Leading lights in music and comedy to perform at Warwickshire festival in the summer

Leading lights in the worlds of music, comedy, wellness and food and nature, are among those already announced as part of the ALSO24 Festival in Warwickshire this summer.

The event, celebrating this year’s theme of ‘Heavenly Bodies’, will take place at Compton Verney on the weekend of July 12 to 14.

Celebrated Midlands Indie folk band Stornoway and comedian Sara Pascoe head the impressive line-up for the festival.

They will be joined by hotly-tipped Welsh singer-songwriter Edie Bens, experimental musician Jessica Winter hip-hop funk and soul band Miya the Sun, Birmingham-based indie rock band Jet Black Orange, multi-instrumentalist James Walker and Latin and Brazilian-influenced soul and funk collective The Fontanas.

BAFTA-winning, best-selling writer and comedian Adam Kay, writer, broadcaster and satirist Nels Abbey, poet and novelist Salena Godden, TikTok sensation Marcel Lucont; and Rob Deering - who puts some of the comedians on the spot in his live music-based comedy pop quiz Beat This! – are all part of the event’s comedy line-up.

Festivalgoers can embark on weird and wonderful adventures - from sound baths and lantern making workshops to the Venus and Adonis Love is Love procession.

The can also join leading vocal coach Juliet Russell (ITV’s The Voice) ahead of the Saturday Night Spectacular.

A huge programme of wellness activities will take place including laughter therapy, fitness workshops, a Zen Ten Spa, fire yoga, moon yoga or floating SUP yoga, go wild swimming, paddleboarding and painting meditation.

Family activities den building, a mini big safari, rocket workshop, raft building, messy play, circus school and a character comedy workshop will also take place.

Authors will feature at the event including Sunday Times bestselling psychotherapist Philippa Perry in her only UK festival appearance this summer, rock-star classicist and bestselling writer Natalie Haynes who re-introduces the stories of Greek Goddesses the way they were intended, quantum theorist Professor David Tong, behavioural economist Dr Pragya Agarwal and former banker–turned–hip-hop

journalist Nels Abbey.

Other notable authors on the line-up include cosmologist Roberto Trotta, Tim Marshall, Catherine Nixey, David Robson, Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Charles Foster, Roman Krznaric, Sarah Ogilvie, champion swimmer Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell and best-selling children’s author Andy Stanton.

Award-winning resident chef James Wheltor will be cooking up feasts and set lunches, featuring exclusive menus over the festival weekend.

ALSO Festival’s founder and artistic director, Helen Bagnall said: “Coming together to go wild in the wild each summer is what we humans are built to do and an essential part of a year lived well.

“ALSO is the next generation of festival, highly immersive and truly experiential, with ideas threading through everything that we do.

“We make it effortless for our guests to engage with big, life-enhancing ideas and live a wild summer weekend in an extraordinary festival.

"So we are leaning in hard to the beauty in ourselves, in others, in the joy of festivals, the beauty of the site with our 2024 theme of Heavenly Bodies”

Tier 1 weekend tickets (priced £137.50 for adults, £60 for children) and day tickets (from £20-£65) are now available at https://www.also-festival.com/

Under-fives go free and there are concessions for under-30s and family tickets.