The Field Maneuvers festival highlights from this year’s edition in Norfolk confirm what the faithful already knew: this resolutely no-frills event in a field does things that cost ten times the ticket price cannot quite manage. Now in its third year for this writer, and with the 2026 dates of 20-22 August confirmed and tickets on sale, it feels worth touring the weekend properly before the memory fades.
The crowd arrived in costume, in good faith, and in the middle of a biblical Friday downpour. One group turned up dressed as Pepto Bismol Airlines, complete with sugary pink uniforms, which is precisely the level of commitment the festival rewards. Putting up a tent in torrential rain is nobody’s finest hour, but once inside the main stage tent, things improved rapidly.
Field Maneuvers Festival Highlights: Stage by Stage
Friday evening in the FMTent was curated by Can You Feel The Sun, the joint label of Call Super and Parris. Danielle opened with bubbly house stylings that landed as a personal highlight, before Parris and Call Super brought sets that were, in the best possible way, genuinely strange. Saturday handed the tent to Prague-based Field Maneuvers-favourite Harmony Records, linked up with Roza Terenzi’s Step Ball Chain. Alfred Czital delivered a live set, and OK Williams offered a two-hour masterclass in selection. D.Tiffany and Terenzi closed with fresh UK garage and wobbly basslines that sent the tent sideways.
Sunday in the FMTent belongs, by tradition, to Dalston Superstore. After Ivy F, Lexii and J.Aria warmed things at the lakeside daytime stage, house veterans Grace Sands and Mike Servito took the indoor crowd through their paces. Hannah Holland arrived with a bag of heaters from her Batty Bass label, accompanied by MC Mama, who at one point chose to deliver their performance from the shoulders of two festival-goers simultaneously. The grand finale went to Detroit In Effect, whose set of Midwest sounds closed Norfolk’s field on something close to a peak.
The Sputnik dome, FM’s beloved rave cave with its surplus of lasers, was as close to unmissable as a tent can be. Michelle Manetti ignited a soggy but delighted crowd with a Spice Girls edit on Friday, leading into Tasha dropping Nu-Birth’s Anytime under green strobes. Saturday in the dome was a six-hour marathon: Angel D’lite opened with Hi-NRG slammers, I.JORDAN walked the room through their History of Euphoria set, peaking on Goodfello’s mix of Lisa Moorish’s Mr Friday Night, and DJ Storm closed with a bag of drum and bass that made leaving feel like a personal failing.
The Packet Inn Refit and What Makes Field Maneuvers Different
The Packet Inn, FM’s festival pub, received a makeover this year, handed to Uhaul Dyke Rescue, the team behind the festival’s Mobile Dyke Bar. The new Function Room hosted Lakuti, FAFF with a live set accompanied by Kurtis Lincoln, and CCL, whose closing set reached its apex when Kelis and Andre 3000’s Millionaire appeared, apparently from nowhere. Artwork from Glasgow’s Trackie McLeod lined the walls. The back room of a festival pub has rarely earned its place so completely.
The Ambient Tent offered the necessary counterweight: vegan masala toasties, two old MacBooks running Sex and the City season four on repeat, and sets from TAAHLIAH (who played Rihanna’s Take A Bow, correctly), Yawning Portal’s live set, and a closing stretch from Luvandula and Teleopath in the early hours of Monday.
It is worth noting what sits beneath the weekend’s tone. According to the Field Maneuvers official website, the festival offers half-price Access Tickets to people on Universal Credit, those entitled to government cost of living payments, NHS employees, and workers who have recently taken strike action. It is a policy that sits in quiet contrast to the rest of the festival industry, and one that partly explains the quality of the crowd: people are there because they want to be, not because it was the cheapest available weekend option.
For those planning ahead, Music Festival Wizard lists the 2025 dates as 15-17 August, with the nearest train station being Norwich and shuttle buses running from there to the site. The field, the lasers, the Packet Inn and the sodden tent pegs will all be waiting.
