All-new music festival in south east London rated Europe’s most up-and-coming

A festival happening in south east London has been rated the most up-and-coming music festival in Europe.

Big Smoke Festival, organised by rapper Skepta, has been rated the “most up-and-coming” music festival in Europe, in a study by travel expert and ferry DFDS.

The festival will see performances from Skepta himself as well as music stars The Streets, Mahalia, JME, and many more.

To find Europe's most up-and-coming music festivals, the study analysed 444 festivals across the continent to reveal which ones saw the largest increase in searches since 2022.

As it was only announced towards the end of 2023, Big Smoke Festival saw a disproportionate search increase of 15,489 per cent, rocketing past other rising European events such as South Ocean Festival in Sweden, which saw a 1,257 per cent increase in searches since 2022.

The study also found EDM music festival Tomorrowland in Belgium to be Europe’s favourite music festival, out of 53 countries.

Glastonbury, the iconic family-friendly music event, ranks in second place with over nine million searches across the continent, followed by France’s heavy metal Hellfest which generated over four million searches.

Skepta made the announcement for Big Smoke festival on Instagram Live, saying: “I’m gassed to finally announce that Big Smoke Festival is official.

“I’m so excited, it's been a wild one to do this. I just want to say thank you to all the supporters, it's been a couple years that you didn’t see me on a stage.

“I know a lot of people have been wondering when they’ll see Skepta at a festival and I really wanted to save all that energy and put it into something that was for us, by us.

“There's going to be a live stage all your favourite acts - anyone you know that’s affiliated with Skepta.

“There’ll be a live stage on one side and the Más Tiempo stage which will also be a full lineup.

“I might bust up one stage, fly over to the other one and link with Jammer. It’s gonna be crazy.”