. Everyone sits. The stage is a plain deck at the bottom with the water behind it, and because the terraces step, the person on row six can see as well as the person on row one. We programme it for things that carry without being pushed — brass, choral, a piano wheeled up the coast road on a trailer.

Capacity: 2,400
Ground: Dry-stone terraces
System: 8-box array, folded down 22:00
Step-free route: Yes, east ramp
Walk from the gate: 4 min
Curfew: 00:00

Closes · Fever Palm Set times →

Sea cliffs and offshore rock stacks falling into deep open water under a wide sky

Main stage · Fri–Sun · 14:00–02:00

The Headland

The main stage sits on the flat of the cliff top with nothing behind it but the bay, so every set plays against a horizon that changes colour for three hours and then goes dark. It is the only stage with delay towers, and the only one where the crowd stands. Sunset lands at 21:04 on the Saturday; we build the running order around that and always have.

Capacity: 6,000
Ground: Cropped turf over rock, level
System: 24-box hangs + 2 delay towers
Step-free route: Yes, buggy shuttle every 10 min
Walk from the gate: 12 min
Curfew: 02:00

Closes · Neon Aviary Set times →

An old crenellated stone watchtower standing alone on a rocky spur high above the sea

High spur · Sat–Sun · 18:00–04:00

The Tower

A signal tower from the 1790s on a spur of bare rock, with a sub wall stacked against its north face and nothing else up there at all. No screens, no bar past 02:00, no seats. The rock returns low end straight back up through your feet, which is the whole reason the stage exists and the reason we book it the way we do.

Capacity: 900
Ground: Bare rock and gravel, uneven
System: Stacked sub wall, no array
Step-free route: No — 140 steps, no alternative
Walk from the gate: 25 min, steep
Curfew: 04:00

Closes · Salt Machine Set times →

Weathered limestone bathing steps with an old iron handrail descending into clear, calm water

East terrace · Fri–Sun · 12:00–20:00

The Steps

Municipal bathing steps, still municipal bathing steps — people swim off the bottom three all weekend while a band plays on the landing. Daylight hours only, daylight volume only. It is the stage we send people to when they arrive at noon with a bag and no plan, and it is where most of the weekend’s best accidents happen.

Capacity: 700
Ground: Limestone steps, wet at the foot
System: Two point-source stacks
Step-free route: Yes, level from the promenade
Walk from the gate: 6 min
Curfew: 20:00

Closes · Coriander Sky Set times →

The bow of a small wooden boat entering a narrow cove between tall limestone cliffs

West inlet · Sat only · 20:00–03:00

The Cove

One night, two hundred people, one pair of horns on the shingle and a box of records. There is no lighting rig — the moon on the 18th is four days off full, which is the reason the Cove is a Saturday and not a Friday. Places go by wristband ballot on the Friday afternoon at the box office. It cannot be bought, and we will not sell it.

Capacity: 200, wristband ballot
Ground: Shingle
System: One pair of horns, records only
Step-free route: No — boat transfer or 35 min path
Walk from the gate: 35 min, or boat every 20 min
Curfew: 03:00

Closes · Marisol Tapes Set times →

A two-masted ketch under full sail on open water, a bare arid island low on the horizon behind

Moored offshore · Sun · 05:00–08:00

Dawn Deck

The stage with no PA. A two-masted ketch moored four hundred metres off the Steps, sixty people on deck and one acoustic set played into the sunrise at 06:12. Everyone else listens from the Steps, across open water, and hears it perfectly well — sound travels over flat water better than it travels over a field, which is the only trick involved. Then the boat sails and the festival is over.

Capacity: 60 on deck
Ground: Teak, and moving
System: None. Acoustic, unamplified
Step-free route: No — tender transfer only
Walk from the gate: Tender from the jetty, 04:30
Curfew: 08:00, then it sails

Closes · Blue Awning Set times →

Two of the six cannot be made step-free — the Tower is 140 steps up bare rock, and the Cove and Dawn Deck are reached by boat. We would rather print that here than have you find it out at the bottom of the path. Everything else on the site, including the main stage, has a level route and a buggy shuttle.

Getting there Tickets