The Wychwood Festival is an annual music festival

Rock festival

A rock festival, or a rock fest, is a large-scale rock music concert, featuring multiple acts.The first rock festivals were put on in the late 1960s and were important socio-cultural milestones. In the 1980s a minor resurgence of festivals occurred with charity as the goal.Today, they are often...

 held at Cheltenham racecourse

Cheltenham Racecourse

Cheltenham Racecourse is a racecourse for horse racing events, located at Prestbury Park, in the suburban village of Prestbury on the outskirts of the English town of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire...

 in Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

, UK, the weekend after the late May Bank Holiday. It began in 2005 and features indie, folk and world music.

Time Out magazine described the Festival as "an excellent hybrid of The Big Chill

The Big Chill (music festival)

The Big Chill is an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle during early August...

, WOMAD and The Cambridge Folk Festival

Cambridge Folk Festival

The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival held on the site of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is renowned for its eclectic mix of music and a wide definition of what might be considered folk. It occurs...

." The festival has also been called a "bijou Glastonbury

Glastonbury Festival

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...

".

As well as music, the family-friendly three-day festival includes workshops, comedy, a children's literature tent, and a silent disco

Silent disco

Silent disco has become a common name for a disco where people dance to music listened to on wireless headphones. Rather than using a speaker system, music is broadcast via an FM-transmitter with the signal being picked up by wireless headphone receivers worn by the participants. Those without the...

. In 2010, the director of the festival, Graeme Merifield, signed a sponsorship deal with supermarket chain Waitrose.

Acts

In 2007, notable acts included Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople

Mott the Hoople

Mott the Hoople were a British rock band with strong R&B roots, popular in the glam rock era of the early to mid 1970s. They are popularly known for the song "All the Young Dudes", written for them by David Bowie and appearing on their 1972 album of the same name.-The early years:Mott The Hoople...

, Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano and bass guitar....

, The Levellers

The Levellers (band)

The Levellers are an English rock band, founded in 1988 and based in Brighton, England. Their musical style is said to be influenced by punk and traditional English music.-1988-1990:...

, Camera Obscura

Camera obscura

The camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...

, Badly Drawn Boy

Badly Drawn Boy

Damon Gough is an English alternative music singer/songwriter. He was born on 2 October 1969, in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. He grew up in the Breightmet area of Bolton, Lancashire, England....

, Fun Lovin' Criminals

Fun Lovin' Criminals

The Fun Lovin' Criminals is an American alternative hip hop / alternative rock group from New York City. Their musical style is primarily eclectic, covering styles such as hip hop, rock, funk, blues and jazz. Their songs often deal with life in New York City, as well as urban life in general...

, Country Joe McDonald

Country Joe McDonald

Country Joe McDonald is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.-Personal life:...

, Eliza Carthy

Eliza Carthy

Eliza Carthy is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson.-Life and career:...

 and Afro Celt Sound System

Afro Celt Sound System

The Afro Celt Sound System is a musical group which fuses modern electronic dance rhythms with traditional Irish and West African music...

.

In 2008, headline acts included The Proclaimers

The Proclaimers

The Proclaimers are a Scottish band composed of identical twin brothers, Charlie and Craig Reid . They are probably best known for the songs "Letter from America", "I'm On My Way" and "I'm Gonna Be ". The band tours extensively throughout Europe and other continents...

, The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy (band)

The Divine Comedy are a chamber pop band from Ireland, fronted by Neil Hannon. Formed in 1989, Hannon has been the only constant member of the group, playing, in some instances, all of the non-orchestral instrumentation bar drums. To date, ten studio albums have been released under the Divine...

 and Duffy

Duffy (singer)

Aimée Ann Duffy , known as Duffy, is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Her 2008 debut album Rockferry entered the UK Album Chart at number one. It was the best-selling album in the United Kingdom in 2008 with 1.68 million copies sold...

.
2009 featured Supergrass

Supergrass

Supergrass was an English alternative rock band from Oxford. The band consisted of brothers Gaz and Rob Coombes , Mick Quinn and Danny Goffey ....

, Little Boots

Little Boots

Victoria Christina Hesketh, also known by her stage name/pseudonym Little Boots, is an English electropop singer-songwriter. Her stage name comes from a nickname given to her by a friend, a reference to her unusually small feet...

, poet Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy, CBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009...

, Stornoway

Stornoway

Stornoway is a burgh on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.The town's population is around 9,000, making it the largest settlement in the Western Isles and the third largest town in the Scottish Highlands after Inverness and Fort William...

, the Wonder Stuff, The Beat

The Beat (band)

The Beat are a 2 Tone ska revival band founded in England in 1978. Their songs fuse ska, pop, soul, reggae and punk rock, and their lyrics deal with themes of love, unity and sociopolitical topics....

, Revere, Dub Collosus, and the Dhol Foundation

Dhol Foundation

The Dhol Foundation is both a dhol drum institute in London and a musical group playing bhangra music. The dhol school was founded in 1989 by former Alaap member Johnny Kalsi when several musicians asked him to be their teacher, and a first album was released by Kalsi and his students in 2001...

.

In 2010, the third stage was run by BBC Introducing

BBC Introducing

BBC Introducing is the brand for new music programmes across the BBC radio stations, showcasing unsigned, self signed and other emerging musical talent primarily from the UK. Launched in 2007 the Introducing brand brings programming from across the BBC under a unified brand with each show retaining...

, featuring 28 bands from the West of England and Wales selected from 70 entrants. Main acts included Happy Mondays

Happy Mondays

Happy Mondays are an English alternative rock band from Salford, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1980, the band's original line-up was Shaun Ryder on lead vocals, his brother Paul Ryder on bass, lead guitarist Mark Day, keyboardist Paul Davis, and drummer Gary Whelan...

, The Levellers, ex-Del Amitri singer Justin Currie

Justin Currie

Justin Robert Currie is a Scottish singer and songwriter, best known as the founding member of the band Del Amitri and, along with Iain Harvie, is one of only two members of the group to be present throughout its entire existence.-Del Amitri:Justin Currie established the band Del Amitri while...

, The Lightning Seeds, Dreadzone

Dreadzone

Dreadzone are a British band whose music is an eclectic fusion of dub, reggae, techno, folk and rock. They have so far produced six studio albums and two live albums.-Career:...

, and Seth Lakeman

Seth Lakeman

Seth Bernard Lakeman is an English folk singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, who is most often associated with the fiddle and tenor guitar, but has also mastered the viola and banjo...

.