Cropredy camping guide: the fields, the village and the canal

Most people at Fairport's Cropredy Convention camp on the organisers' own fields, right beside the festival. You pay per vehicle, not per person: £65 for the weekend on the organisers' FAQs in November 2026, on top of a concert ticket for everyone. The campsites open at 7am on the Thursday and must be clear by 2pm on the Sunday. Bikers and backpackers camp free.

This guide covers how that works, then tickets, the village, the canal and the way there. We wrote it from the organisers' own pages and the other sources named below, all read in November 2026. Nobody from this guide has camped there yet, and we say where those pages are old or contradict each other. Check the festival's FAQs (opens in a new tab) before you pack, because they change each year.

How Cropredy camping works

The festival sells a camping sticker for each vehicle, and you can buy one only if you hold a festival ticket. Here is what one sticker covers:

• A vehicle: a car, jeep, light van, MPV or motorhome
• Its occupants: four is typical and up to six is generally accepted; above six, buy a second sticker
• A towed caravan: no extra charge
• Tents: included, and marshals may allow more than one on a pitch; a marquee or large canvas tent needs a second sticker

The price in the FAQs sits in an answer that still mentions the 2026 dates, so treat £65 as the latest figure rather than a promise, and check again when tickets go on sale. Under 12s are free but must be ordered with a ticket-buying adult. Don't count on buying a sticker at the gate: when the 2026 festival sold out, the organisers said no tickets or stickers would be sold on site.

Arriving on the Thursday

Do not turn up early. The fields open at 7am on the Thursday, and the FAQs warn that anyone parked on Williamscot Road before then will be fined by police community support officers. In 2026 the organisers warned that anyone arriving earlier would be moved on. On the Friday and Saturday the campsites open at 9am.

You can't reserve a pitch, so the organisers tell groups to travel in convoy and arrive together. Stewards direct you to a field. Keep your sticker on the windscreen where you can still see past it. In 2026 Williamscot Road was one-way on the Thursday morning and School Lane one-way until 2pm, so people on Fields 7a and 7b were told to bring what they needed for the first day, and the same may apply again.

Your ticket is exchanged for a wristband, which is your pass for the three days, so keep it on. In 2026 the exchange points were on Field 2, at the Main Gate and at Gate B, from 9.30am.

The fields, and what is on them

The numbered fields sit around Field 9, the arena. All the campsites have water taps and Elsan tanks for chemical toilets, and the organisers are proud of their toilets, which their older guide calls the cleanest at any music festival. Showers are on Fields 2 and 7b, with morning queues, and there are more at the Sports Pavilion near the entrance. Some campsites have food stalls that do breakfast. There is a medical centre at the top of the arena field from the Thursday arrival to the Sunday departure.

Caravans, campervans and motorhomes can go on any field they fit into, with two exceptions. The entrances to Fields 4 and 5 are too narrow for towed caravans, and Field 6 is reserved for disabled campers. The FAQs send large campervans, caravans and mobile homes to Field 7c, while an older guide on the same site says Fields 7a and 7b, so follow the stewards. There are no electric hook-ups on the campsites, and Fields 7a to 7c take the overflow if the ground is wet.

Disabled campers have Field 6, with accessible toilets and showers at the top and more toilets at the bottom by Gate C. In the arena, a ramped viewing platform beside the sound tower holds up to 18 wheelchair users with carers, or 15 mobility scooters, and four accessible toilets include one next to it. Stewards there can radio ahead, so you can ask whether there is space before going down the field. Event Mobility hires out scooters and manual wheelchairs, in limited numbers, so book early. Blue Badge day visitors report to the Main Gate.

Dogs are welcome on a lead, and bags for clearing up are sold at the Campsite Control cabins. In hot weather the organisers suggest leaving them at home. If you do bring one, there are bowls and paddling pools by the arena taps, and you should carry it over the metal trackway around the arena, which can burn paws.

Glamping at Broad Meadow

Broad Meadow Glamping Village is three minutes' walk from the Main Gate and is the only place you can camp on the Wednesday, when it opens at midday. Stays are four nights, Wednesday to Saturday, sold through Brook Bell Tents (opens in a new tab) in four grades, from Classic to The Cropredy Suite. You still need a festival ticket. You park beside the tent and get private showers and toilets, a private bar, a tent with tea, coffee and shared fridges, and another with phone charging. It is also the one place where hook-ups are possible, on request. The prices were not on the pages we could read. Tickets for glamping go on sale at the same moment as the main tickets.

What dry summers have changed

Drought has marked recent summers here, and the 2026 newsletter was blunt about it: hard, parched ground and a heatwave on the way. Ember-producing barbecues, campfires and Chinese lanterns were banned that year because the farmland around the site could catch. The FAQs allow gas barbecues, used outside and with the grass protected, and never inside a tent, caravan or awning. Pack with that in mind:

• A mallet for tent pegs
• Sun block, a hat and plenty to drink, as well as waterproofs
• A gas stove you can raise off the ground, and no charcoal
• A low chair: the organisers ask for nothing tall or large that blocks the view

Stock up before you reach the field. The organisers point to Tesco on Lockheed Close, about a mile from M40 junction 11, which also has the nearest petrol station. Their guide says it opens 24 hours from Thursday to Saturday, but that guide is undated, so check.

If you are not camping on site

Non-campers park on Williamscot Road or Field 7c, for £15 for the weekend. Beds nearby fill early. The Brasenose Arms (opens in a new tab) in the village has four rooms, and Banbury has more, such as Whately Hall, a bus ride away.

