‘You could bottle the energy and solve half the country’s problems’ – Lucy Williamson writes
The first thing you notice at Mighty Hoopla is that nobody is pretending to be cool.
Not a single person.
Five minutes through the gates of Brockwell Park and you’re hit by a blur of neon cowboy hats, rhinestone-encrusted boots, metallic co-ords, feathers, mesh, sequins and enough glitter to be visible from space. Somewhere in the distance, a pop anthem is being screamed back at a stage. Someone dressed as Cher is hugging someone dressed as Kerry Katona.
And somehow, all of this feels perfectly normal.
Because Mighty Hoopla isn’t really a festival. It’s a parallel universe. And the 2026 event proved that again.
Most London festivals are built around the music. Hoopla is built around joy.
The atmosphere hits you almost immediately. A woman carrying a folding fan tells you she loves your sunglasses. Someone in a outfit crafted from polaroid photos of X Factor icons asks if you want a photo. with your pals. A group dressed entirely in silver fringe cheer as a complete stranger struts out the portaloo.
Everyone is having the best day of their lives and, crucially, they want everyone else to have the best day too.
In a city where eye contact on public transport is treated as an act of aggression, the friendliness feels almost disorientating. The crowd is Hoopla’s secret ingredient.
You could bottle the energy and solve half the country’s problems.
There are friendship groups who have clearly spent six months planning coordinated outfits. Hen parties. Queer couples. Straight couples. Drag queens. First-timers. Veterans. Thirty-somethings reliving their teenage years. Twenty-somethings discovering the songs their older sisters played on iPods. Everyone somehow occupying the same space without a hint of judgement.
And then, of course, there is the music.
The beauty of Mighty Hoopla is that every performance feels less like a concert and more like a mass participation event. Nobody is casually listening. Nobody is standing there nodding politely.
Every song is treated like a national anthem.
The loudest moment of my weekend came courtesy of Alexandra Burke. As soon as she stepped onto the stage, something shifted.
Perhaps it was nostalgia. Perhaps it was the collective memory of Saturday night television in the late 2000s. Perhaps it was simply Alexandra Burke being Alexandra Burke and blessing us all with a tearful rendition of ‘Hallelujah’ before launching into full ‘Bad Boys’ choreo.
Whatever it was, the crowd absolutely lost their minds.
Across the weekend, thousands of those memories collide in one giant, glitter-covered celebration.
As the sun begins to dip over Brockwell Park, the light catches the sequins, the sunglasses and the clouds of glitter floating through the air. The queues for food get longer. The fans snap faster. Voices grow hoarse from singing.
Yet somehow the energy never drops.
If anything, it gets bigger.
By the time you’re walking home, feet aching and face shimmering , you’ll already be talking about next year. Because London has plenty of festivals. But only Mighty Hoopla feels like the world’s biggest, campest, kindest house party. And everyone is invited.
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