Britain's traditionally muddy, no-frills music festivals are undergoing a luxury shift, as organisers and caterers respond to festivalgoers, particularly younger ones, who are willing to pay premium prices for comfort and fine dining. Industry figures say the trend reflects Gen Z and millennial preferences for spending on experiences rather than possessions, with festivals increasingly marketed and treated as holiday-style experiences rather than gritty rites of passage.

Examples include a Yotam Ottolenghi-collaboration restaurant at Love Supreme jazz festival, where a £65 three-course menu (with £80 rosé) sold out across 845 diners, and a £97.50-a-head Fortnum & Mason picnic at Wilderness festival in Oxfordshire, nicknamed the "Waitrose of festivals". Upmarket toilet facilities from firms such as When Nature Calls cost around £80 and offer clean porcelain toilets, Molton Brown soap and glamming-up stations, while Wilderness also offers a £460 lakeside hot tub for six and a "Summerhouse en suite for two" costing over £5,000 on top of a £288 weekend ticket. Almost 60% of UK Gen Z reportedly plan to attend a music festival this year.