For a campsite off the field, the organisers name Barnstones, at Great Bourton, and Anita's, which Pitchup lists at Mollington, and these are also where they send anyone staying after 2pm on the Sunday. The Old Dairy Farm, on School Lane in the village, lists about 90 pitches on Pitchup, where its 2026 season ran from 1 February to 31 October. It sits on the road that was one-way on the Thursday in 2026. We have not checked availability at any of the three for festival week, so ring them early.

Tickets

Tickets for next August's festival, 12 to 14 August, go on sale at 10am on Monday 7 December 2026, three days after the line-up appears at 2pm on Friday 4 December. The organisers' FAQs give £250 for three days, £90 for ages 12 to 17 and a £2 handling charge per order, and PayPal instalments are on offer. They list no day tickets. Tickets can't be exchanged or refunded, and all are sold through the festival's ticket page (opens in a new tab) and AXS, on 03445 811396.

Buy early. Capacity is now around 7,000, the organisers say, and the 2026 festival sold out. Tickets are sent as e-tickets unless you ask otherwise. Carer tickets are for people receiving the daily living part of PIP, and you apply by post by the closing date in the FAQs, 31 May in the festival year.

In the arena

The field slopes down to one stage. Gates open at 2pm on the Thursday, with music from 4pm to 11pm, and at 11am on the Friday and Saturday, with music from midday to midnight. Chairs must stay behind the marked curve, and the organisers suggest setting up about halfway up the field. The ground in front of the stage is for standing and dancing. Micro tents are allowed only well up the field, behind the walkway line, and gazebos and umbrellas are not. Flags come down by late afternoon. The real ale bar is midway down the left side, and bands usually go to the signing tent after their sets. There is a children's tent on the Friday and Saturday afternoons, and lost children go to the control point at the top of the field.

The pages we read do not say whether you can bring your own drink into the arena, so ask before you carry a crate down the hill.

The village

Cropredy had 736 residents at the 2021 census. It is a short walk from the site past the village shop and over the canal bridge, and traders set up stalls by the bridge during the festival. Several village places sell breakfast, all signposted, among them the village hall, the primary school and the spot beside the canal bridge, and the organisers say both pubs have done so in past years.

The Brasenose Arms (opens in a new tab), at the road junction beyond the bridge, was running a ticketed Brasenose Fringe in 2026. The Red Lion, opposite the church, cut its hours and closed its kitchen for a time in September 2025 when the canal closure took its passing trade. CAMRA's listing, updated in November 2026, shows it open with food and fringe events in festival week, but ring first (01295 758680).

St Mary's keeps the remains of a Doom painting over the chancel arch and a brass eagle lectern. Village tradition says the lectern was hidden in the Cherwell before the 1644 battle and stayed there about 50 years; the Victoria County History says it had certainly reappeared by 1695. The church holds a non-denominational service on the festival Sunday, with instruments welcome. After lunch that day comes the annual cricket match between Fairport and the village, weather permitting, with a barbecue at the Sports Pavilion. Campers have until 2pm to clear their fields, so pack up early if you want to watch.

Cropredy Bridge, rebuilt in 1937, is where Waller's Parliamentarians were beaten by Charles I's army on 29 June 1644. Ralph McTell's song 'Red and Gold', recorded by Fairport, tells that story, and our piece on the Civil War in Banburyshire has the rest.

The canal

The Oxford Canal runs between the field and the village, and it gives you the easiest walks of the weekend. The organisers describe two from the canal bridge. Turn right and north for Cropredy Lock, then cross the bridge there for the Red Lion. Turn left and south, and a footpath on the left at the next bridge brings you back to the festival. Both are on the towpath, so expect mud if it has rained.

Boaters can come too, with three things to know:

• Moorings can't be booked, so they go to whoever arrives first
• There is no camping charge if the boat stays on the canal, which lies outside the festival's licensed area, but you still need a concert ticket
• Cropredy Marina, on Claydon Road (OX17 1JP, 01295 758911), offers visitor moorings and is a short walk from the site

Check the water before you set off. The Canal & River Trust closed the canal from Claydon Top Lock to Aynho Weir Lock from 5 August 2026 for low water, about a week before that year's festival, and it had shut much the same length in August 2025. When it reopened the stretch for a time on 3 November 2026, it still asked boaters to make essential journeys only, with winter works shutting Cropredy Lock and Little Bourton Lock. Read the Trust's notices (opens in a new tab) and have another way home. The towpath stayed open to walkers during the 2025 closure.

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Getting there

By car: leave the M40 at junction 11, about 4 miles from Cropredy, and follow the temporary festival signs, which are black on yellow, from the roundabout at the top of the slip road. Look up roadworks first: in 2026 the A422 between Brackley and Banbury was shut at Farthinghoe. There is no charging on site, and the FAQs point to InstaVolt at Stroud Park and the Tesla Supercharger on Lockheed Close, both in Banbury and both open all hours.

By train and bus: Banbury station has Chiltern trains from London Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street, and CrossCountry from further away. Stagecoach runs a festival bus from Banbury to Cropredy and back: £6 for adults and £4 for children each way in 2026. The organisers publish the timetable on their maps page (opens in a new tab) nearer the time. Regular buses to Cropredy are few, so for other weeks see our guide to the buses.

By bike or on foot: you camp free, with a concert ticket, and the Oxford Canal towpath from Banbury is about 4 to 5 miles, though it is a long way with a tent. The canal section at Tooley's Historic Boatyard is a good place to set off from.

How the festival came to Cropredy

Fairport's own history begins with 1979, when the band, breaking up, played Knebworth in the afternoon and drove across country to a farewell concert at Peewit Farm on Station Road. They count 1980's reunion as the first festival. It has moved between sites, including Broughton Castle, and grew from a couple of thousand people to 20,000, before the organisers cut it back to around 7,000. Next August's festival marks 60 years of the band.