A little head’s up about a change to our T&Cs around BYO alcohol this year, as we don’t want anyone to be caught out.
This year, you can only bring alcohol into the event on your first entry through the gate.
We recommend bringing your tent and alcohol first before making further trips to the car.
This is standard practice at a lot of festivals, and helps prevent people from bringing in huge amounts of alcohol, sometimes with the intention of selling it.
What Can You Bring?
Per adult, you can bring either:
- 16 x 440ml cans of lager/cider/beer, OR
- 18 x 250ml cans of premixed spirits, OR
- A 3-litre box of wine, OR
- Up to 70cl of spirits (not in glass), OR
- Up to 7 litres of cider/lager/beer in plastic bottles or cans
Excess alcohol will be confiscated and forfeited. Alcohol can only be brought into the festival on your first entry. There is strictly no re-entry to the festival with alcohol.
While we’ve introduced the first-entry-only rule this year, we’ve always had limits on permitted quantities and have actually increased the allowance per person for 2025.
We understand that people factor BYO into their planning and budgeting, and we’re mindful of that. We want Shamala to be affordable.
BUT…
As a fully independent event, facing ever spiralling production costs, our bars are a vital income stream that needs to be protected. They are also absolutely brilliant – bringing fairly priced, ethically sourced and locally produced tipples to Shambala.
But there’s also another important reason, too.
As inequality driven by the concentration of corporate ownership continues to grow, we stand firmly for independence. We have always worked with ethical companies (you cant find a Cola Cola at Shambala, for example), and ours remains one of only a handful of truly independent, corporate sponsorship-free festivals in the UK.
We also do lots of work in the background to research and offer a huge range of ethical, independent and often locally sourced drinks. So, we need you to stand with us, support us as an independent festival, and to create the world we believe in.
Please support our bars (and by doing so, the future of the festival) over big brands and Tesco and the rest.
Huge thanks! x